Individual and family correlates of high and low achievement among children in a Head Start Program

Preschool children living in poverty are at risk for not attaining the required pre-academic and social-emotional skills that predict successful transition to kindergarten. The present study investigated individual and family correlates that were hypothesized to predict and classify children in high, average, and low achievement groups in a Head Start Program. The study was based on analyses of archival data from 745 children who attended the Schenectady Community Action Program (SCAP) Head Start during the period encompassing the 2005-2010 academic years. The study used a combination of binary logistic regression analysis, independent-samples t-test, and qualitative survey results to address research questions of primary interest.;Among the measures of specific child characteristics and child risk factors, the social emotional measure was found to be the single best predictor in classifying children into high, average, and low achievement groups for both the total sample of Head Start children and subsamples of children involved in the program for one and two years, respectively. Other variables such as the language measure, a composite measure of child risk, and gender were predictive of membership in some but not all of the achievement groups. Surprisingly, a composite measure of family risk was not a significant predictor in classifying children in any of the achievement groups, either in the total sample or in the two subsamples. In addition, interactions between the child and family risk composites did not predict membership in any of the achievement groups. However, when the analyses were conducted using individual components of the family risk factor for the total sample, a significant interaction was found between the child risk composite and the primary language spoken in the home in classifications involving only the low versus the high achieving children. The independent sample t-tests produced statistically significant differences between selected subsamples of high and low achieving children on the following subscales of a Home Survey measure: (a) the child's home literacy environment (b) the amount of time the caretaker spends with the child (c) the family support system, and (d) family stability.