Toward an Early Start for Head Start Children: Evidence from a Literacy Enrichment Starting at Age Three

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the utility of providing comprehensive literacy instruction to preschool children starting at age three. The literacy development in two groups of four-year-old children (N = 1320) was compared during their enrollment in a literacy-enriched Head Start program. The first group entered the program at age four and participated in the program for only one year (Group 4-1); the second group had previously participated in the program at age three and at the time of the study were in their second year of the program (Group 4-2). Multilevel growth modelling procedures were used to compare literacy performance levels and growth rates between the two groups after controlling for relevant child, family, and educational variables. Results showed that Group 4-2 exhibited significantly higher literacy skills than Group 4-1 at both the beginning and end of the program year, although Group 4-2 had a slower growth rate than Group 4-1 over the program year. The theoretical and practical implications of the study were discussed.

Effects of the Head Start Program on Socioecological Obesogenic Factors in American Children

Head Start is a nationwide developmental program for low-income families. This study aimed to investigate the association between the Head Start program and children’s BMI status, as well as their quality of life with respect to socioecological obesogenic factors. This cross-sectional study employed the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort (ECLS-K) in which the data were collected in 2007 and analyzed in 2019. Propensity-score matching analysis was performed to examine the association between the Head Start program and children’s BMI status, as well as the quality of life, controlling for socioecological obesogenic factors. A total of 3753 children (representing 1,284,209 at the population level) were recruited in this study (mean age: 13.69 years; girls: 49.42%). In the final matched model, the program did not have a statistically significant effect on children’s obesity. Fewer African American children participated in school-sponsored activities, perceived themselves as overweight, lived in a household with fewer family members, had less strict TV regulations, and were more likely to be overweight than their counterparts. Outcomes suggest that multiple dimensions of sociological obesogenic factors including individual, parental, familial, and community support factors affect the weight of children from low-income families and should be considered when establishing behavioral and policy interventions to thwart the childhood obesity epidemic.

A Trapping Survey Targeting Head-Started Alligator Snapping Turtles in Southwest Louisiana

The alligator snapping turtle Macrochelys temminckii is the largest freshwater turtle in North America and humans seek it as a food source, primarily in Louisiana. Scientists point to decades of intensive commercial harvest of alligator snapping turtles as a cause of population declines. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries initiated a head-start program for alligator snapping turtles and released 53 head-started juveniles at seven sites along an approximately 5.7-km stretch of Bundick Creek in southwest Louisiana between November 2015 and October 2016. Before release, department personnel measured, weighed, and marked all alligator snapping turtles with both an internal passive integrated transponder tag and a numbered external tag. In 2018, the U.S. Geological Survey initiated a turtle trapping survey at those seven release sites targeting the head-started alligator snapping turtles. In 1 wk of trapping effort at each site, we recorded 69 turtle captures comprising seven species, including 15 alligator snapping turtles (representing 12 individuals). Of those 12 individuals, 8 were head-started juveniles and 4 were native to the creek. A landowner captured an additional head-started juvenile alligator snapping turtle during our trapping and we took measurements before its release. A minimum of 17% of head-started alligator snapping turtles survived since release, and we trapped most captured head-started individuals near their release site; the captured individuals exhibited growth consistent with other studies, indicating acclimatization to their new environment. Three head-started alligator snapping turtles had their external tags entangled in the net mesh, and two of these turtles drowned. An additional two head-started individuals lost their external tags in the natural environment prior to their capture in this study. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries discontinued the use of external tags based on our findings, as these tags were detrimental to the health of head-started turtles.

Helen Bass Williams and Mississippi Action for Progress

Chapter five tells the story of Mississippi Action for Progress: the Head Start program that was created to replace the Child Development Group of Mississippi. It focuses on the African American executive director of MAP, Helen Bass Williams, and her relationships with white businessman and community leader Owen Cooper and the state sovereignty commission director, Erle Johnston. The harassment campaign against Williams illustrates the way in which moderate businessmen could—even inadvertently—serve to further entrench white power in anti-poverty programs. It also shows how successfully the sovereignty commission was able to adapt its tactics to the new racial realities of Mississippi in the late 1960s.

Implementation of a Pilot Parent-focused Physical Activity Program with Latino Families in a Head Start Program

Introduction and Background. Physical activity (PA), even at young age, is associated with physical and psychological health. This study determined the feasibility of implementing a parent-led PA intervention and evaluated potential outcomes. Methods. Parent-child pairs from a Head Start center were randomized into intervention (N=20) and control (N=18) groups. All families received a bag of play equipment. Parents completed questionnaires assessing their own and their children’s PA, as well as self-efficacy, social control (SC), and social support (SS) regarding their provision of PA to their children. Parents in the intervention were trained in self-regulatory skills, facilitation of PA, and attended two playdates. Parents rated the playdates, activity sheet and equipment on a 5-point Likert scale. Results. Parents rated the playdates (M=4.9, SD=0.3), the activity sheet (M=4.7, SD=0.7) and the equipment bag (M=5, SD=0.0) highly. Child’s PA, parent’s moderate-to-vigorous PA, total PA, parental efficacy, SC, and SS showed no significant intervention effects. Overall, child and parent PA increased significantly over time (p=.02 for both). Conclusions. The intervention was positively received, with 90% completion rate and high ratings of the intervention materials. Longer interventions with more contact may be needed to influence potential outcomes.

Remaking, reweaving and indigenizing curriculum: Lessons from an American Samoa Head Start program

In this paper, we focus on how indigenous Head Start teachers in American Samoa, an unincorporated territory of the US located in the South Pacific negotiated imported policy and curricular models that were not always congruent with local, indigenous approaches to educating young children. Here we place our focus on the negotiation of curriculum within these spaces and in doing so, show that through the reweaving of curriculum, western discourses and influences from the US were altered. We conclude with implications for US territories and other contested spaces across the globe.

Bilingual Speech Sound Development During the Preschool Years: The Role of Language Proficiency and Cross-Linguistic Relatedness

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate typical Spanish–English speech sound development longitudinally in a group of bilingual preschoolers enrolled in a Head Start Program and to examine the extent to which such development is linked to language proficiency. The study also aimed to identify whether speech development is related cross-linguistically and to improve our understanding of error patterns in this population. Method Thirty-five bilingual preschool children produced single-word speech samples in Spanish and English both at the beginning of their first and their second year in a Head Start Program. Conversational samples in both languages were also collected at these data points to calculate mean length of utterance in words (MLUw) and thus assess the children's linguistic proficiency. The phonetically transcribed speech samples were compared over time in terms of segmental accuracy measures and error pattern frequencies. Correlation analyses were run to examine the relation between segmental accuracy measures across languages and between speech sound production and MLUw. Results One-way within-subject analysis of variance revealed significant improvements in accuracy over time in both languages, but not always for cross-linguistically unshared segments, nor for all consonant manner classes. Overall error rates decreased over time in both languages; although, certain error types showed no change. Cross-linguistic interactions were low in both languages. The results also revealed significant cross-linguistic correlations in segmental accuracy between Spanish and English, as well as between MLUw and speech sound production in both languages on a range of measures, with language-specific differences in Year 2 of the Head Start Program, but not in Year 1. Conclusions This study is the first to document developmental changes in the speech patterns of Spanish–English bilingual preschool children over 1 year. Accuracy rates improved significantly in both languages, suggesting that enhanced exposure to the majority language at school may not impede phonological development in the home language. Bootstrapping effects were particularly pronounced on cross-linguistically shared sounds, which suggests that the same underlying skills are utilized in both languages, whereas language-specific singleton consonants and consonant clusters did not appear to benefit from exposure to the other language. The results also suggest an intricate link between phonological skills and morphosyntactic performance at the early stages of development, but a more complex pattern thereafter with differences that may be based on language-specific phonological properties.

Can Guided Play and Storybook Reading Promote Children’s Drawing Development?

Children’s drawings are implicated in their emotional, cognitive, artistic, and semiotic development, raising the question of how early educators may best facilitate drawing development. This study compared three activities to determine their relative efficacy in promoting children’s drawing. Seventy-seven preschoolers from a Head Start program were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: storybook reading, block building, or dramatic pretend play games (DPPG). Interventions were conducted over 8 weeks, and children’s free drawings during each session were rated on five dimensions: creativity, talent, spatial complexity, color, and human content. Taken together, the interventions produced significant growth in overall drawing, particularly for children who were initially more skilled at drawing. Comparisons indicated that storybook reading and block building generated significantly better overall drawing than DPPG. Story time was more beneficial than DPPG for creativity, talent, and spatial complexity, while block building was more beneficial than DPPG for children’s use of color.