Even Start Children and Parents Made Gains Between Pretest and Follow-up

As was seen by comparing pretest to posttest outcomes, Even Start children and parents improved their literacy levels between the pretest and follow-up measurements (Table 4.3). On standardized direct assessments (PPVT, Woodcock-Johnson subtests), children gained between 0.50 and almost 2.0 standard deviations between pretest and the follow-up, depending on the measure. Parent reports of children's literacy skills also showed an increasing level of skill between pretest and follow-up, in areas such as knowing the alphabet, knowledge of colors, counting ability, extent to which children engage in reading and writing activities, and understand print concepts. Parents also gained over time in their literacy skills, showing significant gains on each of the Woodcock Johnson subtests, and in the variety of the kinds of items they read and write. In addition, more parents attained a GED by the follow-up. Parents' reports of the quality of their reading activities with their children improved, as did the number and variety of resources parents report providing to their children, and their reported participation in activities at their children's schools.

With the exceptions noted in the section above, these gains were not greater than those shown by control group children and parents. Hence, in spite of the gains made by children and adults, Even Start did not have a significant impact on these language and literacy skills.

Of interest is the fact that between pretest and posttest, the average Even Start child and the average control group child gained about 4.0 standard score points on the PPVT. This is comparable to the average gain of 4.2 standard score points on the PPVT for children who spent a year in Head Start, as reported by Zill, Resnick & O'Donnell (2001) who analyzed data from the Head Start FACES study (Figure 4.1). This suggests that the observed gains are probably due to some combination of normal development and the effect of being in Even Start, being in Head Start, or, for the control group, being in a mix of preschool interventions.