Parent and Children Together (PACT) Essay

Introduction

It is important to note that parents play a crucial role in the academic success of their kids. As a result, parents literacy skills along with their attitudes on matters of education have an immense impact on their children. Subsequent research has provided evidence on the importance of early life to a child future success. Arnold, Zeljo, Doctoroff, and Ortiz (2008) asserts that children spend a lot of time with their parents during their early life hence crucial for future social and economic outcomes. However, similar research has also established that parents invest little time with their children during this early development phases (El Nokali, Bachman, & VotrubaDrzal, 2010). There is a little disparity when comparing this between parents from low income and less education family and those from wealthy families and educated peers. It stands out clear that parents from a wealthy background who are trained will spend time on educational activities than those from a poor background (Walker, et al., 2011). This is the reason for the disparity in skill development in children from different history before the introduction of formal education. The skills accrued from these previous interactions persist in life and are crucial in the schooling process.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

In the light of the above findings, some family literacy programs devised by educators have provided parenting with skills that can help them promote their children's literacy. Such a program like Parent and Children Together (PACT) has the underlying goal of improving the literacy of parents in mathematics and languages. In turn, such parents can help in their children's educational development. PACT literacy program operates throughout the country. This paper will discuss PACT regarding its goals and objectives, philosophy, implementation practices, target audience and recruitment strategies.

Goals and Objectives of PACT

Participants in the Parent and Children literacy program comes from a range of background, the diverse nature of the modern society means that these individuals are ethnically and culturally different. Equally, the increasing number of young parents means that there will also be teenager parents especially inexperienced and poor. In many urban places, there is also refuges whose area of origin might have little literacy levels coupled with debilitating experiences. However, despite all these encounters, there is a wide range of information that has helped in the development of such literacy programs. In most occasions, developers will draw on the interests, concerns, strengths, and weaknesses in the creation of parent and children together plan (Mayer, Kalil, Oreopoulos, & Gallegos, 2015). Some of the objectives put forward in the design of a literacy program include: To provide the community with opportunities for research and projects that can strengthen parent and child bonds. To develop the parenting skills of adults and result in positive parenting behaviors and practices. Lastly, to make parents be successful partners in their child's learning practices.

Philosophy

Topping and Wolfendale (2017) states that PACT roots in the philosophy that parents are the first and effective teachers of their children. Professional educators uphold the philosophy with the inclusion of activities that foster a stimulating natural environment where preschoolers can learn and grow. Even though the traditional house makeup is changing, parent involvement is crucial. The belief is that the parents are the children learning models. This means that parents attitudes towards education can inspire children and make them realize how they can take charge of their educational journey. There are some aspects of the learning addressed in theory. The first one is cognitive growth whereby parent-child interaction helps children experience the dynamic world by learning from the parent. The other one is that social growth is fostered in preschoolers when children can play and interact parent. Parent involvement in the child education is simple as taking a few minutes to talk with the child or staying informed of their child's progress.

Implementation Practices

Something that stands as an obstacle towards parent's involvement with the school is discomfort. This stems from the lack of knowing how parents can be involved in the education of their children. PACT takes an active role in helping parents participate actively in the education of their children. There is a variety of ways of involving parents under the fundamental ideology of teaching for both parents and teachers. PACT encourages school programs such as workshops to educate parents on what usually goes on in the classroom. An example of such involvement has monthly family reading nights. In such an event, parents go to the school and read books to their kids as well as interact with teachers to know more about their kids (Epstein, et al., 2002). Another implementation practice is providing parents with training materials on how to improve their children skills. Sending home folders with assignments that require children to discuss with their parent is a sure way to have them involved. This can narrow down to what parents should look for in their kids and go ahead to communicate the importance of such. Equally, schools can provide a list of resources in the community that can be of significance towards nurturing students skills and talents. Such resources are essential especially those available when schools are closed.

Assessment and Evaluation Practices

To determine the effectiveness of PACT, some guidelines and practices are followed. It is important to mention that just like other models of literacy programs, PACT is understood as a collaborating, socially approachable process. As a result, assessment of PACT will reflect on the dynamic and practical procedures. PACT programs vary with the population, the literacy goals, and location (Robin Dion, Zaveri, & Holcomb, 2015). Subsequently, there are some principles the guides the evaluation. In the first place, assessment should be aligned with the specific family; learning goals. Second, the various purpose of the assessment is considered. These are factors as parents, children, and practitioners. Third, no accurate measure can evaluate the PACT interactions. Fourth, learners should be involved in the evaluation, and this should happen collaboratively. Ultimately, the review should begin by the substantial effect the practitioners in regards to observation.

Target Audience

To restate the obvious, parents from wealthy and educated backgrounds seems to understand the importance of their involvement in the earlier education of their children. Therefore, there is a display of different skill when children from wealthy and educated backgrounds are compared to those from poor backgrounds. Subsequently, PACT initiatives are majorly targeted to parents from the low-income regions. Also, PACT targets children with special needs. The goal here is to help families to the best so that they can provide a safe and healthy environment that can allow for the growth of children. Federally funded and non-funded initiatives will give early childhood education and related services for these categories. Such services for children between 3 to 5 years offers modes of learning that include socialisation. The services are provided in centres located in some places across the country. Also, there are in-home services to parents with infants or those who have not yet given birth. Parents participate in classrooms and adult education classes. Also, the program seeks to encourage fathers in their involvement in the earlier phases of their kid's development. This is through training and teaching on how they can go about this.

Recruitment Strategies

Since the world has evolved and barely everyone is hooked to the internet, this section can begin by asserting that the internet is an excellent platform for recruiting. Today majority of people are in either of the social websites. Subsequently, PACT can take advantage of the recruitment opportunities that are cheaply available on the media platforms.

PACT recruits through committees that vet staff and community members. The committee looks for volunteers and staff that will ensure there is a warm and friendly environment for the literacy program. Platforms for recruiting includes advertising over the radio, creating business cards to for sharing with friends, encouraging volunteers and target recruitment.

Conclusion

As seen above, parents are important partners in their child's education. School and educators can gain a lot by capitalizing on supporting children in their early stages of learning. There are social and economic benefits that will be received by empowering children during this stage. Programs as PACT are crucial in promoting parent literacy. It is through literacy that parents can realise the importance of becoming their kids' education partners. PACT encourages parents to spend time with their children and be their academic role models. Although it requires adequate effort to realize success in this program, the rewards are great, and it is worth a try.

References

Arnold, D. H., Zeljo, A., Doctoroff, G. L., & Ortiz, C. (2008). Parent involvement in preschool: Predictors and the relation of involvement to preliteracy development. School psychology review, 37(1), 74.

El Nokali, N. E., Bachman, H. J., & VotrubaDrzal, E. (2010). Parent involvement and children's academic and social development in elementary school. Child development, 81(3), 988-1005.

Epstein, J. L., Sanders, M. G., Simon, B. S., Salinas, K. C., Jansorn, N. R., & Van Voorhis, F. L. (2002). School, family, and community partnerships: Your handbook for action. Corwin Press.

Mayer, S. E., Kalil, A., Oreopoulos, P., & Gallegos, S. (2015). Using behavioral insights to increase parental engagement: The parents and children together (PACT) intervention (No. w21602). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Robin Dion, M., Zaveri, H., & Holcomb, P. (2015). Responsible fatherhood programs in the Parents and Children Together (PACT) evaluation. Family Court Review, 53(2), 292-303.

Topping, K., & Wolfendale, S. (2017). Parental involvement in children's reading. Routledge.

Walker, S. P., Wachs, T. D., Grantham-McGregor, S., Black, M. M., Nelson, C. A., Huffman, S. L., & Gardner, J. M. (2011). Inequality in early childhood: risk and protective factors for early child development. The Lancet, 378(9799), 1325-1338.