By the time children begin formal schooling, their experiences at home have already contributed to large variations in their math and language development, and once school begins, academic achievement continues to depend strongly on influences outside of school. It is thus essential that educational reform strategies involve primary caregivers. Specifically, programs and policies should promote and support aspects of caregiver–child interaction that have been empirically demonstrated to boost early learning and should seek to impede “motivational sinkholes” that threaten to undermine caregivers’ desires to engage their children effectively. This article draws on cognitive and behavioral science to detail simple, low-cost, and effective tools caregivers can employ to prepare their children for educational success and then describes conditions that can protect and facilitate caregivers’ motivation to use those tools. Policy recommendations throughout focus on using existing infrastructure to more deeply engage caregivers in effective early childhood education at home.
BanduraA. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37, 122–147.
2.
BerkowitzT.SchaefferM. W.BeilockS. L.LevineS. C. (2015, March). Bedtime learning together: Exploring the use of technology to support children’s math learning and attitudes. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Child Development in Philadelphia, PA.
3.
*CartmillE. A.ArmstrongB. F.GleitmanL. R.Goldin-MeadowS.MedinaT. N.TrueswellJ. C. (2013). Quality of early parent input predicts child vocabulary 3 years later. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 110, 11278–11283.
4.
CialdiniR. B.TrostM. R. (1998). Social influence: Social norms, conformity, and compliance. In GilbertD. T.FiskeS. T.LindzeyG. (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., pp. 151–192). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
5.
*DemirÖ. E.RoweM.HellerG.LevineS. C.Goldin-MeadowS. (2015). Vocabulary, syntax and narrative development in children with and without early unilateral brain injury: Early parental talk about the there-and-then matters. Developmental Psychology, 51, 161–175.
6.
DuncanG. J.MagnusonK. (2013). Investing in preschool programs. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27(2), 109–131.
7.
FishbachA.ConverseB. A. (2011). Identifying and counteracting temptations. In VohsK. D.BaumeisterR. F. (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications, 2nd edition (pp. 244–262). New York, NY: Guilford.
8.
GibbsC.LudwigJ.MillerD. L. (2013). Head Start origins and impacts. In BaileyM. J.DanzigerS. (Eds.), Legacies of the war on poverty (pp. 39–65). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation Press.
9.
GoldhaberD. (2002). The mystery of good teaching. Education Next, 2(1), 50–55.
10.
GollwitzerP. M.OettingenG. (2011). Planning promotes goal striving. In VohsK. D.BaumeisterR. F. (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications, 2nd edition (pp. 162–185). New York, NY: Guilford.
11.
GundersonE. A.LevineS. C. (2011). Some types of parent number talk count more than others: Relation between parents’ input and children’s number knowledge. Developmental Science, 14, 1021–1032.
12.
HartB.RisleyT. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.
13.
HighP. C.KlassP.DonoghueE.GlassyD.DelConteB.EarlsM.. . . WilliamsP. G. (2014). Literacy promotion: An essential component of primary care pediatric practice. Pediatrics, 134, 404–409.
14.
HoffE. (2003). The specificity of environmental influence: Socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development, 74, 1368–1378.
15.
HuttenlocherJ.WaterfallH.VasilyevaM.VeveaJ.HedgesL. V. (2010). Sources of variability in children’s language growth. Cognitive Psychology, 61, 343–365.
16.
KalilA. (2014). Promoting early childhood development, Proposal 2: Addressing the parenting divide to promote early childhood development for disadvantaged children. In KearneyM. S.HarrisB. H. (Eds.), Policies to address poverty in America (pp. 29–36). Washington, DC: The Hamilton Project, Brookings Institution.
17.
KooM.FishbachA. (2008). Dynamics of self-regulation: How (un)accomplished goal actions affect motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 183–195.
18.
LevineS. C.RatliffK.CannonJ.HuttenlocherJ. (2012). Early puzzle play: A predictor of preschoolers’ spatial transformation skill. Developmental Psychology, 48, 530–542.
19.
LevineS. C.SuriyakhamL.RoweM.HuttenlocherJ.GundersonE. A. (2011). What counts in the development of children’s number knowledge?Developmental Psychology, 46, 1309–1313.
20.
LockeE. A.LathamG. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting & task performance. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
21.
MaloneyE. A.BeilockS. L. (2012). Math anxiety: Who has it, why it develops, and how to guard against it. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16, 404–406.
22.
MaloneyE. A.RamirezG.GundersonE. A.LevineS. C.BeilockS. L. (2015). Intergenerational effects of parents’ math anxiety on children’s math achievement and anxiety. Psychological Science, 26, 1480–1488. doi:10.1177/0956797615592630.
23.
MayerS. E.KalilA.OreopoulosP.GallegosS. (2015). Using behavioral insights to increase parental engagement: The parents and children together (PACT) intervention (NBER Working Paper 21602). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w21602.
24.
*PetersenL.LevineS. C. (2015). The role of spontaneous block play on children’s math knowledge. Philadelphia, PA: Society for Research on Child Development.
25.
PrudenS. M.LevineS. C.HuttenlocherJ. (2011). Children’s spatial thinking: Does talk about the spatial world matter?Developmental Science, 14, 1417–1430.
26.
*RamaniG. B.RoweM. L.EasonS. H.LeechK. A. (2015). Math talk during informal learning activities in Head Start families. Cognitive Development, 35, 15–33.
27.
RameyC. T.RameyS. L. (2004). Early learning and school readiness: Can early intervention make a difference?Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 50, 471–491.
28.
RamirezG.GundersonE. A.LevineS. C.BeilockS. L. (2013). Math anxiety, working memory, and math achievement in early elementary school. Journal of Cognition and Development, 14, 187–202.
29.
RothmanA. J.GollwitzerP. M.GrantA. M.NealD. T.SheeranP.WoodW. (2015). Hale and hearty policies: How psychological science can create and maintain healthy habits. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10, 701–705.
30.
SheeranP. (2002). Intention—Behavior relations: A conceptual and empirical review. European Review of Social Psychology, 12, 1–36.
SuskindD. L.LeffelK. R.GrafE.HernandezM. W.GundersonE. A.SapolichS. G.& LevineS. C. (2015). A parent-directed language intervention for children of low socioeconomic status: A randomized controlled pilot study. Journal of Child Language. Advance online publication. doi:10.1017/S0305000915000033.
33.
U.S. Department of Education. (2008). Schools and staffing survey, “Public School Questionnaire 2007-08.”Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
34.
VukovicR. K.RobertsS. O.Green WrightL. (2013). From parental involvement to children’s mathematical performance: The role of mathematics anxiety. Early Education and Development, 24, 446–467.
35.
WaldfogelJ.WashbrookE. (2011). Early years policy. Child Development Research, 2011, 1–12.
36.
WalkerD.GreenwoodC.HartB.CartaJ. (1994). Prediction of school outcomes based on early language production and socioeconomic factors. Child Development, 65, 606–621.
37.
WoodW.NealD. T. (2007). A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface. Psychological Review, 114, 843–863.
38.
YorkB. N.LoebS. (2014). One step at a time: The effects of an early literacy text messaging program for parents of preschoolers (NBER Working Paper No. 20659). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
