Saturday, May 26, 2012


This week’s assignment was to find two Peer reviewed journals or articles that related to my research topic. A child development professor suggested that I try the JSTOR data base to find more articles about education. JSTOR is located under the general database in the Brandman Leatherby libraries. There I found an excellent article called, “Family Involvement and Educator Outreach in Head Start: Nature, Extent, and Contributions to Early Literacy Skills.” (Hindman & Morrison). This article is about a survey called, Family and Child Experience Survey ( FACES) , that was conducted on 3,100 parents and children, their teachers, and their site directors. It was conducted to reveal if the current Head Start parent involvement program was effective. The other article I found using the EBSCO Premier Data Base is titled, “Welfare-to-Work Single Mothers’ Perspectives on Parent Involvement in Head Start: Implications for Parent-Teacher Collaboration.” (Bruckman & Blanton) This article is about the efforts of the Head Start programs to provide information to families about their child’s education and to encourage a parent teacher collaboration that benefits both the child and their families. This study focused on families headed by single mothers.

 Finding a research topic was not hard for me, but narrowing my topic to a single question is challenging. From this week’s article search, I am now leaning towards finding a question that relates to Head Start, teacher family collaboration and a new way to get parents hooked on helping their children be successful in school. I cannot remember what was said to me by my child’s Head Start teacher that got me hooked. I think it was just an invitation said with a smile.

Resources:

Hindman, Annmarie  H. and Morrison, Fredrick J. (2011) “Family involvement and Educator
            Outreach in Head Start: Nature, Extent, and Contributions to Early Literacy Skills.” The

Elementary School Journal, 111, No. 3: 359-386.
             Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/657651

Marilyn Bruckman and Priscilla W. Blanton(2003) “Welfare-to-Work Single Mothers’ Perspective
             on Parent Involvement in Head Start: Implications for Parent- Teacher Collaboration.” Early
             Childhood Education Journal, 30, no.3: 145-150





1 comment:

  1. Hi Julie! I am amazed at the ease in which you can locate information. I am envious at your ability to cite references, as that is now an obsticle for me. I have on my computer Microsoft 2007; included is an APA format option, but as of yet, I do not know how to use it. I Googled a You Tube video a teacher had done for his class, and that helped, but I am still in the beginnings of feeling adequate at this time.
    The Modesto City Schools Child Development Department has Head Start parents very involved. If I understand correctly, this a group which consists of a representative from each site, and within the group is a president and other positions held by its members. They have decision making voting rights such as hiring of new staff,and budget concerns. That might be a current informational source for your research as an active, ongoing organization. The contact number for the Child Development Department is 209-576-4600. Good luck!
    (An FYI...this is the second try at responding to your post. The first attempt was deleted when I did not respond to 'Select profile'. I do not remember having to select a profile prior to sending, so I hope this does not open up the site to unwanted viewers.)

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