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Promoting the Success of

Children One Family at a Time

2012 - 2013

Early Head Start/First Things First

Preparing our Youngest for

Success in School

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Background and History

The Learning Center for Families has an active Planning Committee with stakeholders from the Board,

Management and parent members. Over the years we have developed long and short range goals that

addressed the needs of low-income families in our community with measurable objectives to ensure the

participating families’ success. However, the nature of these goals shifted significantly in December 2007

when the Office of Head Start released the Revised

Head Start Act.

The Revised Act specified that by December of 2011,

program goals needed to include specific outcomes

for improving the school readiness of children

participating in all Head Start programs. From 2008 -

2010, the Office of Head Start developed a great deal

of information on what school readiness should look

like for three and four year olds in a preschool model.

While we were awaiting clear instructions for Early Head Start, we were relying on a Technical Assistance

Paper from the Early Head Start National Resources Center entitled The Foundations for School Readiness:

Fostering Developmental Competence in the Earliest Years which was published in 2003.

On October 3, 2011 the 1st National Head Start Birth to Five

Leadership Institute unveiled specifically what they wanted Early Head

Start programs to measure. Are children in EHS making progress

towards school readiness in the areas of:

Language & Literacy

Physical Development and Health

Social & Emotional Development

Cognition & General Knowledge

Approaches to Learning

Based on these newly defined areas of early childhood child development,

on November 29, 2011, the Management Team quickly scrambled to put

together our first draft of the TLC-EHS School Readiness Goals. This effort

was thin on goals and objectives and more resembled a list of activities and

tools to measure children’s progress towards eventually matriculating into

preschool or kindergarten.

Our first year of aggregated data towards our goals was completed

in the winter of 2012. What we discovered from the first year was

that we needed to tweak our original goals to make them more

measurable. We also implemented some changes in some of the

tools we were using. For instance, as a home-based program, we

needed a tool that measured how effective parents were at

maintaining a nurturing, stimulating environment that fortified

children’s exploration and learning. In 2012, we were using the

PICCOLO. This year we switched to the H.O.M.E (The Home

Observation for Measurement of the Environment Inventory).

We distilled the first year’s data through an age-appropriate

functionality matrix that proved too cumbersome for teasing out

specific domains as required by the Office of Head Start. Therefore,

this year we decided to continue to evaluate all children three times a

year using the Early Learning Acquisition Profile (ELAP). However, we

skipped the additional step of running the ELAP data through the Child

Outcome Summary Form process.

In January 2013, we convened our School Readiness Committee, including an EHS parent, to rewrite our

learning goals for the year.

2012—2013 School Readiness Goals

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT & HEALTH

Children will develop skills that support optimal physical health, increasingly complex motor development

and improved health habits through family partnership with TLC which recognizes and advocates for their

family’s well-being.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 100% of typically developing children will maintain age-appropriate fine

and gross motor skills.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 80% of children identified

with disabilities and served under both Part C and Early Head

Start will maintain or increase their fine and gross motor

skills.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 100% of families will engage

in improved health habits.

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SOCIAL EMOTIONAL

Through family partnerships with TLC, children will experience an increase in

positive parent-child interactions that result in more secure attachment and optimal

emotional and behavioral health.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 100% of typically developing children will

maintain age-appropriate social/emotional skills.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 80% of children identified with disabilities and

served under both Part C and Early Head Start will maintain or increase their

social/emotional skills.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 100% of families will demonstrate an increase in positive parent-child

interactions.

LANGUAGE & LITERACY

Children will have increased language and literacy experiences that promote functional communication

skills through intentional relationships with their families as life-long learners.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 100% of typically developing children will maintain age-appropriate

language and literacy skills.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 80% of children

identified with disabilities and served under both Part C

and Early Head Start will maintain or increase their

language and literacy skills.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 100% of families will

engage in activities that promote their life-long learning.

COGNITION & GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Children will increase their cognitive abilities and acquisition of general knowledge through positive

relationships with their families in partnership with TLC.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 100% of typically developing

children will maintain age-appropriate cognition and general

knowledge skills.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 80% of children identified with

disabilities and served under both Part C and Early Head Start will

maintain or increase their cognition and general knowledge skills.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 100% of families will have a better

awareness of how to support their child’s school readiness.

APPROACHES TO LEARNING

Children will have multiple opportunities embedded in their routines to expand their play, exploration, and

creativity, supported by their families in their role as life-long educators who follow their child’s lead.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 100% of typically developing children will demonstrate age-appropriate

approaches to learning skills.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 80% of children identified with disabilities and served under both Part C

and Early Head Start will maintain or increase their

demonstration of approaches to learning skills.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 100% of families will

demonstrate an increase in following their child’s

lead during play and exploration.

Short Range Objective: In 2013, 100% of families will

engage in activities that promote their life-long

learning.

Physical & Health

Social & Emotional Cognition & General

Knowledge Approaches to

Learning Language &

Literacy

GM, FM, SH CG, LN, SE FM, CG, LN, SH, SE FM, CG, LN, SE CG, LN, SE, SH

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Assessment Process

Children were evaluated using the Early Learning Acquisition Profile

(ELAP) every 4 months during their enrollment during the program year.

It must be noted that we are a year-round program and served over 200

individual children over the course of the year. However, only 77

typically developing and 56 atypically developing children received all

three assessments. We cross-walked the sections of the ELAP with the

Head Start Outcomes Framework in order to track progress across our

goals:

Because we are a home-based model which employs a parent-coaching model that enhances parents’ skills

as their children’s primary educators, we also need to evaluate the parents on their abilities to maintain a

stimulating, learning environment while being responsive to their child’s innate curiosity. We chose the

Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment Inventory (H.O.M.E.) to gather this parent

information. We administered the H.O.M.E every four months as well.

In addition to the formal testing conducted throughout the year, we also followed key health indicators that

are part of our Physical Development and Health goal every month.

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So How Did We Do?

ELAP

For typically developing children, we set our goal that 100% of

children would maintain age-appropriate development in all

learning domains as measured by the ELAP. A total of 77 of

typically developing children were tracked across all three

assessment cycles. When all domains are averaged together, 98%

met this goal.

One surprise we encountered was how many of the typically

developing children were actually above age-appropriate norms at the

end of the year.

Our goal for children who had been identified with special needs was

that 80% would maintain the same trajectory or increase their

developmental skills to be closer to those of their typically developing

peers. Seventy-nine percent of the children made significant gains in

their development by decrease the number of domains and severity of delay. Four children who were Part C

eligible at entry no longer needed early intervention at the end of the school year. However for some

children, such as those with Down Syndrome and other neuromuscular disorders, they actually lost ground.

Some exhibited more age-typical skills at the beginning of the year. They continued to make gains, however,

when measured against their typically developing peers, they did not keep up. The next page illustrates

scores at entry and exit for atypically developing children.

H.O.M.E.

Integral to our home-based program’s school readiness

effectiveness, is the capacity of our parents to support their

child’s learning at home throughout their daily routines.

During the first meta data analysis of our H.O.M.E. scores, we

discovered that our parent averages were meeting all the

thresholds on the HOME Inventory with the exception of the

area of acceptance. This area focuses on the parent’s practice of appropriate discipline.

However, averages don’t tell the entire story. Some families had less than optimal scores and continued to

lose progress during the program year. We looked at those parents’ scores and compared them to their

children’s ELAPs. We saw a direct correlation between lower achievement scores in children coming from

less than optimal learning environments. A further drill down on affected children noted that these families

also were families with multiple, serious, negative social factors.

GM FM CG LN SE SH

Typically Developing Children Ending ELAP Scores

GM FM CG LN SE SH

% of Children Above Age-Appropriate Development

Cutoff

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Children with Special

Needs Self Help

Skills

44% 14% 2% 5%

2% 3%

2% 2% 5% 20%

Typ Mild Mod Sev Typ

Mild

Mod

Sev

50% 7% 2% 5%

2% 2% 2% 2%

2%

4% 2% 5% 16%

Typ Mild Mod Sev

Typ M

ild M

od Sev

58% 10% 3% 2%

3% 3%

2%

18%

Typ Mild Mod Sev

Typ M

ild M

od Sev

45% 3% 5% 9%

3% 2% 2% 5%

2% 2% 2%

2% 3% 14%

Typ Mild Mod Sev

Typ M

ild M

od Sev

48% 4% 13%

5% 2% 2% 2%

4%

7% 2% 2% 11%

Typ Mild Mod Sev

Typ M

ild M

od Sev

63% 3% 2% 2%

2%

3% 5% 3%

5% 10%

Typ Mild Mod Sev

Typ M

ild M

od Sev

Children with Special Needs

Social-Emotional Skills

Children with Special Needs

Fine Motor Skills

Children with Special Needs Gross Motor Skills

Children with Special Needs

Language Skills

E N T RY S C O R E S A LO N G T H E TO P ( n = 5 7 )

EX

IT S

CO

RE

S A

LON

G T

HE

SID

E

Children with Special Needs

Cognitive Skills

Children’s Health Indicators

Children’s Dental Indicators

Prenatal Indicators

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Lessons Learned to Strengthen our Approach

The Head Start Act implores us to use assessment data “in combination with other program data to

determine grantees” progress toward meeting its goals, to inform parents and the community of results, and

to direct continuous improvement related to curriculum, instruction, professional development, program

design and other program decisions. To that end, the data team looked at the information and made the

following conclusions and adjustments:

We wanted to see how our children, from mono-lingual homes that spoke a language other than English,

were doing on their second language acquisition skills. Our speech and language pathologist developed

a list of the most common words and staff circled those words as the children learned them. However, it

did not give us a baseline. So we will be taking a baseline of each child at entry and getting an exit score

at the end of the assessment period.

In our analysis of the first cohort data, we found that some of our home visitors were hesitant to refer to

Arizona Early Intervention because of their knowledge of the eligibility criteria in that state. Staff were

trained to refer all children to Arizona’s Early Intervention Program in order to protect the family’s

procedural safeguards.

Analysis showed that most of our Part C children had delays in Cognition. Therefore, we will be providing

more training to ensure that staff have the tools to help parents assist in their child’s cognitive

development.

We need a way to track family health habits. We will implement several activities related to family

healthy lifestyles and track participation.

After the first H.O.M.E.s scored showed that many parents were not meeting the cutoff for Acceptance,

we had our LCSW provide and in-service in “Appropriate Discipline”. The next set of data showed

marked improvement.

We need to watch the momentum of the H.O.M.E.s scores. In cases where they move downward from

one reporting period to the next, we need to drill down and find out why so that we can provide those

parents with extra support and coaching in those areas and ensure that children’s ELAP scores do not slip

as well.

We continue to suffer from a lack access to dental care for our pregnant mothers. We need to deepen

our partnerships for getting affordable care to our mothers to ensure

their babies healthy births.

We need to look at our goals and determine exactly how the individual

ELAP items fit into the domains as identified by the Office of Head

Start so that we can clearly monitor progress in those areas without

ambiguity.

L T

C