Abstract:

Objective: To evaluate the association between a full- vs part-day early childhood program and school readiness, attendance, and parent involvement.

Design, Setting, and Participants: End-of-preschool follow-up of a nonrandomized, matched-group cohort of predominantly low-income, ethnic minority children enrolled in the Child-Parent Centers (CPC) for the full day (7 hours; n = 409) or part day (3 hours on average; n = 573) in the 2012-2013 school year in 11 schools in Chicago, Illinois.

Intervention: The Midwest CPC Education Program provides comprehensive instruction, family-support, and health services from preschool to third grade.

Main Outcomes and Measures: School readiness skills at the end of preschool, attendance and chronic absences, and parental involvement. The readiness domains in the Teaching Strategies GOLD Assessment System include a total of 49 items with a score range of 105-418. The specific domains are socioemotional with 9 items (score range, 20-81), language with 6 items (score range, 15-54), literacy with 12 items (score range, 9-104), math with 7 items (score, 8-60), physical health with 5 items (score range, 14-45), and cognitive development with 10 items (score range, 18-90).

Results Full-day preschool participants had higher scores than part-day peers on socioemotional development, language, math, physical health, and the total score. Full-day preschool graduates also had higher rates of attendance and lower rates of chronic absences and days missed but no differences in parental involvement.

Conclusions and Relevance: In an expansion of the CPCs in Chicago, a full-day preschool intervention was associated with increased school readiness skills in 4 of 6 domains, attendance, and reduced chronic absences compared with a part-day program. These findings should be replicated in other programs and contexts.