A parent education program aimed at Latino parents is having some success in improving parents’ knowledge about early-literacy skills, children’s social-emotional development, and health, according to a new brief from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Berkeley team based its findings on before and after surveys of more than 600 parents who took part in the program, known as Abriendo Puertas, at 35 sites in six states. Eighty-six percent of the parents were immigrants, most from Mexico.
Prior to taking part in the program, 30 percent said they had never been to the library with their child. Afterward, fewer than 2 percent of parents reported that. There was a 36 percentage-point uptick in the number of parents who reported taking their children to the library at least once per week.
