The relationship between achievement of five-year-olds and parents' report of home environment characteristics

By making available to all children a specific set of home experiences, we will come closer to closing the gap of inequity among children in favor of optimizing learning for all students. The purpose of this study was to compare the conditions and events within the home environment of high-achieving and low-achieving kindergarten students, thus enabling those specific preschool conditions and events that optimize learning to be identified. The research study consisted of data collected on home environmental conditions of 15 high-achieving kindergarten students and 15 low-achieving kindergarten students. The composite score on the DIAL-R (Czudnowski & Goldenberg, 1983) was used to identify those kindergarten students who scored in the top and bottom quartiles on achievement. The HOME instrument (Caldwell & Bradley, 1984) was used to examine eight specific areas of the environment as they contribute to kindergarten students' achievement as measured by the DIAL-R. The HOME was administered in the child's home with the child and the primary caregiver present. [...]