Family-school partnerships in early childhood: Exemplars of evidence-based interventions

Learning in the early childhood period occurs in the context of relationships within and between numerous systems. This chapter discusses the importance of family-school partnerships for optimizing positive early development. It describes the goals and components of effective partnerships within the framework provided by the ecological-systems theory. Social-emotional competencies are those interpersonal and behavioral skills that facilitate children’s interactions with others and promote relationship-building. Language development begins with children’s earliest exposure to language, with exposure in infancy underlying future literacy skills. Relative to family-school partnerships in school-age programs, those occurring in early childhood education settings are most effective when they target two key relationships essential for school readiness for all children: parent-child and parent-professional. One early childhood family-school partnership model, known as “Getting Ready” is presented as an exemplar for family-school partnerships in early learning contexts.