Getting Ready

Getting Ready is a relationally based parent engagement intervention promoting school readiness for preschool-aged children (ages 3-5) who are low-income and at educational risk due to developmental concerns in language, cognition, and/or social-emotional development. Early childhood educators (ECEs) use a set of intentional interaction strategies with parents during home visits and parent-ECE conferences (12 contacts over two years, 60 minutes each) to support parent-child connections and strengthen collaborative partnerships between ECEs and parents. The strategies include establishing parent-child interactions, communicating openly, affirming competencies, focusing attention, sharing information and resources, using observations and data to guide decisions, making mutual/joint decisions, and modeling and suggesting. ECEs also implement structured collaborative planning procedures including data review, parent-child observations, and creation of partnership plans to promote shared responsibility for children's school readiness. ECEs receive a one-day training institute at the onset and ongoing bimonthly coaching (90-minute sessions, approximately 32 contacts over two years) to support their delivery of the intervention.