Progressing in Tandem: A Sure Start Initiative for Enhancing the Role of Parents in Children's Early Education.

Abstract

The Tandem Project is an educational programme, targeting preschoolers, sponsored by the DfEE Sure Start initiative. It aims to encourage parents from low SES bacgrounds to take a greater role in preparing their children for school. Parents are given a series of games to play with their children designed to develop basic pre-reading and numerical skills. Pre-reading games include listening to stories, learning about the representational qualities of print, reciting nursery rhymes, recognising and discriminating shapes and letters and analysing the sound of words. Numerical games include learning about length, size and quantity, linking concepts about quantity with the number systems, counting and recognising written numerals. A preliminary study found the programme was successful in developing children's skills although outcomes were moderated by family socio-economic status. The implications for involving parents in the education of their preschool children are discussed.