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HIPPY Vancouver called cadillac model
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September 18, 2002
Vancouver’s three year old spin off of an international education program for at-risk preschoolers is a Cadillac model says Miriam Westheimer. The director of HIPPY (Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters) International at Hebrew University in Israel, and the founding director of HIPPY USA, Westheimer has evaluated the success of HIPPY programs worldwide. She is not surprised by the results of a recent SFU study which outshine her’s.
Lucy LeMare, an education professor at Simon Fraser University and an expert on early childhood development studied the readiness for kindergarten of 14 at-risk children. They were among the first graduates of Vancouver’s HIPPY program at Britannia Community Services centre, and were just finishing kindergarten when Lemare evaluated their progress. She found they were better prepared for elementary school than two other comparable cohorts of students were. One cohort had been through other pre-school programs. The other had no pre-schooling.
LeMare cautions that the results are not statistically significant due to the small sample size, but they do underscore the psychological, social and academic benefits of HIPPY. The HIPPY children scored 102 on a standard IQ test used to predict school achievement, seven points higher than their counterparts in the other cohorts. The HIPPY pre-schoolers’ IQ was also slightly higher than the population average, 100. LeMare says HIPPY kids were "less likely to be bullied in school and less sad about going to school than their counterparts. The results indicate social, ethnic and economic circumstances need not be barriers to learning or school performance."
Referring to her evaluations of HIPPY programs, which are in a book she recently edited Westheimer says, "The trend was generally positive in 20 to 30 communities studied, but the results weren’t so consistently positive in all aspects of education as in the Britannia program. I attribute Lemare’s extremely positive picture to the commitment of parents and partners involved in the Britannia program."
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CONTACT
Lucy LeMare, 604.291.3272; lucy_lemare@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, Media & PR, 604.291.3035
Lucy LeMare, an education professor at Simon Fraser University and an expert on early childhood development studied the readiness for kindergarten of 14 at-risk children. They were among the first graduates of Vancouver’s HIPPY program at Britannia Community Services centre, and were just finishing kindergarten when Lemare evaluated their progress. She found they were better prepared for elementary school than two other comparable cohorts of students were. One cohort had been through other pre-school programs. The other had no pre-schooling.
LeMare cautions that the results are not statistically significant due to the small sample size, but they do underscore the psychological, social and academic benefits of HIPPY. The HIPPY children scored 102 on a standard IQ test used to predict school achievement, seven points higher than their counterparts in the other cohorts. The HIPPY pre-schoolers’ IQ was also slightly higher than the population average, 100. LeMare says HIPPY kids were "less likely to be bullied in school and less sad about going to school than their counterparts. The results indicate social, ethnic and economic circumstances need not be barriers to learning or school performance."
Referring to her evaluations of HIPPY programs, which are in a book she recently edited Westheimer says, "The trend was generally positive in 20 to 30 communities studied, but the results weren’t so consistently positive in all aspects of education as in the Britannia program. I attribute Lemare’s extremely positive picture to the commitment of parents and partners involved in the Britannia program."
—30—
CONTACT
Lucy LeMare, 604.291.3272; lucy_lemare@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, Media & PR, 604.291.3035