Parent-Teacher Contacts and Student Learning

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of teacher-parent contacts on the reading achievement of 398 underachievers in an ESEA program in a desegregated elementary school district. Most of the students were black. The central hypothesis was that the home environment influences classroom learning. The results, as measured by normed CAT achievement tests, indicate that the number of contacts was found to have a differential effect on achievement gains. With increasing numbers of contacts, younger students made significant gains in reading; however, increasing numbers of contacts were associated with decreased achievement in older students.