Home-Oriented Preschool Education (HOPE) was a home-enrichment program for preschoolers in rural West Virginia. It was operated by the Appalachia Educational Laboratory in Charleston, West Virginia.
The program, geared to 3- to 5-year-olds and their parents, consisted of three components: TV lessons, group meetings, and home visitation. All of the children received daily educational lessons on the television. Some had weekly meetings with other children in a mobile classroom. Others had a weekly home visit from a paraprofessional; the home visitor instructed the children and their families using printed materials that corresponded to the TV lessons. A control group had none of these experiences.
Short-term effects of the program showed that HOPE children had higher grades and higher scores on achievement tests than the control group. Long-term results indicated that children in the TV-only group and the weekly meeting group showed gains that lasted only a few years. Children in the home-visit group, however, showed significant academic gains, improved attitude toward school, and improved receptivity to learning--even up to 14 years after the program ended.
In their review of this study, Henderson and Berla (1993) note that the success of the program could be contributed to parent involvement and advocacy:
