What is HIPPY?
HIPPY is a home-based programme that trains parents to help their four- and five-year-old children with their learning, creating experiences that lay the foundation for success in school and later life. The programme was introduced to New Zealand in 1992 in one location by Great Potentials and is now operating in 27 low-income communities around the country.
The programme was designed specifically for those parents who may not feel comfortable in their own abilities to teach their children. Parents and children work together for fifteen minutes a day with storybooks, puzzles and learning games that help children become successful learners at school.
The HIPPY programme builds on the bond between parents and children. HIPPY believes parents play a critical role in their children’s education. HIPPY offers support that builds upon parental strengths so parents can provide their children with necessary skills and confidence to begin school with a positive attitude toward learning.
The work children and parents do together in their own home with the HIPPY materials is complemented by what they can gain from attending their local early childhood education centre, kohanga reo or language nest, and their transition to school.
The HIPPY Method
THE HIPPY MATERIALS AND ACTIVITIES
The HIPPY programme was designed so parents who may not feel comfortable in their own abilities to teach their children can recognise their strengths and obtain new knowledge and skills to teach their children at home and support them throughout their formal education at school.
Together parents and children work on a carefully scaffolded series of 60 activity packets. These workbooks are set out like lesson plans for the parent, and designed to ensure a successful learning experience for the parent and child working together.
Through the developmentally appropriate, well supported activities, parents work with their children to develop cognitive skills including language, problem solving, logical thinking, perceptual and other school readiness skills. The 18 storybooks they read and talk about together help develop a love of literacy. Parents are encouraged to build on the information in the activities in all areas of their children’s lives.
All the activities can be linked to the learning outcomes in the early childhood curriculum framework, Te Whaariki, or the New Zealand Curriculum Framework (for primary schools).
THE HIPPY STAFF AND DELIVERY METHOD
Parents who are currently working on HIPPY with their own child, or have recently completed the HIPPY programme, train to become paraprofessional HIPPY tutors. They in turn coach other parents by showing them how to use the HIPPY materials with their own children.
The tutors are trained and supported by a local coordinator. They meet each week to work through the next workbook that they will deliver to the parents at a home visit, or on alternate weeks at a group meeting.
During the weekly training sessions the tutors are afforded many opportunities to build on their experience and gain knowledge and skills that they will take to the workplace, or to further study, after their two years as a HIPPY tutor.
The fortnightly Home Visits ensure all families are able to participate on HIPPY. The home is the child’s primary learning environment. It is a comfortable environment, and childcare and transport are not barriers.
The Group Meetings provide an opportunity for parents to come together, practise the new activities for the next week, and to take part in discussions and workshops about topics related to child development, parenting, and other topics they choose to learn more about. This is also an opportunity to meet others in their community, to find out what is happening in their community and develop new friendships.
Because the tutors are of the same community and have young children, they have a deep understanding of the families they are supporting, and form trusting relationships. The tutors become role models for other parents, many of whom may become HIPPY tutors themselves.
HIPPY OUTCOMES
- HIPPY children arrive at school ready to learn, and settle into the learning environment
- HIPPY children score better on measures of literacy, numeracy and understanding appropriate school behaviour than their non-HIPPY peers
- HIPPY children retain their competency in reading and numeracy skills
- HIPPY parents are more likely than their peers to engage in positive educational activities with their children
- HIPPY parents are more likely than their peers to become involved in school activities with their children
- HIPPY parents are more likely than their peers to seek further education for themselves
HIPPY LOCATIONS...
WHERE CAN YOU FIND US?
HIPPY RESULTS...
SEE HOW IT MEASURES UP
GETTING STARTED
ESTABLISHING A HIPPY PROGRAMME
HIPPY ADMINISTRATORS
DOCUMENTS AND TEMPLATES
HIPPY Children
"There's just something about HIPPY children. They've got the foundations for learning. They've got a lot of skills. Sometime it is not always obvious or measurable but it shows in how they approach things.
And the programme follows what we do at school; they can do things like sequencing. It gives them a really good start. They know how to handle books, how to talk about books, how to talk about the characters in the story and they know how to predict. Their oral language may be the biggest area of development compared with non-HIPPY children. They have good observation skills; seeing likenesses and differences. They retain the skills they learn in HIPPY. They understand about 'number'.
What HIPPY does for the parents is awesome. They gain confidence and learn skills. Parenting skills are learnt as a consequence of the programme. They become aware of how kids learn and how to support them.
HIPPY children tend to be, long-term, more realistic about life. They have those thinking processes in place and appear more likely to resist peer pressure. They learn life skills. They might be shy but still 'know' They tend to be more cooperative. HIPPY helps children be realistic; to know how to think; to know how to solve problems; to be independent thinkers."
ROBYN BURGESS
TEACHER, FINLAYSON PARK SCHOOL, MANUREWA