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Florida HIPPY T&TA Center to Conduct Pilot Test as Part of the Florida Office of Early Learning's Preschool Development Grant

The Florida Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) Program has been contracted by the Florida Office of Early Learning/Preschool Development Grant to conduct a pilot project aimed at testing the delivery of early childhood online digital supports to improve children’s school readiness skills.

HIPPY is a parent involvement and school readiness program that offers free home-based early childhood education for two, three, four and five year old children working with their parent(s) as their first teacher. The parent is provided with a set of developmentally appropriate materials, curriculum and books designed to strengthen their children’s cognitive skills, early literacy skills, social/emotional and physical development.

Funding for year one of the project is $313,384.46. The test conducted should determine the usability, usefulness, and usage of the various digital supports and, if possible, the direct effect of the digital supports on children’s school readiness skills. The state is working with Dr. Tracy Payne, CFS Assistant Research Professor and Director of the Florida HIPPY Training and Technical Assistance Center, on the design of the study which will include the release of an Intent-to-Negotiate with Application Developers to identify the mobile applications that will be tested in the study.

“We are excited to have this opportunity to partner with the state to test early childhood mobile applications with our families,” said Dr. Payne. “This pilot test will provide the state with important information on parents’ ability to use early childhood mobile applications to support their children’s cognitive development.”