Effects of a statewide pre-kindergarten program on children's achievement and behavior through sixth grade.

As state-funded pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programs expand, it is critical to investigate their short- and long-term effects. This article presents the results through sixth grade of a longitudinal randomized control study of the effects of a scaled-up, state-supported pre-K program. The analytic sample includes 2,990 children from low-income families who applied to oversubscribed pre-K program sites across the state and were randomly assigned to offers of admission or a wait list control. Data through sixth grade from state education records showed that the children randomly assigned to attend pre-K had lower state achievement test scores in third through sixth grades than control children, with the strongest negative effects in sixth grade. A negative effect was also found for disciplinary infractions, attendance, and receipt of special education services, with null effects on retention. The implications of these findings for pre-K policies and practices are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of Prekindergarten Curricula: Tools of the Mind as a Case Study.

Research demonstrates that children's participation in quality early childhood care and education often has immediate positive effects on their social-emotional, self-regulation, and achievement outcomes. Most of the research on the impacts of early child care and education has focused narrowly on the United States, but advocacy for economic and social investment in early childhood care and education to support future children's growth and well-being now exists on an international scale. The longer-term outcomes from prekindergarten programs have not been as strong. To improve children's long-term outcomes, one suggested strategy is an intentional, scripted curriculum. Our goal in this monograph is to provide a fully integrated and comprehensive account of a large-scale, longitudinal, field-based randomized control trial of the Tools of the Mind (Internal consistency of the Tools) prekindergarten curriculum that occurred in the United States. Our intent is twofold. First, we examine the impact of the Tools curriculum itself, addressing both the potential impacts of the curriculum to improve prekindergarten quality and children's academic, executive function, self-regulation, and social outcomes. Second, we consider the broader question of whether the use of intentional, scripted curricula during early education can, more generally, enhance both short- and long-term outcomes in children. Developed from a Vygotskian framework, Tools focuses on equipping children with cognitive tools for learning that they can then apply to the task of acquiring and sustaining academic knowledge as well as behavioral competencies. Thus, Tools is an integrated, comprehensive curriculum, not a supplementary one. The Tools approach follows from a socio-cultural perspective on child development that emphasizes children's acquisition of skills and cultural tools in collaboration with knowledgeable others. The methodology of the 4-year longitudinal cluster randomized control trial is described in detail. We provide comprehensive information about recruitment, randomization of treatment condition, child assessment instrumentation and procedures, as well as observational assessments, including fidelity of implementation and teacher and child classroom behaviors. We provide results comparing 32 classrooms assigned to the Tools condition and 28 assigned to the business-as-usual control condition for children's academic, executive function, self-regulation, and social gains from prekindergarten to the end of first grade. Developers of the curriculum specifically expected to see benefits on these measures. There were no positive effects for Tools on any of the outcomes. The lack of expected curriculum effects required careful consideration and raised more general questions about how curriculum experiences manifest themselves in assessed skills. As a first step to understanding the findings, we focused on teachers who were implementing Tools and examined the degree to which the curriculum was delivered as intended and the relations between fidelity of implementation and children's outcomes in prekindergarten. Results indicated a wide variation in observed fidelity of implementation but no consistent associations between fidelity of implementation and any child outcomes. In terms of more general practices and interactions associated with positive student outcomes, developers of the curriculum hypothesized that implementing Tools would enhance classroom practices and teacher-child interactions. Among the aspects they expected to be affected were the amount of non-instructional behaviors, teacher-led and child-directed activities, teacher and child talk, social learning interactions, classroom emotional climate, quality of teacher instruction, and children's level of involvement. Teachers varied as much within treatment and control classrooms as they did between conditions on most of the aspects examined. We found no differences between experimental conditions on most practices and interactions. Curricula vary in scope and content, but they are universally intended to change classroom processes in ways that in turn will facilitate the development of targeted skills. For this mediational hypothesis to hold, the targeted classroom processes must be associated with child outcomes. We examined the associations between the classroom processes and children's prekindergarten and kindergarten gains and found support for their importance in early childhood classrooms. These findings demonstrate the value of identifying strategies to enhance these classroom practices and interactions. We situate the findings of our study within the larger context of early childhood education expansion policies and practices, and we offer a set of lessons learned. The study we report is a single evaluation of a single curriculum, yet we hold that the lessons learned are general and shed light on understanding why evaluations of curriculum have yielded such mixed results.

Data-Driven Improvement in Prekindergarten Classrooms: Report From a Partnership in an Urban District.

In 2014-2015 and 2015-2016, a metropolitan school system in the southern United States embarked on a unique mission to improve the quality of its public prekindergarten programs through a partnership with a group of developmental researchers in an iterative, data-based venture. Data on 407 children in Year 1 and 433 in Year 2 (who were enrolled in 26 classrooms and extensively observed) are presented from the first 2 years of the ongoing partnership. All children were 4 years of age. Variability in classroom practices, measured empirically, and variability in child outcomes provided the means to examine the relations between children's gains in academic and social-emotional areas and major areas of classroom practices. Lessons learned, the eight identified significant practices, implications, and next steps in the partnership are addressed.

Early Math Trajectories: Low-Income Children's Mathematics Knowledge From Ages 4 to 11.

Early mathematics knowledge is a strong predictor of later academic achievement, but children from low-income families enter school with weak mathematics knowledge. An early math trajectories model is proposed and evaluated within a longitudinal study of 517 low-income American children from ages 4 to 11. This model includes a broad range of math topics, as well as potential pathways from preschool to middle grades mathematics achievement. In preschool, nonsymbolic quantity, counting, and patterning knowledge predicted fifth-grade mathematics achievement. By the end of first grade, symbolic mapping, calculation, and patterning knowledge were the important predictors. Furthermore, the first-grade predictors mediated the relation between preschool math knowledge and fifth-grade mathematics achievement. Findings support the early math trajectories model among low-income children.

Preschool classroom processes as predictors of children's cognitive self-regulation skills development.

This research focuses on the associations between interactive processes of early childhood classrooms and gains in children's cognitive self-regulation (CSR) across the preschool year. Data from 803 children (45.8% female; M = 54 months; 39.1% Caucasian, 26.3% African American, 24.6% Hispanic, 9.9% Other) were collected at fall and spring of the preschool year, and classroom observations were conducted three times throughout the year. Multilevel models tested associations between classroom behaviors of teachers and students using the Classroom Observation in Preschool and the Teacher Observation in Preschool and gains children made in a CSR composite score (Dimensional Change Card Sort, Peg Tapping, Head Toes Knees Shoulders, Copy Design, and Corsi Blocks) across the preschool year. After controlling for demographic covariates and children's pretest scores, both affective and cognitive classroom processes were associated with gains. More teacher behavior approving, less disapproving, and more positive emotional tone were associated with gains. The proportion of observed time teachers spent delivering instruction as well as the proportion of time children were involved with mathematics and literacy were also related to CSR gains, as was the quality of teacher instruction. Although exploratory, these results highlight the potential for modifications in classroom practices to aid in children's CSR development.