Young children experience various types of early care and education environments the year before they enter kindergarten. Some children attend center-based arrangements such as preschools, childcare centers, or Head Start programs, while others are cared for in relatives' or nonrelatives' homes or are normally cared for only by their parents.…

Purpose: This study investigated within-language and between-language associations between phonological memory, vocabulary, and grammar in French-English (n = 43) and Spanish-English (n = 25) bilingual children at 30, 36, and 48 months. It was predicted that phonological memory would display both within-language and between-language relations to…

Knowledge about preschool predictors of later reading comprehension is valuable for several reasons. On a general level, longitudinal studies can aid in generating understanding and causal hypotheses about language and literacy development, both of which are crucial processes in child development. A better understanding of these developmental…

The New Mexico Public Education Department developed the Kindergarten Observation Tool (KOT) as a multidimensional observational measure of students' knowledge and skills at kindergarten entry. The primary purpose of the KOT is to inform instruction, so that kindergarten teachers can use the information about their students' knowledge and skills…

This report focuses on children aged 8 to 11 and their enjoyment of reading, reading behaviour, and attitudes toward reading. It synthesises information from surveys that have been conducted since 2005, but most heavily exploits data from the fourth annual literacy survey conducted in November/December 2013 in which 10,946 8 to 11-year-olds…

Children who start school with strong language skills initiate a trajectory of academic success, while children with weaker skills are likely to struggle. Research has demonstrated that media and parent-child interactions, both characteristics of the home literacy environment, influence children's language skills. Using a national sample of…

Bikeability (2014) is described as "cycling proficiency for the 21st century". The training is practical, skill-based, outcome-led and designed to "boost the confidence of the trainee and to minimise risk". There are three levels of training and children typically start Bikeability lessons once they have learned to ride a bike.…

Increasing awareness of the vital developmental implications of the care and education of young children has led to efforts in Maryland to advance early childhood care and education (ECCE). To that end, Maryland has consolidated ECCE services into one division of the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) and developed a number of…

Reading comprehension--the ability to understand the meaning of text--is a foundational ability that enables children to learn in school and throughout life. Children who struggle with reading comprehension in the third or fourth grade are at high risk for dropping out of school, with detrimental effects on their future employment, income, and…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop and cross-validate an equation based on ActiGraph accelerometer GT3X output to predict children and youth's energy expenditure (EE) of physical activity (PA). Method: Participants were 367 Chinese children and youth (179 boys and 188 girls, aged 9 to 17 years old) who wore 1 ActiGraph GT3X…

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), was first launched in 1997 as a periodic longitudinal study of program performance. Successive nationally representative samples of Head Start children and their families,…

Past research suggests that young children are incapable of reporting information about their own behavior problems. To test this, we examined the validity and the usefulness of children's self-reports in the E-Risk Study, a nationally representative birth cohort of 2,232 children. We used the Berkeley Puppet Interview to obtain children's…

In February 2007, First 5 LA contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) and its subcontractors, Juarez and Associates, American Institutes for Research (AIR), and Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Research (BEAR) Center, to conduct the First 5 LA/LAUP Universal Preschool Child Outcomes Study (UPCOS). The authors conducted the study…

To better understand what is known about the association between childhood asthma, school attendance, and academic outcomes, the authors reviewed published studies investigating this topic. Tables with brief descriptions of each study's research methodology and outcomes are included. Research reveals evidence that rates of absenteeism are higher…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of three basic demographic variables on reading test scores for students in the middle elementary grades. Limited English proficiency (LEP), race/ethnicity and socio-economic status (SES) were studied to determine their influence individually and in combination on performance in large-scale…