As policymakers contemplate expanding preschool opportunities for low-income children, one possibility is to fund 2, rather than 1 year of Head Start for children at ages 3 and 4. Another option is to offer 1 year of Head Start followed by 1 year of pre-K. We ask which of these options is more effective. We use data from the Oklahoma pre-K study…

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…

Substantial research supports the need for early intervention efforts for students at risk for failure. Despite the empirically documented importance of early, explicit reading intervention for students who enter school without critical prereading skills, many kindergarten programs delay intensive reading instruction until later in the year.…

To study the effect of nursery school attendance on reading readiness at the kindergarten level, a questionnaire was sent to the parents of 40 kindergarten students in order to determine which children had attended a nursery school program, when, and for how long. Scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills were then recorded for all respondents. The…

The installation of the SWRL/Ginn Kindergarten Program on a wide-scale national basis provided an occasion to test the claim that important instructional outcomes may be attained reliably in a variety of school settings with a wide variety of pupils through the use of a systematically developed educational product. Characteristics of the…

This report documents the 1972-73 field test of teacher training techniques for the Prereading Skills Program. The program is a kindergarten-level instructional program designed to prepare children for beginning reading instruction. Four teachers in three Wisconsin schools participated in the field test of teacher training techniques. Fourteen…

Grade retention has been the de facto policy for children with academic difficulties in many Latin American countries [Schiefelbein, E., & Wolff, L. (1992). "Repetition and inadequate achievement in Latin America's primary schools: a review of magnitudes, causes, relationships, and strategies." Washington, DC: World Bank.]. In Costa…