Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs provide skills needed for successful kindergarten strides, especially for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. While Florida's Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten (VPK) program currently serves most four-year-olds, some educators have questioned the program's quality. The purpose of this study was to…

Many cognitive self-regulation (CSR) measures are related to the academic achievement of prekindergarten children and are thus of potential interest for school readiness screening and as outcome variables in intervention research aimed at improving those skills in order to facilitate learning. The objective of this study was to identify…

The collision of the childhood obesity epidemic with pressure to achieve high academic standards is of serious concern in the United States. Growing numbers of low-income, minority children face double jeopardy as alarming obesity rates further widen existing achievement gaps. Health and education disparities persist when children enter…

An overview of evaluation research on the effects of center-based Head Start, home-based intervention programs for infants and toddlers, and Follow Through is presented. (JD)

Findings suggest that the child who is curious, alert, and assertive will learn more from his environment and that the child who is passive, apathetic, and withdrawn will learn less about his environment because of his diminished contact. (Authors)

A follow-up study of the Early Childhood Education Project (ECEP) was conducted in Richmond, Virginia to determine the effects of preschool experiences on selected aspects of pupil performance at the beginning and completion of grade 1. EPEC is a Head Start type program organized for the regular school year. The sample was divided into three…

Although normative figures of the performance of late kindergarten and entering first grade students on standardized readiness measures are usually available in the test manuals, no such data is available for pupils about to enter kindergarten. In order to obtain such data, 638 kindergarten (P-K) children in Minnesota were tested on three…

While children are ready for school by virtue of having attained the chronological age for school entry established by the state, school readiness refers to the conditions that promote their readiness to succeed in school. Wisconsin is one of 17 states participating in the National School Readiness Indicators Initiative, the aim of which is to…

This paper describes an external evaluation study of the Responsive Environment Early Education Program (formerly known as the Responsive Environment Program for Spanish American Children), an educational intervention program for "high risk" (low birth weight) 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children in Clovis, New Mexico. Major goals of the…

Helping teachers decide the critical point when a young child is ready to learn and the appropriate strategy to use with that child is the crux of this successful program. Scaffolding Early Literacy is helping close the learning gap between higher-performing students and minority, special needs, and low socioeconomic students. (Contains 3…

Serving prekindergarten through grade 5, the project was designed to improve the educational performance of children with learning problems (without regard to categorical labels) and thus support the work of the classroom teacher in the child's normal school setting. Team screening processes were developed to identify preschool or school age…