Early educational interventions, such as Head Start, have been widely recognized as an effective way to mitigate the negative effects of poverty on early learning and development (Camilli, Vargas, Ryan, & Barnett, 2010). In the past decade, there has been a strong expansion of early childhood programming, including Head Start and state-funded…

Young children are often enrolled in either AM (morning) or PM (afternoon) sessions in early childhood programs. However, little research is available on this routine practice. We used multilevel analysis to investigate if there are differences in the literacy, math, and social outcomes for children who participate in AM or PM sessions beyond…

This study is a randomized control trial of full- versus half-day prekindergarten (pre-K) in a school district near Denver, Colorado. Four-year-old children were randomly assigned an offer of half-day (4 days/week) or full-day (5 days/week) pre-K that increased class time by 600 hours. The full-day pre-K offer produced substantial, positive…

Two-year, play-based, full-day kindergarten (FDK) has been shown to have long-term academic and self-regulation benefits for young children. This article addresses the question of whether FDK has particular benefits for children who may be at risk for placement in special education. Participants included 592 kindergarten children in their second…

In 2010, the province of Ontario introduced a new universal two-year play-based full-day kindergarten program. The authors exploited the phasing-in of this program over five years, allowing a natural experiment in which children from full-day kindergarten could be compared with those from half-day kindergarten in matched neighborhoods. Children (N…

Research Findings: This study used data from a national sample to examine differences in school outcomes at the end of kindergarten between Head Start children who attended full-day and half-day programs. Propensity scores were used to match children who experienced different intensities of the program on a series of demographic characteristics in…

Data in this report suggest that AISD's full-day prekindergarten (pre-K) program helped reduce the number of students who were retained a grade level or were placed in special education services. The cost per student for full-day pre-K was less than the costs associated with grade-level retention or special education services.

This is an executive summary of a longer report: "AISD Prekindergarten Program Longitudinal Summary Report Issue 2: Half-Day versus Full-Day Programs." In the Austin Independent School District, full-day pre-K students from the 2001-2002 cohort were more likely to pass the 2010 Texas state assessment for 7th-grade reading TAKS than were…

Children from low-income families benefit remarkably from exposure to compensatory education that began with Head Start in 1965 and aimed to improve school readiness skills by design. While empirical evidence has supported more instructional time in elementary and secondary schools for low-income students, little is known that whether increasing…

Full-day pre-K students from the 2001-2002 cohort were more likely to pass the 2010 7th-grade reading TAKS than were kindergarten students from the 2002-2003 cohort who were assumed eligible for pre-K but did not attend pre-K in 2001-2002. There is a full report and a separate executive summary report. [For the executive summary of this study, see…

This is the full report, and a separate research brief also was published. Austin Independent School District (AISD) served 5,450 pre-K students in 2009-2010. Approximately 70% of sampled English-speaking pre-K students and 74% of sampled Spanish-speaking pre-K students had faster than the expected growth rate on an assessment of receptive…

This report summarizes Austin Independent School District's prekindergarten student data from 2001-2002 (half-day and full-day programs) and 2007-2008 (full-day program only), including student demographics, academic performance, and attendance.

Austin Independent School District provided full-day prekindergarten to 5,196 4-year-olds in 2008-2009 at 66 schools. Seventy percent or more of students made measureable gains on a test of receptive vocabulary, and average gains showed growth about two times greater than that expected for 4-year-olds after a 7-month period.

This report summarizes Austin Independent School District's prekindergarten program for the 2007-2008 school year.

This report summarizes evaluation results from AISD's prekindergarten program during school year 2000-2001.