To ensure children with disabilities (CWD) have a successful transition to kindergarten, teachers have been encouraged to use high-intensity, or individualized, transition practices. Yet, while limited or lack of administrator support has been cited as a barrier to transition practice use, there exists little research regarding principals'…

Intervention research in education investigates whether and how particular educational programs help students learn. Treatment effect heterogeneity, or variation in a program's impact, makes this effort more complicated, because it means more work must be done to understand what works, for whom, and in what contexts. This dissertation consists of…

Some of the worst long-term outcomes of children are associated with the presence of both externalizing behavior and low academic achievement. Additionally, trajectories of externalizing problem behavior have shown that when children enter kindergarten with problem behavior, it tends to persist and is often associated with low academic…

In a state where only 42 percent of kindergartners scored at or above grade level on the statewide reading assessment in fall 2020, the need for more and better early education is clear. Research shows that attending full-day kindergarten boosts students' academic outcomes, self-confidence, and ability to work and play with other children. Yet…

This study was intended to evaluate the impact of socioeconomically disadvantaged children's participation in the Texas home instruction for parents of preschool youngsters (TXHIPPY) program on their school readiness and academic achievement for grades K to eight. The study used a quasi-experimental design and applied optimal full propensity score…

In March 2020, COVID-19 dramatically and indelibly altered the U.S. educational landscape. Drawing on data from interviews with 30 Michigan preK teachers, Bethany Wilinski, Alyssa Morley, and Jamie Heng-Chieh Wu describe the centrality of family engagement in their pandemic preK education and the practices that contributed to stronger home-school…

In this study, it was aimed to reveal classroom teachers' expectations from pre-school education within the context of literacy teaching and to develop a measurement tool depending on these expectations. The study was conducted with 682 classroom teachers in accordance with the exploratory sequential design, one of the mixed method designs. The…

Many children start school developmentally vulnerable and struggle to keep up with their peers. Children experiencing socioeconomic-disadvantage are at higher risk of poor developmental outcomes. A high-quality education and wrap-around community-service model, such as the Doveton Model, at Doveton College, Australia, may improve outcomes for…

Over past decades in early childhood education, there has been an emerging critique of developmental discourses. Despite this, the universality of child development theory persists and along with it, expectations of a linear progression via prescribed stages and ages. Developmentalism produces a normal in the classroom that sanctions comparisons,…

Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) programs uniquely support the frequent transitions, including the transition to kindergarten, that children in migrant and seasonal families may experience. Lessons learned from how MSHS programs support transitions may have implications for MSHS and other federally funded early care and education (ECE)…

Despite being a critical emergent literacy skill and an indicator of risk for later reading difficulties, relatively little is known about how alphabet knowledge develops over time. This study utilized a person-centered approach and longitudinal sample of 998 preschool-aged children (M = 56.50 months old) to examine patterns in letter name and…

High-quality early childhood education provides children with opportunities for engaged learning. Yet there are currently no classroom-level measures that focus specifically on how teachers support engagement in the classroom, a key underlying dimension of playful learning. We introduce the Playful Learning Across the Years (PLAY) observational…

Understanding achievement and discipline trajectories of Latinx students is critical given disproportionate dropout/pushout rates of Latinx students from schools across the U.S. Using a Critical Race Theory framework, the current study examined longitudinal associations amongst a sample of (N = 1672) Latinx youths' school readiness at kindergarten…

This qualitative case study explored the shifting landscape of literacy learning and instruction in an early childhood program in an agricultural community in the U.S. Midwest. The author traces the impact of deficit thinking and English-only curriculum on the literacy education of young Spanish/English emergent bilinguals, and describes the…

The integration of coding into early childhood education has gained traction globally, yet evidence of its efficacy in fostering diverse developmental domains remains limited. This study aimed to (1) assess effects of a coding curriculum on preschoolers' computational thinking (CT), math, language, and social-emotional outcomes, and (2) examine…