Purpose: This study examined the extent to which teacher responsivity education affected preschoolers' language and literacy development over an academic year. Additional aims were to determine whether children's initial language abilities and teachers' use of responsivity strategies were associated with language outcomes, in particular. Method:…

Relations between early problem behavior in preschool classrooms and a comprehensive set of school readiness outcomes were examined for a stratified random sample (N = 256) of 4-year-old children enrolled in a large, urban school district Head Start program. A series of multilevel models examined the unique contribution of early problem behavior…

High-quality pre-K that really improves children's outcomes--that's the goal early childhood professionals will work toward with this groundbreaking text, the first volume in the NEW National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education (NCRECE) series. Combining the most current knowledge of top researchers, policy makers, and federal and…

Backers of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law based their support on the belief that teachers and administrators primarily were responsible for low levels of achievement by America's poor. This one-sided view about who is responsible for the nation's achievement gap is both inadequate and unsupported by the evidence. The author argues that harsh…

Compared with the traditional focus on developmental problems, research on positive development is relatively new. Empirical research in children's well-being has been scarce. The aim of this study was to develop a theoretically and empirically based instrument for practitioners to observe and assess preschool children's well-being in early…

Associations between parenting quality and 3-year-olds' school readiness, receptive, and expressive language were examined in relation to the amount of time they spent in childcare, based on data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,364). Associations for school readiness and receptive language were stronger among…

"Evaluation Science Briefs" summarize the findings and implications of a recent study evaluating the effects of an early childhood program or environment. This Brief evaluates the study "An Effectiveness-Based Evaluation of Five State Pre-Kindergarten Programs" (V. C. Wong, T. D. Cook, W. S. Barnett, and K. Jung.) States have high aspirations for…

This study examines early childhood educators' beliefs about "what" children need prior to before entering kindergarten. Focus group interviews were conducted with early childhood educators from three learning settings: public center-based programs, private center-based programs, and family child care centers. Qualitative methods were used to…

In today's knowledge driven economy a college degree is critical to the success of a competitive workforce. Yet in 2008, only 19 percent of Latinos, 29 percent of blacks, and 39 percent of whites 25 and over had earned an associate degree or higher. At a time when all students will have to accelerate success to meet national degree completion…

Over the last two decades there have been a number of efforts to catalogue and determine how much is spent on federal education programs. However, because education programs are administered by agencies throughout the federal government, and there is no standard definition of a federal education program, there currently is no single source that…

This paper presents an overview of the Head Start program. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act), $1 billion will be provided to the Office of Head Start to promote the school readiness of low-income children, including children on federally-recognized reservations and children of migratory farm workers, by enhancing…

In this study, we examined the developmental pathways from children's family environment to school readiness within a low-income sample (N = 1,046), with a specific focus on the role of sustained attention. Six distinct factors of the family environment representing maternal parenting behaviors, the physical home environment, and maternal mental…

Arts enrichment provides varied channels for acquiring school readiness skills and may offer important educational opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds and with diverse needs. Study 1 examined achievement within an arts enrichment preschool that served low-income children. Results indicated that students practiced school readiness…

This article describes Washington State's Student Achievement Initiative, an accountability system implemented in 2005-06 that measures students' gains in college readiness, college credits earned, and degree or certificate completion. The goal of the initiative is to increase educational attainment by focusing on the critical momentum points…

Using data from the National Early Head Start (EHS) Research and Evaluation Project (N = 1851), the current study examined relations among cumulative family and social risk, assessed during infancy and the preschool years, and children's prekindergarten achievement, self-regulatory skills, and problematic social behavior, testing if these…