Although phonological awareness (PA) is an essential preliteracy skill with well-established predictive validity for elementary school reading success, previous research indicates that PA intervention does not demonstrate long term effects on reading. The theory of automaticity was the underlying foundation used to understand the importance of…

In 2012-2013, AISD pre-K students demonstrated growth in receptive vocabulary on a nationally-normed test. Students enrolled in multiple programs showed greater growth in receptive vocabulary in their native language than did other pre-K students. [Funding for this report was provided by Title I funds.]

Reading Recovery (RR) is a short-term early intervention designed to help the lowest-achieving readers in first grade reach average levels of classroom performance in literacy. Students identified to receive Reading Recovery meet individually with a specially trained Reading Recovery (RR) teacher every school day for 30-minute lessons over a…

Research Findings: The aim of this longitudinal study was to explore peer relationships across the transition from preschool to school. Participants were 35 (17 male) children attending the Irish preschool initiative Early Start (M age = 49.31 months). Sociometric measures were employed on two occasions: at the end of preschool and in the first…

Much has been written about the use of threat assessment. Schools are encouraged to have threat assessment teams and a threat assessment process as part of a comprehensive safe schools effort. Encouraging and enabling all members of the school community to report possible threats in a timely manner is an essential component of an effective threat…

Developmental trajectories in delinquency through adolescence were studied along with family and peer relationship problems. Drawing from eight waves of data over seven years, we conducted trajectory analyses with a sample of 746 students (402 girls; 344 boys). Analyzing girls and boys together, a five-class model emerged: 60% of the adolescents…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-446), enacted by the United States Congress on December 3, 2004, is the most recent reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), federal legislation which is specifically focused on the education of children with disabilities. As of Fall…

The symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often begin early in life. In fact, many young children enter school with behavioral and cognitive symptoms that put them at a significant disadvantage compared with their typically-developing peers. Over the past several decades, researchers, psychologists and educators have devoted…

Combinatorial abilities are fundamental to experimental thinking. The aim of this work was to design didactic objects that will stimulate preschoolers' experimental thinking and to study young children's thinking in relation to these objects. Six heuristic rules for the design of didactic objects are specified, and the responses of 623 children…

There is broad conceptual consensus that the effectiveness and efficiency of early childhood intervention (ECI) for vulnerable children is correlated with the active involvement and full participation of parents. This requires a general understanding of each family's needs and desires and specific strategies for determining what each family needs…

"A_Tempo" is a research project that is currently under development in Galicia, an autonomous community of Spain. Its main aim is to propose an effective universal screening procedure for early identification of developmental disorders in children from zero to three years of age who attend Galician pre-primary schools.…

This study describes the dimensionality and continuum of Spanish phonological awareness (PA) skills in 3- to 6-year-old children. A 3 x 4 factorial design crossed word structure of test items (word, syllable, phoneme) with task (blending multiple-choice, blending free-response, elision multiple-choice, elision free-response) to assess 12 PA…

"Teacher, I can read!" exclaimed Saree, a fourth-quarter second grader who was placed in the lowest of reading groups at a southwest side elementary school in Chicago. This was her proud announcement after three weeks of intensive intervention with Ms. Gomez, a student teacher in her final semester at Chicago State University. "Ms.…

This study investigated the effect of a large group narrative intervention on diverse preschoolers' narrative language skills with aims to explore questions of treatment efficacy and differential response to intervention. A quasi-experimental, pretest/posttest comparison group research design was employed with 71 preschool children. Classrooms…

This 19th annual edition of "Quality Counts" takes a broad look at the issues and forces shaping the discussion around early-childhood education. It examines how new academic demands and the push for accountability are changing the nature of early-childhood education for school administrators, teachers, and children alike. Reporters…