PreK/Early Childhood
State Early Care and Education Public Policy Developments: Fiscal Year 2012
This National Association for the Education of Young Children report highlights enacted legislation, new initiatives approved by states, major funding increases and decreases, and any other significant fiscal or policy changes that impact early childhood education in the states for Fiscal Year 2012.
Teaching by Listening: The Importance of Adult-Child Conversation to Language Development
To help language development in young children, parents should not only talk and read to their children, but engage in two-way conversations. This study, led by UCLA Researcher Frederick Zimmerman, found that while parents should continue to talk, read, and tell their children stories, it is also important to allow children to ask questions and participate in the conversation as a way to improve language development.
The Effectiveness of a Program to Accelerate Vocabulary Development in Kindergarten (VOCAB)
Children from disadvantaged backgrounds often have not learned the vocabulary that is required to learn to read and comprehend academic text. This study, prepared by the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance with the Southern Regional Educational Laboratory, gauges the effectiveness of interventions for building vocabulary skills among kindergarten students.
A new study looks at the extent to which school absences in the early grades exacerbate class differences and fuel the nagging achievement gap.
Local School Readiness Systems
Efforts to prepare our youngest children for school are often fragmented and isolated in silos, according to a new study by the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and the Urban Institute. The study of eight cities found that children in need of services are often concentrated in low-income neighborhoods and that the best results are likely when a collaboration of stakeholders, inside and outside government, adopts a coherent school readiness system.
This paper by Flavia Cunha and James J. Heckman explores the value of noncognitive skills, such as dependability and persistence, that children develop in preschool. While preK may not always raise IQ, it can help children develop self control and other skills that are crucial to success in school and in life.
Engaged Families, Effective PreK: State Policies That Bolster Student Success
This report explores the ways family involvement enhances high-quality preK. It also recommends actions policy makers can take to ensure that state programs help families establish a firm foundation of engagement in their children’s learning when it matters most – in the early years of life.
The seventh in a series of annual reports profiling state-funded prekindergarten programs in the United States presents data on state-funded prekindergarten during the 2008-2009 school year. The first report in this series focused on programs for the 2001-2002 school year and established a baseline against which we may now measure progress over eight years. From the National Institute for Early Education Research.
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