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Pre-K Picks
Dear Supporter,
This issue of Pre-K Picks features several trends in early education research worth keeping an eye on. I was especially intrigued by some recent research activities on the role of play, alignment between early education and K-12, and early childhood data and related policies. I've included highlights from publications reviewing the latest policy updates for both pre-kindergarten and child care, including one that examines the differences in policies and quality standards that exist between the two.
Later this month, I'll be presenting and learning at the Smart Start annual conference. Look for interesting resources I find there in the next installment of the Picks. By the way, for those interested in reviewing previous issues of Pre-K Picks, I wanted to let you know they are now archived on our website.
Finally, a special
thanks goes to Amy Katzel from the Pre-K Now communications team
for contributing the piece on the role of play in early
education. Look for more of her work in upcoming Picks editions
as she continues researching the topic for a brief to be
published later this year.
Albert Wat
Pre-K Now, a
campaign of the Pew Center on the States
P.S. What's your top resource pick to use in next month's newsletter? E-mail me at awat@pewtrusts.org.
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1. Articles explore the role of play in early education When the role of play is discussed in early education policy, the debate is often caught between those who are concerned that early childhood programs take away opportunities for play, and those who think that children do not learn as much when play is included in the curriculum. Fortunately, a number of studies are emerging to provide a more evidence-based perspective. A recent article in Science Daily explored the importance of play in early learning, and according to a researcher at the University of Illinois Champagne-Urbana, literacy and learning begin with imaginative play. While teaching the alphabet and working with children on letters and sounds are important, too much structured learning can actually be counterproductive to a child's cognitive development. According to the researcher, the most important growth stems from problem solving, intellectual inquiry, and the ability to ask questions. Open-ended activities like play provide the greatest opportunities for young children to develop these skills.Scientific American also recently featured an article on the issue. After learning about the abusive childhoods experienced by many criminals, a psychiatrist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston interviewed more than 6,000 offenders about their childhoods and concluded that "a lack of opportunities for unstructured, imaginative play can keep children from growing into happy, well-adjusted adults." A psychologist at the University of Minnesota added that unstructured play in groups is crucial to healthy social development and communication skills that are continually needed throughout adolescence and adulthood. These interactions require children to learn, to take turns, and use sophisticated and descriptive language. 2. Policy groups add their stamp of approval on high-quality pre-k In the spirit of prioritizing evidence above ideology in policymaking, the Century Foundation provides three examples of education reforms that have demonstrated effectiveness, "based on the lion's share of research to date." One is Oklahoma's pre-k-for-all program, which has been shown to increase children's early literacy and math skills, regardless of family income or background. Another featured reform is the comprehensive strategy used in low-income, urban school districts in New Jersey, where significant gains in fourth grade test scores have been made since 1999. A critical factor in New Jersey's success, according to the brief, is the provision of high-quality pre-k for all three and four year olds in these districts and an emphasis on early literacy. For a fuller account of this effort, including its pre-k initiative, you may want to read a new book published by the Century Foundation, called In Plain Sight. In another effort to disseminate research-based public policies, the Center for the Study of Social Policy has created a new website, PolicyForResults, which provides guidance on how to most effectively meet the needs of children and families. Among the best practices highlighted are implementing high-quality pre-k, increasing access to child care, and investing in infant and toddler programs. The website also contains a section on how to make the most of federal funds -- including those from the federal economic recovery package -- to strengthen families and improve children's outcomes. 3. Reports call for increased alignment between early education and K-12 education The past few months have seen a surge in the number of resources available to support the alignment of early education with the K-12 system. Such alignment typically involves integrating child development concepts into classroom practices so that teaching strategies fit the way young children think and learn. Practically speaking, this means making sure that pre-k standards, curriculum, assessments, and professional development work well with those at the K-12 level. In a series of briefs, FirstSchool spells out the critical elements of an effectively aligned system that "unites the best of early childhood, elementary, and special education." The briefs illuminate strategies that effectively support alignment from pre-k through third grade -- everything from financing tactics, and physical design of the classroom to the use of time during the school day. Of particular note is the brief (PDF), "Using Developmental Science to Transform Children's Early School Experiences," which describes seven ways teaching practices would change if schools employed a pre-k to 3 approach. For instance, in addition to addressing content knowledge (e.g., reading, math), pre-k and elementary school teachers would more intentionally develop children's thinking skills, such as self-regulation and memory. They would also use different activities, such as play and experimentation, as well as direct instruction. FirstSchool has developed a website that contains research and other resources that help schools achieve this vision. The following three reports make a similar case for pre-k to 3 alignment and provide examples of states' efforts to do so: the Education Commission of the States and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Leadership to Integrate the Learning Curriculum (PDF), and the National Association of State Boards of Education. While their specific recommendations differ somewhat, several themes emerge from these publications:
4. New video on developmentally appropriate practice The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) released an updated statement on "Developmentally Appropriate Practice" (DAP) earlier this year to provide the field with research-based guidelines and principles for working with young children. Recently, NAEYC produced a video to illustrate what DAP looks like in classrooms. In addition to examples of teacher-child interactions and classroom activities, the video also includes narration and commentary by early childhood experts. This NAEYC resource also provides a user's guide to help viewers reflect on and improve their own practice. 5. One-stop compilation of resources on federal recovery funds and pre-k Over the past few months, Pre-K Now has joined the growing number of national organizations compiling information about the use of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for pre-k and early childhood programs. After conducting a series of briefing calls on the subject and compiling the most helpful resources, Pre-K Now posted them in one central location. Topics covered include:
In addition to original Pre-K Now tools and analysis, the site features helpful materials from the Birth to Five Policy Alliance, NACCRRA, NAEYC, ZERO TO THREE, as well as the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Visitors to Recovery Round-Up can also obtain examples of strategies used and guidance issued by state agencies and advocacy organizations to encourage use of ARRA funds on early education. 6. Implications of increasing diversity for early education A paper (PDF) by ZERO TO THREE examines the increasing cultural diversity in the United States and its implications for early education professionals. In particular, the author raises the challenging question of how to address instances when conventional understanding of "best practices" and "healthy" development conflicts with beliefs and behaviors of minority cultures. The paper also includes an extensive bibliography of early childhood studies that include culturally diverse children in their samples. The studies are organized by their respective focus on cognitive development, language development, and social-emotional development. 7. Reports show that quality of child care needs attention Two related reports from the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) conclude that while states have made some progress in improving the quality standards of licensed child care centers in the past two years, on average, they continue to hold a low bar for quality, especially when compared to state pre-k regulations. Both of these reports include state profiles and an assessment of each state's strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. In "We Can Do Better", NACCRRA compiled states' standards for more than 20 indicators of quality related to oversight and regulations and found that only Oklahoma, Tennessee, the District of Columbia, and the Department of Defense child care systems scored a 70 percent or above. All other states reviewed in the report earn the equivalent of a D or F. The standards states were most likely to meet related to health and safety issues. Least likely to be met were standards associated with adequate education requirements for child care directors, teachers, and licensing staff. Many states also do not follow national standards for staff-child ratios or require teachers to provide a comprehensive experience that addresses the full range of developmental areas. The second report, "Unequal Opportunities for Preschoolers," compares standards for child care with those for state pre-k and Head Start across five areas: learning standards, group size, adult-child ratio, lead teacher's education level, and ongoing professional development. The report finds that three and four year olds enrolled in licensed child care programs that are not associated with a given state's pre-k system are more likely to experience lower levels of quality than those children in pre-k or Head Start programs. 8. Early childhood data: where to find them and why they matter If you're in search of early childhood data but don't know where to find it, consider browsing the guide recently compiled by Research Connections. This resource includes almost 50 large datasets related to early care and education. Each dataset is organized by four general areas: Children and Child Development; Parents and Families; Provider, Workforce, and Market; and Programs, Interventions, and Curricula. If you need yet more data, check out KIDS COUNT which recently expanded their database to include more information on immigrant children. The Children's Defense Fund also compiled data from various sources' state-by-state early childhood statistics, such as the proportion of working parents, teacher and child care worker earnings, and cost of child care as compared to cost of in-state college tuition. Given this proliferation of early childhood data, one might wonder about current efforts to use this information for program improvement. Here are two examples of state and national plans to do just that:
9. Guidance on conducting screenings in early education A new brief from the Technical Assistance Center on Social Emotional Intervention discusses the practice of "universal screening" to detect the need for social-emotional interventions with young children. The authors provide helpful guidance on the use of screening instruments and questions early childhood programs need to consider things such as:
The brief emphasizes that while screening can help identify children who may need additional services, it is not meant to diagnose disabilities or disorders, or to serve as the basis of decisions about special education placement. Another important recommendation: even though such screenings are used to assess children's social-emotional development, the evaluation process should also examine other domains, such as cognitive, language, and physical development. The brief describes eight qualities of developmentally appropriate assessment and provides both guidelines for developing a screening program and profiles of sample instruments. An increasingly common screening program to identify special needs among pre-k children is Response to Intervention (RTI), which was originally designed for older children. The National Center for Learning Disabilities has produced a report that provides nine steps to implementing RTI in pre-k settings and examples from programs around the country that are using the RTI model. The major components of Pre-K RTI include:
10. New review of research on brain development available A recent brief (PDF) from the National Institute for Early Education Research examines the science of brain development and its implications for young children. In summary: while brain development is a lifelong process that allows for ongoing learning of new skills and adaptation to changes even late in life, the brain is most malleable in the early childhood years when its processes are much more fluid and more susceptible to environmental influences and simulation -- both positive and negative. For this reason, homes and early childhood settings with interactive, responsive and engaging adults and peers contribute to healthy brain development. It also means that preventing developmental difficulties is easier when identified in younger children. The brief explains that while various regions of the brain have specialized functions (e.g., emotion, memory), they are extremely interconnected. As a result, experiences and programs that foster cognitive development have the potential to affect social-emotional development, and vice versa. 11. Experiment shows executive functions are teachable and transferrable The topic of executive functions (EF) is a growing area of research in early education. EF refers to various cognitive skills that are critical to one's ability to focus on goals and solve problems. A study (PDF) by Swedish researchers focused on two EF skills: memory and inhibitory control (the ability to regulate one's own thinking and behavior). The researchers wanted to know if explicit training can help young children get better at these skills and if so, whether they could then perform better in a set of different tasks that required EF. The study divided 65 four year olds randomly into treatment and control groups. The researchers found that training did improve children's working memory and inhibitory control. However, when presented with new EF-related tasks, only children exposed to training in working memory performed significantly better than the control groups. These findings suggest not only that EF skills can be taught but also that they are transferrable to cognitive tasks that children have never done before. More articles on the early development of executive functions appear in the January 2009 issue of Developmental Science. 12. Researchers discuss the state of cost-benefit research in early education In March, many of the country's leading experts in early education came together at the National Academies to discuss the current state of the science behind conducting cost-benefit analyses in early childhood interventions. The presentations, available online, cover a range of topics including methodological challenges, putting monetary values to various costs and benefits from early childhood programs, the ability to generalize cost-benefit analyses to a wide array of early childhood programs, and policy implications. For a quick overview of the day's discussion, the introductory and concluding presentations may be especially helpful. 13. Local pre-k evaluations show promising results Two recent studies of pre-k programs in Montgomery County, Maryland, and Chicago, Illinois reveal findings that may be instructive for other early education programs. The evaluation (PDF) conducted by the Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland examined whether children in full-day Head Start programs achieved greater gains than those in half-day Head Start or half-day public school pre-k programs. After controlling for demographics such as family income, special education status, English language learner status, and gender, the researchers found that:
Since this evaluation was not a randomized, controlled study, it is unclear to what extent the results reflect differences in effectiveness between a full-day or a half-day program, or if other factors came into play. For instance, the programs that extended their number of hours chose to do so voluntarily. It is possible that some unobserved differences between these programs and those that chose the half-day model had an effect on the outcomes. The second study (PDF), conducted by Mathematica, examined the characteristics of children, teachers and classrooms in Chicago's early childhood programs for four year olds and the progress that these children made during the pre-k year. Three types of programs were included in the study: half-day Head Start programs, full-day programs that blended Head Start and child care funds, and half-day state-funded pre-k programs. The study found that children in all programs made significant gains in literacy, math, and social-emotional skills during their pre-k year, but improvements in math skills were more modest. This may be related to the finding that although teachers reported that they frequently organized math activities, classroom observations noted that only 22 percent of classrooms engaged in these activities. The goal of this study was to describe the relationships among children, teacher, and program variables rather than explain them. As a result, it is not possible to attribute any benefits experienced by the children to characteristics of the programs or teachers. 14. New online resources on infant-toddler policy ZERO TO THREE (ZTT) has put together a collection of online resources to help improve public policies that impact infants, toddlers, and their families. The first is an articulation of a policy agenda, that includes good health (both physical and social-emotional), strong families (including family leave and home visiting policies), positive early learning experiences (including child care, Early Head Start, and early intervention), and systems building work. The second resource is a policy guide that provides advocacy tools and policy options for each of the aforementioned areas. One of the tools, for instance, is an assessment checklist to help advocates and policymakers gauge the standing of their state in the four policy areas. Finally, the ZTT website now offers a searchable database of infant-toddler policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. To ensure you receive your Pre-K Now emails, please add info@preknow.org to your address book now. Did you receive this message from a friend? Sign up for the Pre-K Picks and other updates! This message was sent to [email address]. Visit your subscription management page to modify your email communication preferences or update your personal profile. To stop receiving Pre-K Picks and Post, click to unsubscribe. To stop ALL email from Pre-K Now, click to remove yourself from our lists (or reply via email with "remove or unsubscribe" in the subject line). Pre-K Now, a campaign of
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