This descriptive study provides a snapshot of the correlations between a child's learning experiences a year before entering kindergarten and the reading/literacy skills a child has entering kindergarten. Early literacy assessment scores were used to evaluate the effectiveness of four categories of learning experiences prior to entering…

Policy and academic interest in young children has grown substantially in recent years, prompted in part by advancements in the scientific understanding of early childhood and mounting evidence of the importance of early experiences for later development. Of particular concern is the finding that achievement disparities among different racial,…

The goal of this longitudinal study is to examine the relationships between early child factors (i.e., age at identification, enrollment in early intervention, oral language skills) and school readiness skills (i.e., conceptual knowledge) in a group of young children with hearing loss (HL). Standardized language, cognition, and conceptual…

Duncan et al. (2007) presented a new methodology for identifying kindergarten readiness factors and quantifying their importance by determining which of children's developing skills measured around kindergarten entrance would predict later reading and math achievement. This article extends Duncan et al.'s work to identify kindergarten readiness…

Despite the conceptual link between self-regulation skills and school readiness capacities, questions remain regarding how distinct but related facets of self-regulation (i.e., attention regulation, behavior regulation) differentially impact the development of school readiness capacities during early childhood. Additionally, little is known about…

The purpose of this study was to develop a quantitative and qualitative profile to investigate whether there was a significant difference in the reading performance of kindergarten students that did or did not attend prekindergarten by examining scores of the August benchmarks on the Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). Using…

The purpose of this study was to examine the concurrent validity of two book and print awareness tests, the Concepts About Print test (CAP) and the Screening of Reading Readiness (SORR)--Book and Print Awareness portion. The variables of gender, family income, parents' education levels, and age were also examined to determine the effect that they…

Many factors affect attitudes toward reading, including parent and other caretaker support, sibling attitudes, school and library programs, curriculum and instruction, and, of course, teachers. While working with preservice teachers pursuing licensure in pre-kindergarten through adolescent education, it became evident that the students had many…

The focus of this study was to investigate the influence of parental involvement on kindergarten learners' reading readiness. Questions addressed were (a) To what extent does parental involvement influence kindergarten learners' reading readiness? (b) How do parental socioeconomic factors contribute to kindergarten learners' reading readiness? (c)…

This study is a population-based investigation of children's school readiness with a national sample of low-income children, utilizing data from the Family and Children's Experiences Survey (FACES; 2000-2003). Guided by a developmental ecological framework, we posed 3 research questions: (a) How do children's early school readiness skills in the…

Higher quality child care during infancy and early childhood (6-54 months of age) was examined as a moderator of associations between family economic status and children's (N = 1,364) math and reading achievement in middle childhood (4.5-11 years of age). Low income was less strongly predictive of underachievement for children who had been in…

Six remedial reading teachers in a large, rural school district participated in a form of professional development called Teaching as Intentional Learning, based on an inquiry process. Their topic of inquiry was formative assessment. Professional development comprised both direct instruction and inquiry learning in teachers' own classrooms. This…

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a psychiatric condition that has been increasingly diagnosed in young American children, with boys being diagnosed three times more frequently than their female peers. As a result, more children than ever are being treated with powerful stimulant medications which can have various desired and undesired…

The Bracken School Readiness Assessment (BSRA) was administered to all kindergarten students enrolled in two rural elementary schools in the fall of 2004. Eight months later, the reading portion of the Metropolitan Readiness Tests, 6th Edition (MRT-6) was administered. Teachers were asked to indicate whether they had concerns about each student's…

The "Building Blocks PreK Math Curriculum" (Clements & Sarama, 2007) was designed to facilitate children's engagement in math and talk about math. Much research investigates the effect of curriculum on classrooms or teacher practices. This study used a mediational model to look at a curriculum's effect on children's achievement gain, operating…