This report summarizes the findings from a study on the impacts of Head Start on children and families during the children's preschool, kindergarten, and 1st grade years. Its study goals were to: (1) Determine the impact of Head Start on children's school readiness, and on parental practices that support children's development; and to (2)…

The problem of bias in qualitative research particularly is still debated in methodology texts and there is a lack of agreement on how much researcher influence is acceptable, whether or not it needs to be "controlled", and how it might be accounted for. Denzin (1994) refers to this as the "interpretive crisis" (p. 501). I…

This report addresses the following four questions by reporting on the impacts of Head Start on children and families during the children's preschool, kindergarten, and 1st grade years: (1) What difference does Head Start make to key outcomes of development and learning (and in particular, the multiple domains of school readiness) for low-income…

The conditional intervention principle is a formal principle that relates patterns of interventions and outcomes to causal structure. It is a central assumption of experimental design and the causal Bayes net formalism. Two studies suggest that preschoolers can use the conditional intervention principle to distinguish causal chains, common cause…

To reflect on the mathematics achievement of children engaging "Algebra and Analogies for Kids," the teacher researcher will explore the following inquiry: What happens when kids display analogical thinking in an algebra project? Specifically, the proposed study will examine the reasoning of five children in portfolios of best works and selected…

Background/Context: There is much rhetoric regarding "parents and teachers as partners" despite little evidence that such partnerships, as described in the early childhood education literature, actually develop. The literature on parent-teacher partnerships does not examine parents' and teachers' interactions or what those interactions mean to…

Increasing demands for evidence-based early childhood services and the need by policymakers to know whether a program is effective or whether it warrants a significant investment of public and/or private funds--coupled with the often-politicized debate around these topics--make it imperative for policymakers and civic leaders to have independent…

We compared the effects of a high-probability (high-"p") instruction sequence and a fixed-time (FT) schedule of reinforcement on the compliance of 2 typically developing children. A multielement experimental design with a reversal component was implemented according to a multiple baseline across participants arrangement. Both the high-"p" and FT…

Purpose: In this study, the authors investigated speech rhythm acquisition by bilingual Spanish-English-speaking children, comparing their performance with functionally monolingual peers in both languages and to monolingual and bilingual adults. Method: Participants included younger children (3;9 [years;months] to 4;5.15 [years;months.days]),…

Much of the current rhetoric in areas of child and family research and in early childhood education emphasizes the importance of listening to children in research that has a direct impact on them. Despite this, there remain qualms in some research contexts and amongst some researchers about the reliability, validity and generalizability of…

To date, reports of reading interventions for students at risk for emotional/behavioral disorders (E/BD) that have been published in refereed journals have involved sustained support by university or school-site personnel. This study examined the efficacy and feasibility of a reading intervention that 2 general education teachers implemented in…

Of interest in this study were the factors that lead to quality child care centers. The Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R) was examined for its utility as an effective training device to enlighten directors and classroom teachers of what constitutes quality classrooms. An experimental design was employed for this study.…

Cultural context should be taken into account in our research so that we characterize how people behave in their everyday lives, not just a sterile laboratory environment. Much developmental research treats children as though they group in a sociocultural vacuum. Such research misses important points about development. The article illustrates the…

This article presents evidence from a national evaluation of the effects of 21st Century Community Learning Center after-school programs. The study was conducted in 12 school districts and 26 after-school centers, at which 2,308 elementary school students who were interested in attending a center were randomly assigned either to the treatment or…

Increasing diversity in the student population intensifies the need for and the difficulties of establishing culturally sensitive and meaningful communication between teachers and parents. This study examined the practices of early childhood and elementary teachers concerning culturally sensitive home-school communication. As a second phase of a…