To explore the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and language domain (vocabulary, syntax, process), the QUILS was administered to 212 kindergartners. Children from very-high poverty schools performed significantly below children from high poverty and mid-low poverty schools. SES impacts language-learning processes (i.e., fast…

Transition to kindergarten is an important developmental milestone for children and families. This study explored factors associated with kindergarten readiness focusing on the impact of a summer kindergarten transition program. A mixed-method design was employed, and the qualitative data from interviews with 16 randomly selected kindergarten…

Young children's engagement in Education for Sustainability has focussed predominantly on their participation in environment-based initiatives or practices. Reasons for this include a notion that wider dimensions of sustainability, including social, political and economic areas of concern can be too complex and overwhelming for young children.…

The Ready for School, Ready for Life initiative in Guilford County, North Carolina, aims to support interconnected programs and services for young children and their families with the goal of having children enter kindergarten ready for learning. The initiative aims to strengthen connections among existing programs in Guilford County and provide…

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the proportion of Americans living in moderate- and high-poverty neighborhoods increased. This trend was most pronounced among families with children. Numerous studies have linked higher rates of neighborhood poverty with less favorable outcomes, including low "school readiness," defined…

The research literature well establishes that adverse conditions, such as poverty, can affect children's cognitive development and academic achievement. Educators are challenged to translate these understandings into instructional practices grounded in research that best meet the needs of students, especially students living in poverty who are at…

Research in developmental psychology often contains samples where education and income are highly related. This study examines characteristics of low-income families who have at least one parent with a college education and how their children's achievement and parenting practices compare to other types of families. Using the Early Childhood…

Teachers provide emotional and behavioral supports essential for success in the classroom. This study examined the roles of child interpersonal skills, teacher expectations, and school racial and poverty compositions on the quality of relationships formed between teachers and children. A subsample from the Early Childhood Longitudinal…

Students who struggle to read at an early age are likely to continue struggling for not only the rest of their schooling, but the rest of their lives. Schools need to begin adopting research-based reading programs and measuring their effectiveness formatively throughout the school year. Research suggests that effective reading programs need to…

Phonemic awareness (PA) includes rhyming, phoneme isolation, blending, and segmenting, but the relative importance of each component is unclear, especially for students from high-poverty areas. The current study examined the relationship between components of PA and an early literacy measure among 192 kindergarten students from high-poverty urban…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not a child's chronological age at the onset of kindergarten influences foundational literacy skills and if there is an impact on long-term reading achievement. Research indicates that there are several factors that influence school readiness and the foundational literacy skills that must be…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the influence of social-emotional competence (SEC) and various other student- and school-level variables on the academic achievement of kindergarteners. Data were collected on a nationally representative cohort of kindergarteners as part of the United States Department of Education's Early…

Research examining the effects of subsidized childcare prior to school entry for child development is inconsistent. This population-based study examines the relationship between two poverty levels (extreme poor and working poor) and children's developmental outcomes, as measured by the Early Development Instrument. It also determines the extent to…

Children of immigrants will make up a critical share of our nation's future workforce, but they are less likely than other children to participate in early education programs known to support school readiness and long-term productivity. This study describes the characteristics and enrollment of children of immigrants using the most current and…

One of the tensions in conducting participatory literacy research with young children is finding the balance between protection and voice. In this paper, we describe how we sought to create participant-centred research techniques within the evolving design of a yearlong action research study with kindergarten students. Through weekly classroom…