Prior research evaluating school entry age effects has largely overlooked the effects on social-behavioral skills despite the growing recognition of returns to such skills. This study is the first to examine the effects of kindergarten entry age on children's social-behavioral outcomes using 9 years of panel data on a national sample of U.S.…

We investigated effects of listening to single or multiple storybook readings versus testing with and without feedback on children's breadth (i.e., the number of words) and depth (i.e., the quality of word knowledge) of vocabulary learning. Kindergartners (n = 125) were divided into 3 intervention and 1 control conditions. Children in the control…

The development of numerical abilities was examined in three groups of 5 year-olds: one including 13 children accomplishing a numerical training in pencil-and-paper format (EG1); another group including 21 children accomplished a homologous training in computerized format; the remaining 24 children were assigned to the control group (CG). The…

Piecewise growth models (PGMs) were used to estimate and model changes in the preliteracy skill development of kindergartners in a moderately sized school district in the Pacific Northwest. PGMs were applied to interrupted time-series (ITS) data that arose within the context of a response-to-intervention (RtI) instructional framework. During the…

Previous research has indicated benefits and potential pitfalls of within-class homogeneous and heterogeneous ability grouping for elementary math learning. However, there has been scant evidence with regard to the impacts of grouping for language minority kindergartners who may experience the small group setting differentially due to their…

Kindergarten students are asked to perform at a level formerly expected of first grade students and are expected to be well on their way to reading (Bassard & Boehm, 2007). With tight school budgets, site leaders must choose wisely about allocation of resources and determine the most effective means of helping students, especially those…

This study investigated the feasibility of multicomponent linguistic awareness intervention on early literacy skills in at-risk kindergarteners. Seventeen students, including native Spanish-speaking English language learners (n = 10) and native English speakers (n = 7), participated in a 6-week small-group therapy program, for a total of 12…

In recent years, a literature has emerged describing contributions fathers make to the development of very young children. Scholars suggest that active play may be a specific area of parenting in which fathers are primary and, further, that this type of play helps children experience intense emotions and learn to regulate them. However, this…

Our nation's classrooms have become increasingly racially and ethnically diverse. Given these demographic changes, many policymakers and practitioners have expressed the need for increased attention to how teacher diversity might be linked to reducing racial/ethnic differences in teachers' ratings of social-emotional skills for students of color.…

This study uses 9 years of longitudinal, student-level data from the Los Angeles Unified School District to provide updated, empirically-based estimates of the time necessary for English learners (ELs) to become reclassified as proficient in English, as well as factors associated with variation in time to reclassification. To illustrate how…

The current study examined whether Head Start children who experienced a high-quality preschool intervention, "Exceptional Coaching for Early Language and Literacy" ("ExCELL"), as three-year-olds began the subsequent pre-kindergarten (or four-year-old) year with stronger language and literacy skills than same-age peers who…

Writing down spoken number words (transcoding) is an ability that is predictive of math performance and related to working memory ability. We analysed these relationships in a large sample of over 25,000 children, from kindergarten to the end of primary school, who solved transcoding items with a computer adaptive system. Furthermore, we…

Recent studies show that texting-based interventions can produce educational benefits in children across a range of ages. We study the effects of a text-based program for kindergarten parents, distinguishing a general program from one that adds differentiation and personalization based on the child's developmental level. Children in the…

We explore the use of instrumental variables (IV) analysis with a multisite randomized trial to estimate the effect of a mediating variable on an outcome in cases where it can be assumed that the observed mediator is the only mechanism linking treatment assignment to outcomes, an assumption known in the IV literature as the exclusion restriction.…

Resumptive pronouns are often regarded as a last-resort strategy for rescuing illicit long-distance dependencies. Previous work has demonstrated a facilitative role for resumptive pronouns in production as well as in comprehension, though not a grammatical option in the languages. This study examined whether the same pattern is found in Cantonese,…