Spanish speakers in the United States are a steadily increasing population, up by 233% since 1980. Given the growing population of dual language learners (DLLs) and the large numbers of Spanish-speaking children enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs, addressing the educational needs of preschool-aged DLLs has become a national imperative.…

Spanish speakers in the United States are a steadily increasing population, up by 233% since 1980. Given the growing population of dual language learners (DLLs) and the large numbers of Spanish-speaking children enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs, addressing the educational needs of preschool-aged DLLs has become a national imperative.…

This study highlights a critical case that can serve as a programmatic and conceptual model for institutional partnerships seeking to diversify the early childhood education (ECE) teaching profession with "homegrown" Latinx teachers. The case study explored the experiences of Latinx students in an ECE program at a regional, public 4-year…

The present study examined the concurrent relations between culture-specific dimensions of family engagement for low-income, Pan-Latine families and children's narrative ability, a critical predictor of reading success. One hundred seventy-five children and their caregivers were recruited from seven Head Start centers in a large city in the…

Given the changing demographics of young children served by U.S. schools, educational equity practices must include ways of sustaining cultural heritage practices of children from ethno-linguistic, minoritized, and under-resourced communities. In the present study, we partnered with a bilingual Head Start serving mostly children of immigrant…

New York City's universal prekindergarten (pre-K) program, which increased full-day enrollment from 19,000 to almost 70,000 children, is ambitious in both scale and implementation speed. We provide new evidence on the distribution of pre-K quality in New York City by student race/ethnicity, and investigate the extent to which observed differences…

Ensuring equitable access to high-quality early education for families from all racial, ethnic, and income backgrounds is a critical component for addressing systemic racism and inequality within the public education system. This study examined one piece of this issue by investigating access to public Montessori pre-K, as well as barriers that may…

Background: Decades of research suggest that when young children are enrolled in high-quality pre-K classrooms they have better literacy, language, math, and social outcomes at the end of the pre-K year. A traditional approach to capturing the quality of children's experiences, including the quality of their engagement with academic content and…

Parental engagement is central to Head Start's two-generation mission. Drawing on research linking teacher-child racial/ethnic match to educational outcomes, the present study explores whether teacher-child match increases parental involvement in Head Start activities designed to support children and families. Using data from the 2006 and 2009…

In the United States, migrant and seasonal farmworkers mostly of Latino origin work seasonal jobs on large scale farms. Because many of these jobs are temporary, farmworkers often move frequently across state lines and international borders to follow the work in agriculture. Many farmworkers travel with families including young children and one…

Research Findings: Preschool is a critical period during which children's development and learning exert a long-lasting impact on their school adjustment and academic outcomes. Although research on monolingual English-speaking children has identified elements of high-quality preschool experiences that can serve as the foundation for teaching all…

Evidence of the short- and long- term benefits of Pre-K is so compelling that K-12 districts, state education departments, and even federal officials have considered offering universal Pre-K at no cost to children and families. In Chicago, a plan published in March 2019 aimed to provide free Pre-K for all Chicago four-year-olds, regardless of…

It is expected that all students in the United States learn to read English well. This task is more complex for emergent bilinguals (EBs), the majority of whom speak Spanish, who are simultaneously developing their English language proficiency. Although several syntheses have documented the positive effects of shared book reading (SBR) in school…

Young Hispanic children make up an increasing percentage of children enrolled in preschools; however, little is known about the effects of adversity on their preschool outcomes. This pilot study uses descriptive, correlational, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses to explore the relationship between cumulative adversity, teacher-rated and…

English Language Learners (ELLs) are the fastest growing segment of school population, especially in urban schools. The teaching workforce has relatively unchanged to match this fast growth. Data found no measurable difference in the percentages of teachers' ethnic backgrounds between 1999-2000 and 2007-2008. This mismatch creates the demand for…