Research Findings: The present study investigates both the proximal processes and contextual influences on children's oral language development in preschool. We examine whether teacher language practices vary across activity settings and program type, which teacher language practices predict children's oral language skills, and potential…

Parent language input is a well-established predictor of child language development. Multisensory attention skills (MASks; intersensory matching, shifting and sustaining attention to audiovisual speech) are also known to be foundations for language development. However, due to a lack of appropriate measures, individual differences in these skills…

Research on how COVID-19 school closures impacted the learning of young children is still sparse, and the broader implications of these findings have yet to be fully explored. In this study, we examine the impacts of COVID-19 school closures on language and literacy development in a state-funded pre-K program in a Florida school district. Using…

Reading in difficult or novel fonts results in slower and less efficient reading (Slattery & Rayner, 2010); however, these fonts may also lead to better learning and memory (Diemand-Yauman, Oppenheimer, & Vaughan, 2011). This effect is consistent with a desirable difficulty effect such that more effort during encoding results in better…

This article presents a mixed-methods case study of Diego, a bilingual teen who completed public school in Florida. During adolescence, Diego negotiated multiple identities: successful student, Mexican American, bilingual, and typical U.S. teenager. Diego provided interviews and bilingual (English/Spanish) writing (narrative/expository) in 2008…

Reading comprehension--the ability to understand the meaning of text--is a foundational ability that enables children to learn in school and throughout life. Children who struggle with reading comprehension in the third or fourth grade are at high risk for dropping out of school, with detrimental effects on their future employment, income, and…

Teachers at Orlando Day Nursery in Florida have always evaluated how well their 4-year-old prekindergartners--most of them poor and African-American--could recognize letters, isolate sounds in words, understand stories read to them, and show other hallmarks of early literacy. Just as important, though, have been the teachers' formal observations…

This report describes the design and implementation of the three interventions tested in Project Upgrade, one of four experiments conducted as part of the Evaluation of Child Care Subsidy Strategies. The evaluation was a multi-site, multi-year effort to determine whether and how different child care subsidy policies and procedures and quality…

Response to intervention (RTI), the controversial three-tiered, triangular instructional model is getting stretched in new directions by educators who favor holistic, proactive support strategies over formal remediation. A senior scientist at the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Virginia Buysse…

Although intensive early childhood interventions and high quality preschool programs have been shown to foster children's school readiness, little is known about the school readiness gains made by ethnically and linguistically diverse children in poverty receiving subsidies to attend center-based childcare or those in public school…

This booklet for caregivers of infants and toddlers with disabilities is intended to provide an overview of early childhood development, from birth to 36 months of age. The booklet is organized into 3-month age spans for the first year, 6-month age spans for the second year, and a 12-month age span for the third year. For each level, typical…

DESCRIBED ARE THE COMPONENTS OF PROJECT KNOW HOW (PKH), AN OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM. DESIGNED TO ATTACK INDIVIDUAL FAMILIAL POVERTY, PKH INVOLVES A PRESCHOOL TRAINING PROGRAM BEGINNING IN THE FIRST YEAR OF LIFE AND CONTINUING TO SCHOOL AGE, A SALARIED ASSISTING MOTHERS PROGRAM, A FATHER'S PROGRAM, AND A FAMILY HEALTH…

This study examined the moderating effect of low birth weight on the effectiveness of an early intervention program to improve cognitive, language and behavioral outcomes for children prenatally exposed to cocaine. Participants included 293 primarily minority, low SES children who were enrolled in the intervention during their first year and…

Located in 26 counties, the Florida Migratory Child Compensatory Program enrolls preschool children ages three, four, and five. Since many of these children travel with their parents from county to county, a need for a consistent curriculum emphasis developed. Therefore, using the National Migrant Goals, the Florida Migrant Early Childhood…

Intended for use in Florida training programs for caregivers of infants and toddlers with disabilities, this guide presents an overview of the Model of Interdisciplinary Training for Children with Handicaps (MITCH); offers a user's guide to the series; and provides specific information for presenting Module 12, which focuses on visual impairments.…