Poor physical development in young children has been shown to impact readiness for school, behaviour, social development and academic achievement. This research sought to explore whether a physical intervention programme (Movement for Learning) can improve children's physical development. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children (2nd edition,…

This brief, prepared as part of Morrison Institute for Public Policy's Spotlight on Arizona's Kids project, outlines evidence-based services that help reduce or prevent child abuse and neglect, including home visiting, parent education, domestic violence services, and substance abuse treatment.

This study utilizes the Brigance screener historical data to make a prediction of which prior settings students will come to kindergarten not-ready. It also uses prior settings data to look at subcategories of the composite score to inform an intervention plan to combat kindergarten not-ready scores. The research concluded that there is a…

This paper examines the child development outcomes of two cohorts of children who were exposed to the same intervention at different points in time. One cohort was eligible to access playgroups during the first year of a five-year project cycle, beginning at age four. The other cohort became eligible to access these services during the third year…

Over the past several decades, there has been a dramatic increase in research surrounding factors that influence children's school readiness, or preparedness that allows children to learn in a formal educational setting. It includes possessing early academic as well as cognitive and socio-emotional skills (e.g., self-regulation, emotion knowledge)…

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" Nelson Mandela (Strauss, 2013). Nelson Mandela's statement provides the basis for this article. Education provides a means of escaping the consequences of poverty. Children who live at or below the poverty level must overcome the detrimental effects of poverty…

This paper evaluates and compares two randomized interventions in Tonga, one targeting the home environment of children up to age 5 and one targeting the school environment for first and second grade students. The first intervention supports communities to set up and run playgroups that aim to improve caregiver-child interaction at home and…

This article describes the contributions of cognitive-scholastic advantage, family support behavior, and school quality and support as processes through which early childhood interventions promote well-being. Evidence in support of these processes is from longitudinal cohort studies of the Child-Parent Centers and other preventive interventions…

A broad range of initiatives including early intervention programmes have been implemented in Australia to assist disadvantaged and at-risk Indigenous parents and children. This qualitative exemplar case study details the perspectives of caregivers and service providers of one such early learning intervention programme situated within the remote…

The current status of preventive intervention programs designed to reduce the school readiness gap for young children at environmental risk is examined in the context of developmental science. A review of program effectiveness suggests that future progress in this area should be grounded in a knowledge base that adopts the framework of…

The home visiting component of early childhood education programs provides an important portal through which to observe family interactions as well as gain insights about the ethnotheories of the home visitor. Home visits were videotaped in the United States and in Turkey to analyze training and program effectiveness. One striking feature of this…

Consistent school attendance is a key foundation of student learning. While missing one or two school days each year is not likely to have serious consequences, chronic absenteeism (missing 10% or more of enrolled school days) can seriously undermine the learning process (Allensworth & Easton, 2007). Given national efforts to increase the…

Use of multivariate analysis (e.g., multivariate analysis of variance) is common when normally distributed outcomes are collected in intervention research. However, when mixed responses--a set of normal and binary outcomes--are collected, standard multivariate analyses are no longer suitable. While mixed responses are often obtained in…

Socioeconomic inequalities in children's skills and capabilities begin early in life and can have detrimental effects on future success in school. The present study examined the relationships between school readiness and socioeconomic (SES) inequalities using teacher reports of the Short Early Development Instrument (Janus et al. 2005) in a…

Pediatric health care represents an innovative platform for implementation of low-cost, population-wide, preventive interventions to improve school readiness. This article describes the Video Interaction Project, a targeted intervention in the pediatric primary care setting designed to enhance parenting skills and boost school readiness. The…