Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs provide skills needed for successful kindergarten strides, especially for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. While Florida's Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten (VPK) program currently serves most four-year-olds, some educators have questioned the program's quality. The purpose of this study was to…

There is a need for Early Childhood Education prior to attending elementary school, to create a preschool age preclusion for school readiness. This study contributes to the current body of research on the impact of Early Childhood Education on reading achievement. The purpose of this study was to determine if attending a preschool program made an…

Background: Early care and education (ECE) has lasting, positive effects on children's school readiness (Phillips et al., 2018; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). Over the past several decades, access to city or state-funded prekindergarten (pre-K) has increased considerably (Friedman-Krauss et al., 2023) with well-documented, positive impacts on child…

In recent years, several states have expanded a new publicly funded learning option: Transitional Kindergarten (TK). TK bridges prekindergarten and kindergarten in its eligibility, requirements, and design. Using Michigan as a case study, we examine TK's fit in the early learning landscape. Broadly, we find TK in Michigan reduces some…

The availability of early childhood education to students in poverty continues to grow across the United States. Pre-kindergarten programs provide intervention for four-year-old students to close early learning gaps and prepare students for kindergarten. Little research exists to show if pre-kindergarten programs in Texas achieve this goal. This…

In the changing and developing world, the methods and approaches which promote learning experiences of individuals develop at the same pace. If such methods are integrated into the education system as an alternative to traditional teaching methods, it will enrich the learning experience for children and provide teachers with an opportunity to…

Oklahoma's universal pre-K (UPK) program has long been a classic "man bites dog" story. In 1998, Oklahoma became the second state in the U.S. to offer free pre-K to all four-year-olds. Coupled with growing evidence of the critical importance of the early years in brain synapse formation, results like Tulsa's have encouraged state and…

Every year in Riverside School District, a pseudonym, children face the prospect of not attaining a prekindergarten school admission. Riverside has a large population of Black and Brown students and Haitian second language learners. The school also has a high percentage, 89.4%, of families who are considered to be low-income (School and District…

How children experience the major transition from pre-school to compulsory schooling influences their immediate and future success and wellbeing. This complex process of change and adaptation is impacted by school readiness policy drivers, which prioritise children's performance and achievement. Pedagogic and curriculum progression shifts from…

The current study investigated the prevalence and outcomes related to Head Start (HS) children's dual enrollment in state-funded prekindergarten (state Pre-K) using a secondary analysis of a statewide integrated administrative dataset (N = 2,986). It also explored whether a program partnership between HS and the local school district (within the…

By the time children in low- and middle-income countries start primary school, large socioeconomic disparities are evident in children's learning and development. Both pre-primary and home environments can play important roles in influencing school readiness and can contribute to disparities in early childhood development, but there is limited…

The purpose of this correlational study was to investigate the relationship between the quality of the Early Childhood Education (ECE) programs for students who attended a Prekindergarten (PK) program, and for students who did not attend a Pre-kindergarten program from a rural school district located in South Carolina. The population of students…

A robust body of evidence over the past half a century has documented the importance of early childhood experiences for adult outcomes. From maternal prenatal care to early intervention in infancy and toddlerhood, and through high-quality care and educational experiences in the preschool years, support services and programs for families and young…

Many states and communities have invested in public early childhood education programs to improve children's readiness to enter school and narrow achievement gaps in later grades. This study asked whether and how Wisconsin's universal state-funded prekindergarten program, Wisconsin 4K, has improved student achievement and helped to reduce the…

Teachers in early childhood education (ECE) settings are central to providing children with high-quality experiences that promote both early development and long-term well-being; unfortunately, rates of teacher turnover are high in ECE settings. There are strong theoretical reasons to assume turnover is negatively linked with children's academic…