Many states seek to increase the education levels of their early childhood education (ECE) workforce to improve the quality of care for children. Oregon encourages all ECE workforce members to sign up for a career lattice, a career pathway system that helps them determine goals related to increasing their education. The state also offers…

Children from low-income families are at greater risk for poor social-emotional development and physical health and may be in need of intervention. This study examined the extent to which the "Positive Action" ("PA") preschool lessons improved low-income children's social-emotional competence and health behaviors. Mixed…

Interactive book reading (IBR) has proven effective for increasing children's lexicons with most of the results based on students' learning of nouns. Little is known about the application of IBR to instructional verbs (i.e., words used during the instruction of academic content). To address this gap, 122 prekindergarten children were recruited…

A randomized controlled trial was used to examine the impact of an attachment-based, teacher-child, dyadic intervention (Banking Time) to improve children's externalizing behavior. Participants included 183 teachers and 470 preschool children (3-4 years of age). Classrooms were randomly assigned to Banking Time, child time, or business as usual…

Read It Again (RIA) is a curriculum for pre-kindergarten (pre-K) classrooms that targets children's development of language and literacy skills. A cluster randomized trial was conducted in which 104 pre-K classrooms in the Appalachian region of the United States were randomly assigned to one of three study conditions: Control (n = 30), RIA only…

Executive functions (EFs) develop rapidly in preschoolers and lay an important foundation for school readiness. One potential method of supporting EF development is through mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs). Whereas studies with older children and adults have supported this approach, research with young children has been more limited. In the…

Background: Among children diagnosed with developmental delays, difficulties in self-regulation are prominent and have been linked to school readiness problems. Objective: The current study sought to examine the impact of the Kids In Transition to School (KITS) school readiness intervention program on self-regulation, with a specific focus on…

Background: Improving children's oral language skills is an important focus of educational research and practice; however, relatively few interventions have demonstrated impacts on these skills. This work makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the effects of language-focused interventions in pre-kindergarten settings by examining…

Empowering Families was focused on infusing the Providence Public School District (PPSD) elementary schools with an intervention centered on the Mind in the Making (MITM) training, designed to build the capacity of families, teachers, and schools to understand how children's executive function impacts social-emotional and cognitive growth. Data…

This study examined the efficacy of a shared book-reading approach to integrating literacy and science instruction. The purpose was to determine whether teaching science vocabulary using information text could improve low-income preschoolers' word knowledge, conceptual development, and content knowledge in the life sciences. Teachers in 17…

Background: The effects of increases in physical activity (PA) on early literacy skills in preschool children are not known. Methods: Fifty-four African-American preschool children from a low socioeconomic urban Head Start participated over 8 months. A 2-group, quasi-experimental design was used with one preschool site participating in the PA…

The Good Behavior Game (GBG) has been widely supported as an effective intervention to alter a variety of target behaviors, in various settings, with varying age groups; however, there are areas warranting further investigation. Prior to the present study, no study has examined the GBG's effectiveness in decreasing disruptive behaviors while…

Research Findings: Big Math for Little Kids (BMLK) is a mathematics curriculum developed for use with 4- and 5-year-old children. To investigate the BMLK curriculum's effect on children's mathematics knowledge, this cluster-randomized controlled trial randomly assigned child care centers to provide mathematics instruction to children, using either…

Low-income preschool children face risks to their social-emotional development that can affect them later on. Although there are promising approaches to promoting preschoolers' social-emotional skills, the evidence base is limited, particularly on their effectiveness when implemented at scale. The Head Start CARES demonstration evaluated the…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a conversation intervention including 500 min of linguistically and cognitively complex talk on the expressive vocabulary growth of prekindergarten children. Method: Children (N = 73) were randomly assigned to control or a 10-week experimental intervention condition. Twice…