In this study, we used data from a cohort of 4,033 Tulsa kindergarten students to investigate the relationship between pre-K enrollment and later college enrollment. Specifically, we tested whether participation in the Tulsa Public Schools universal pre-K program and the Tulsa Community Action Project (CAP) Head Start program predicted enrollment…

Policy observers have expressed concern over whether misalignment between pre-K and K--12 has negative consequences for children. This study considers students' exposure to redundant content across the pre-K and kindergarten years. Specifically, it asks, to what extent are skills and concepts taught in kindergarten redundant with skills and…

The present study explored the utility of a widely used performance-based assessment of children's readiness skills as a kindergarten entry assessment. In a sample of 520 kindergarten students across 52 classrooms, we compared students' school readiness skills as assessed by teachers using Teaching Strategies GOLD (TS GOLD) to direct assessments…

Parental investments in the activities and materials that drive learning are central to young children's school readiness and life success. Little is known, however, about how parents adjust these investments in response to outside pressures, including their children's impending entry into kindergarten. In the present study, we employ two…

Interactive app books are increasingly part of young children's literacy ecosystem. However, most previous studies examined buddy reading with traditional print books or CD-ROM books. Little is known about whether and how buddy reading with app books might be related to subsequent individual reading. To address this, informed by multimodal…

Children develop their language when they explore and talk about literary texts. In this study, we explore the design of shared digital reading as a basis for critical reflection on the reading situation in an institutional context with its given opportunities and limitations. We examine six videotaped readings of one specific picture book app,…

This study examines the psychometric properties of two assessments of children's approaches to learning: the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) and a 13-item approaches to learning rating scale (AtL) derived from the Arizona Early Learning Standards (AELS). First, we administered questionnaires to 1,145 randomly selected parents/guardians…

This study aimed to describe home literacy (HL) activities of Spanish-/English-speaking children of low-socioeconomic status backgrounds and examine the relationship between HL and performance on standardized assessments. Parents of 65 dual-language learners (DLLs) in kindergarten completed an HL questionnaire. Parents reported an average of 17…