The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) conducted a landscape evaluation of early childhood programs in Indiana (IN) between the spring of 2021 and the summer of 2022. Commissioned by Early Learning Indiana (ELI), this study provides Indiana programs and policymakers with research-based information on the quality of a sample of…

Increasing demands of accountability and academic readiness across U.S. preschools are often accompanied by decreased play and time outdoors during the school day. The nature preschool movement, grounded in a desire to foster connection to the natural world while also supporting important developmental processes and school readiness, counteracts…

The increased use of smartphones and tablets sets the stage for new mobile-based educational programs that seek to increase student learning and engagement in school and at home. This study examines the effectiveness of Escribo Play, a game-enhanced educational program, on preschool students' phonological awareness, word reading, and writing…

Tutoring--defined here as one-on-one or small-group instructional programming by teachers, paraprofessionals, volunteers, or parents--is one of the most versatile and potentially transformative educational tools in use today. Within the past decade, dozens of preK-12 tutoring experiments have been conducted, varying widely in their approach,…

This study examined an integration of digital stories in teaching environmental concepts to preschool children aged 3-6 in Turkey. The participants were the forth-grade preservice teachers who used a variety of activities to implement environmental education plans. Structured questionnaires were employed as the main data collection tool. The…

Augmented reality (AR) as an emerging technology has gradually been incorporated into educational contexts; however, the cases that incorporate AR into early childhood contexts are underrepresented and especially scant in the literacy domain. Aiming to measure the impact of AR on early childhood learning and motivation in the literacy domain, this…

The Midwest Child-Parent Center (CPC) Expansion began preschool implementation in fall 2012 in 5 Minnesota and Illinois districts. This study reports preschool and kindergarten impact findings for the Saint Paul Public School District. It is the first impact study of CPC outside of Chicago. After documenting that implementation quality was…

Research Findings: The present study investigated the effects of a 12-week inquiry-based science and engineering (IBSE) program on preschoolers' science and engineering learning experiences. The treatment versus control condition was randomly assigned to four preschool classes, which included 122 preschoolers (M = 61.10 month, SD = 3.73).…

The purpose of this evaluation study was twofold: to evaluate the overall impact of an intensive early childhood literacy project on children's vocabulary knowledge and to examine the sociocultural context of the vocabulary assessment for the early literacy project. Children's language development and vocabulary knowledge was measured with PPVT-IV…

A growing body of research provides evidence that quality early childhood experiences can affect a host of life outcomes. Equally well documented is the variation in the quality of prekindergarten (pre-K) programs offered to children. In this study, I use a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach to evaluate the efficacy of transitional…

In this systematic literature review, we examined the effects of coaching (e.g., written, emailed, visual, video, and self-monitored performance feedback; in vivo bug-in-ear prompting; combinations) teachers and other educators to increase their use of behavior-specific praise, a low-intensity teacher-delivered strategy previously determined to be…

Classroom noise impairs students' cognition and learning. At a first glance, it seems useful to prevent the negative effects of noise on academic learning by wearing noise-cancelling (NC) headphones during class. The literature and guidelines emphasize the academic benefits of wearing NC headphones (decreased auditory distraction, increased…

The early years of a child's life are critical in supporting their physical development. As a result, early childhood teachers have a profound responsibility and influence on the development of young children's physical skills. However, up to this point, little attention has been placed on the development of early childhood teachers' pedagogical…

Objective: The Healthy Environment Project (HEP) was designed to improve familiarity with attitudes, confidence and knowledge related to health-promoting best practices, as well as the implementation of health-promoting policy, system and environment best practice change in diverse early childhood education settings. Design: Pre-post study design…

The 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program, funded through the U.S. Department of Education, provides academic enrichment opportunities outside of the regular school day to help students meet state and local performance standards in core academic subjects, such as reading and math. This report summarizes the 2019-2020…