A labor force of migrant farmworkers, mostly of Latino origin, largely support the agriculture industry in the US. While migrant labor is essential in the modern food system, food insecurity remains high among migrant farmworkers. Presented are the results from a survey on food insecurity, access, and farm to preschool involving 32 farmworker…

High-quality pre-K that really improves children's outcomes--that's the goal early childhood professionals will work toward with this groundbreaking text, the first volume in the NEW National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education (NCRECE) series. Combining the most current knowledge of top researchers, policy makers, and federal and…

State-funded voluntary prekindergarten programs have grown steadily over the past decade and now enroll more than one million children. While the overall trend has been one of increasing participation in publicly funded preschool education, access in most states is limited to select groups of disadvantaged or otherwise-at-risk 4-year-olds.…

This report summarizes the impact of Georgia's Prekindergarten Program on two cohorts of children and families. About half of Cohort 1, 214 children and families, now in first grade, attended the Prekindergarten Program for less than 1 year when it was a pilot program. Half of Cohort 2, 534 children and families, now in kindergarten, had a full…

This report describes the second year of the longitudinal study (year 3 of the program) of Georgia's Prekindergarten children and families and presents kindergarten results, 1 year after program attendance. The sample was comprised of 534 kindergartners and families, half of whom had a full school year of the prekindergarten program. The…

From the time of conception to the first day of kindergarten, development proceeds at a pace exceeding that of any subsequent stage of life. Relationships and experiences with parents, caregivers, and preschool teachers during these early years "form the foundation and scaffold on which cognitive, linguistic, emotional, social, and moral…

The purpose of this study was to determine the psychometric characteristics of a phonological awareness assessment for prekindergarten children using Messick's (1989) framework for unitary construct validity. Upon entry into prekindergarten, children were given rhyme discrimination, syllable segmentation, initial phoneme isolation, and phoneme…

Based on the premise that the best teachers are those who have a firm understanding of the developmental needs of children and plan learning experiences to meet these needs, this resource guide was designed to provide prekindergarten teachers with a collection of classroom ideas and activities that serve as examples of how educators can facilitate…