To have a successful school life, a child must be able to make a healthy start to this period both socially and mentally. For this, children's views about school have a strong potential to affect their entire lives. The research aimed to examine the views of 4-5-year-old children who have not started any formal school yet. The study group…

Preschool improves children's kindergarten readiness, but the cognitive outcomes of preschool enrollees and nonenrollees tend to converge partially or fully in elementary school. In older programs, most of this convergence occurs in kindergarten (Li et al., 2016), but evidence from today's programs is sparse. Using data on 4,971 children who…

We examined whether teacher-child racial congruence and child race moderated the association between children's emotion situation knowledge and the dimensions of teacher-child relationship quality (i.e., closeness, conflict, and dependency). We also investigated these dimensions as mediators linking emotion situation knowledge and later school…

Preschool improves children's kindergarten readiness, but the cognitive outcomes of preschool enrollees and nonenrollees tend to converge partially or fully in elementary school. In older programs, most of this convergence occurs in kindergarten (Li et al., 2016), but evidence from today's programs is sparse. Using data on 4,971 children who…

Despite being a critical emergent literacy skill and an indicator of risk for later reading difficulties, relatively little is known about how alphabet knowledge develops over time. This study utilized a person-centered approach and longitudinal sample of 998 preschool-aged children (M = 56.50 months old) to examine patterns in letter name and…

Teachers are the single most important in-school factor affecting student learning outcomes. As a result, researchers and policy makers are particularly interested in the ways that teacher-level factors influence the learning opportunities that teachers provide in their classrooms. A growing body of research suggests that the expectations a…

Families play an essential role in their children's academic, social, and emotional development. Many families want to support their children's learning but are unsure of how to do so. It is an important task of schools to find ways to engage students' families and help them support their children's learning at home. This study explored the…

Background: Early care and education (ECE) quality has been a topic of discussion for several decades (Burchinal, 2018; Mashburn et al., 2008; NICHD ECCRN, 2002). The structure-process-child outcomes theory proposes that structural features (e.g., teacher education, class size) of quality predict process quality (e.g., teacher-child interactions),…

The present study examined Latinx school readiness and 3rd grade student achievement, considering differences based on social categories of gender, race, ethnicity, and home language. The sample included 683 racially diverse children (M[subscript age] = 4.94; SD = 0.57) of Dominican- or Mexican-origin from Spanish-English or Spanish-only…

Across geographically diverse samples, engagement in stimulating activities with young children is considered an important element of parenting that promotes cognitive, behavioral, and social-emotional development. Indicators of stimulation activities are often summed, based on the assumption that more stimulation is better and that different…

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…

This study utilized the Minnesota Executive Function Scale to quantitatively explore the influence of nature preschools on executive function skills, which are a critical component of school readiness. Executive function skills are malleable skills that allow goal setting and follow through, skills that determine success in school and beyond. Four…

This research tested a mediation model, examining whether individual differences in mothers' school readiness beliefs influenced home literacy practices and children's later academic achievement among African American (n = 114) and primarily Mexican origin Latina mothers (n = 164) and their children. Mothers of children ages 3-4 years reported…

Background: Early academic achievement is critical to school readiness and later academic success. Consequently, multi-domain models are needed to identify risk factors and pathways by which they influence early academic achievement. Objective: The aim was to advance the development of a multi-domain model of risk factors associated with early…

Ready for Kindergarten! Survey (R4K!S) is a readiness assessment of children entering kindergarten about students' knowledge and skills within the first six to ten weeks of school. There are many interpretations of what constitutes "readiness." Vermont's concept of children's readiness is multidimensional; it includes social and…