When do children become unequal in reading and math skills? Some research claims that inequality grows mainly before school begins. Some research claims that schools cause inequality to grow. And ...some research—including the 2004 study “Are Schools the Great Equalizer?”—claims that inequality grows mainly during summer vacations. Unfortunately, the test scores used in the Great Equalizer study suffered from a measurement artifact that exaggerated estimates of inequality growth. In addition, the Great Equalizer study is dated and its participants are no longer school-aged. In this article, we replicate the Great Equalizer study using better test scores in both the original data and a newer cohort of children. When we use the new test scores, we find that variance is substantial at the start of kindergarten and does not grow but actually shrinks over the next two to three years. This finding, which was not evident in the original Great Equalizer study, implicates the years before kindergarten as the primary source of inequality in elementary reading and math. Total score variance grows during most summers and shrinks during most school years, suggesting that schools reduce inequality overall. Changes in inequality are small after kindergarten and do not replicate consistently across grades, subjects, or cohorts. That said, socioeconomic gaps tend to shrink during the school year and grow during the summer, while the black-white gap tends to follow the opposite pattern.
The aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of a training program on language support strategies and dialogic reading for caregivers working in specialized preschool programs. ...These programs serve children without a regular childcare place who grow up with one or more languages other than German as the environmental language. Recent studies investigating the development of children attending these programs found only moderate improvements in German receptive language skills, while language support quality of the programs was rated as average. We assessed receptive second language competencies in vocabulary and grammar of
= 48 children and language support competencies of
= 15 caregivers using an interventional pre-posttest design. Receptive vocabulary skills of children supported by trained caregivers (intervention group) were compared to children supported by untrained caregivers (control group,
= 43). We found that both children's and caregivers' competencies increased from pre- to posttest, whereas the control group's receptive vocabulary skills did not increase noticeably. The caregivers' language support competencies influenced the increase of children's receptive grammar but not vocabulary skills. The comparison between the intervention group and control group consistently showed no effect of group membership on children's receptive vocabulary acquisition over time. Since the control group data came from a secondary analysis, only receptive vocabulary skills could be compared. The preliminary results of our study suggest that a caregivers' training on language support strategies and dialogic reading in everyday educational situations support bilingual children's grammar acquisition.
Research on class inequality in education shows how the hidden curriculum—the tacit yet systematic lessons taught alongside the official curriculum—tends to favor the cultural capital that ...class-advantaged students bring from home over that of their less advantaged peers. This ethnography instead explores variation in what schools implicitly teach and how organizations potentially class their members. Comparing one Head Start with one tuition-charging preschool, the authors document how Head Start implicitly treats preschoolers, who are from predominantly disadvantaged backgrounds, as students who lack decision-making power and occupy the lowest position in a rigid status hierarchy. In contrast, the advantaged preschoolers were implicitly encouraged to take ownership of their actions, make the curriculum work for them, and activate support from teachers and administrators. Insofar as this “internal control” mindset of the tuition-charging preschool is favored in later academic and professional arenas, the authors argue that organizations can be agents of class socialization.
Head Start and state prekindergarten (pre-K) programs can boost the school readiness of low-income children through the use of effective preschool curricula. Encouraging results from some studies ...suggest that children who receive targeted or content-specific curricular supplements (e.g., literacy or math) during preschool show moderate to large improvements in that targeted content domain, but recent research also suggests differences in children’s school readiness among different preschool program settings. We examine whether children in Head Start or public pre-K classrooms differentially benefit from the use of randomly assigned classroom curricula targeting specific academic domains. Our results indicate that children in both Head Start and public pre-K classrooms benefit from targeted, content-specific curricula. Future research is needed to examine the specific mechanisms and classroom processes through which curricula help improve children’s outcomes.
Participation of at least 95% of children between the ages of 4 and the
mandatory school age in high-quality preschool programs represents an
important contribution to the achievement of the Europe ...2020 strategy.
Slovenia is not far from achieving this objective; however, if we consider
participation in preschool programs from the perspective of the entire
population of preschool children and the realisation of children?s rights,
we note that nearly a quarter of children - among them (at least in the
wider European area) the most disadvantaged - have not realised the right to
education. We studied the awareness of the importance of ensuring access to
preschool programs for all children on a representative sample of 106
Slovenian preschool principals by means of quantitative pedagogical
research. The results show a high percentage of disadvantaged children in
the preschool areas and in the preschools themselves; on the other hand,
only a low percentage (only one-third) of preschools collect data about
disadvantaged children and implement preschool programs for them; only
one-fifth of preschools implement preschool programs for disadvantaged
children. In order to act responsibly and enable all children the right to
education, we must start devoting greater attention to identifying and
including disadvantaged children in preschool programs.
nema
Purpose: The potential benefit that a low-cost scripted language and literacy supplemental curriculum titled "Read It Again!" (RIA; L. M. Justice, A. S. McGinty, A. R. Beckman, & C. R. Kilday, 2006) ...may have on preschool-age children's skills was explored. RIA was developed to meet the needs of preschool educators who may not have access to current commercially available high-cost language and literacy curricula, which often require ongoing intensive professional development. RIA involves implementing 60 large-group lessons over a 30-week period that feature repeated use of 15 commercial storybooks. Method: Using a quasi-experimental pre-post research design, 11 preschool teachers implemented RIA in their classrooms for an academic year, and 9 teachers working in comparable preschool programs served as comparisons. Language and literacy measures were collected in the fall and spring of the year. Results: Children whose teachers implemented RIA had higher scores in the spring on measures of language (i.e., grammar and vocabulary) and measures of literacy (i.e., rhyme, alliteration, and print). Effect-size estimates were consistent with medium- to large-size effects. Conclusions: RIA may be a viable means of enhancing the language and literacy instruction that is delivered within preschool classrooms and, therefore, a means of enhancing children's language and literacy learning. Future directions for continued evaluation of RIA are discussed.
The purpose of this study was to examine the quality of the practices that Greek teachers use to support the inclusion of children with disabilities in general preschools. Fifty-two preschool units ...for children between 4 and 6 years of age participated in this study. Data were collected through systematic observation with the use of the Inclusive Classroom Profile (ICP). Given that the ICP was devised and field tested in the United Kingdom, its applicability to Greece was subsequently explored. Results from descriptive statistics revealed the existence of mainly poor-quality practices. Analysis of the reliability of the scale showed high interrater agreement, while exploration of its structural validity showed that quality was detected as a unidimensional construct consisting of nine items. This article discusses the issue of preschool inclusion quality in Greece, while it contributes to the emergent research on the ICP in relation to its validation in different cultures.
Contemporary curricula of preschool education are the result of the improvement of pedagogical and didactic theories. They imply a technical plan with which it is possible to achieve measurable ...objectives of preschool education. The curriculum is also defined as a tool for quality and equal education for all. It represents a reflection of the time, society and culture in which it exists, but also a model for future society and education. Thus an important research question arises as to what extent we recognize traditional ideas about learning and the development of a preschool child in contemporary preschool programs. Are traditional ideas about educating young children unjustly neglected or do we recognize them in contemporary pedagogical theory even today, at the same time forgetting about the past and declaring them innovations? This paper deals with the starting points for the development of a curriculum. The goal of the research was to determine to what extent can the starting points for the development of preschool children, which have existed in the first preschool programs in Serbia in the late 19
century, be recognized in contemporary preschool programs. A descriptive method was applied as well as a procedure for content analysis of program documents. Research results confirm that the elements of the first preschool programs, which remain relevant until today, can be recognized in contemporary preschool programs. They are related to target orientations, principles and functions of preschool education. However, these ideas are defined as contemporary tendencies, and the fact that they existed in preschool programs that were developed a long time ago is unjustly ignored.
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