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Considerable interest is directed to promoting children's success as they transition to kindergarten. It is generally proposed that children who experience lower levels of transition difficulties at kindergarten entry achieve higher academic and social-emotional gains, although this premise has seldom been explicitly evaluated in tandem with children's kindergarten readiness skills. To improve understanding of the consequences of transition difficulties, this study investigated the role of transition difficulties at the child level to children's achievements at the end of the kindergarten year in a Midwestern state in the US. Results from a series of covariate-adjusted regression models showed that children who experienced less transition difficulties at the beginning of kindergarten demonstrated relatively more gains in math, reading, and social-behavioral skills at the end of kindergarten, even when controlling for kindergarten readiness skills, child and family characteristics, and classroom-level contextual factors. The findings also indicated that the associations between kindergarten transition difficulties and academic and social-behavioral skill development at the end of kindergarten did not vary by children's academic and social-behavioral skills at kindergarten entry. Taken together, these findings suggest that transition difficulties that children encounter within the kindergarten context may have significant and independent implications for children's skill development. Possible practices to ease transition difficulties are discussed. [This paper was published in "Early Childhood Research Quarterly."] more...

Objective: Our study investigates how changes in family contexts were associated with child behaviors during Ohio's COVID-19 shutdown of early 2020. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic caused major economic and social changes for families. Rapid research was conducted to assess these changes and their potential impacts on child behaviors. Method: Using a diverse sample of families with children aged birth to 9 years (N = 559), we describe key economic changes and parent-reported stressors experienced during Ohio's shutdown period. Then, we use regression models to examine how these family conditions were associated with child emotional distress and changes in sleep routines. Results: When parents experienced more total COVID-19 pandemic-related stressors, they also reported that their children exhibited more anxious and withdrawn, fearful, acting out, and COVID-19 pandemic-related behaviors (p < 0.01). Conclusion: Families and children living at home in Ohio experienced significant stress during the shutdown. These findings can be used to inform future studies of the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for parents and children. Implications: Families and children have experienced multiple stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers and practitioners should continue to monitor and support families and children to mitigate potential lasting consequences. [This is the online version of an article published in "Family Relations."] more...

Research Findings: The present study examined the extent to which instructional practices, including curriculum, in pre-K through third grade are vertically aligned. Attention was directed to teachers' grouping practices, academic content, and pedagogical methods given their importance for students' learning. Variable- and person-centered analyses examined these practices for a sample of 1,095 students in 179 pre-K through third-grade classrooms. A comparison of practices indicated that pre-K practices were significantly mis-aligned from those used in kindergarten through third grade, whereas kindergarten practices were well aligned with practices used in the older grades. Examination of profiles of classroom practices showed there to be four profiles, one of which was considered as "academic-light group work," which was dominated by pre-K and kindergarten classrooms. Practice or policy: Overall, this study found that instructional practices in pre-K were starkly different from those in kindergarten through third grade, and that kindergarten appears to be highly academic for about two-thirds of classrooms. This work underscores the importance of practices and policies that promote alignment from pre-K into the primary grades and how it might be enhanced. [This is the online first version of an article published in "Early Education and Development."] more...

Almost five million children attend preschool in the United States each year. Recent attention has been paid to the ways in which preschool classrooms shape children's early language development. This article discusses the importance of peers and classroom composition through the lens of age and socioeconomic status and the implications for children's early learning and development. The direct and indirect mechanisms through which classroom peers may shape each other's language development are also discussed. The paper focuses on exposure to peer language and engagement with peers, along with teachers' classroom practices. Conclusions focus on the ways in which teachers can ensure that children in classrooms of different compositions reap the maximum benefit, along with implications for research, policy, and practice. more...

Using unique data from an economically and racially diverse sample of 448 caregivers with young children (ages 4-9 years) in Ohio, we assess multiple sources of family social and economic disruptions and their associations with parenting activities during the COVID-19 stay-at-home order. Caregivers reported extensive social and economic challenges during this time, while also increasing (on average) their time spent in play/learning activities. Time spent in discipline was less likely to increase during this period. We found significant associations among disadvantaged social conditions/experiences and parenting, and that some effects were moderated by 2019 household income status. Unexpectedly, changes in economic conditions, particularly caregiver job loss, were associated with higher odds of increases in reading/telling stories time across household income groups. Overall, findings indicate that social conditions associated with the stay-at-home period of COVID-19 might have been more disruptive to parenting for caregivers with young children than the short-term economic changes. [This is the online version of an article published in "Journal of Family Issues."] more...

Objective: This study examines media use of children from low-income homes during school closings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: Caregivers of 151 kindergartners from low-income homes completed questionnaires as part of a larger study. Caregivers reported how much time children spent watching TV/videos and using apps on the most recent weekday and weekend day. Caregivers also reported how their child's current use of media for several different purposes compared to how much the child usually uses media for that purpose. Results: Weekly average media use was 46.3 hours or 6.6 hours per day. Counter to prior research, weekday media use was higher than weekend use, suggesting media was likely used as a replacement for time usually spent in school. Caregivers reported increased child media use for positive purposes, like education and maintaining relationships with family and friends outside of the home, as well as potentially useful but less socially-valued purposes, like occupying the child's time while caregivers were completing other tasks. Having more children in the household was related to higher media use and girls used media for maintaining remote relationships more than boys. Conclusions: These findings provide reason for both concern and optimism for the impacts of pandemic closures on low-income children. High levels of media use appear to be prevalent in this population. However, the diverse purposes for media use suggest that caregivers relied on media to supplement children's academic and social growth at a time when school and socializing were not safe in their typical forms. [This is the in press version of an article published in "Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics."] more...

Recent work has demonstrated that having students study worked examples and answer self-explanation prompts as part of their problem-solving practice improves learning on researcher-developed measures of mathematical proficiency. However, little work has been done to date to investigate whether these benefits translate to improvements on the types of standardized assessments typically used by school districts to assess proficiency and make curricular decisions. In the present study, we examined the impact of using worked-example and self-explanation prompt assignments on the performance of 5th grade students in one urban district on two district-administered standardized tests: i-Ready and PARCC. Results indicate the approach effectively improves student mathematic scores on both standardized measures. This study provides policy-meaningful outcomes. The findings from the current study show that standardized assessment scores can be improved by merely changing the type of practice problems that students engage with. Interventions like this provide a pathway for underperforming schools and districts to improve student achievement through easy access points, which are low-cost and can be added to the curricula districts currently use. [This paper will be published "Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness."] more...

The entry into kindergarten is a key transition children experience and has lasting consequences for their academic development. In light of this, many schools have implemented transition practices designed to foster positive development for children during this time. This study uses qualitative interview data to examine the policies, practices, and barriers that shape how school districts support children during the kindergarten transition. Data from interviews with teachers and administrators in eleven school districts reveal a diversity in the number of kindergarten transition practices implemented and a number of structural barriers related to communication and collaboration that prevent more intensive transition efforts. These barriers included a lack of communication about children's experiences prior to kindergarten and practical challenges related to bringing early childhood educators and elementary personnel together. They also highlighted external policy factors, such as quality rating systems, that shaped transition practices. These findings point to a number of future directions for both research and policy related to the kindergarten transition. [This paper was published in "Early Childhood Research Quarterly" v52 p5-14 2020.] more...

Research findings: Using a sample of 568 students from 61 kindergarten classrooms whose primary caregivers completed a questionnaire describing their child's early childhood education and care (ECEC) by year from birth to pre-kindergarten, we identified seven pathways characterizing children's ECEC experiences using a latent class analysis. Once identified, profile membership was included as an independent variable in a multilevel model to predict children's cognitive and social-behavioral outcomes at kindergarten entry. Although a considerable body of work has examined dosage of time in (ECEC) and its associations with children's skills in later grades, we extend this work by expanding the definition of dosage to include multiple care arrangements from birth to kindergarten entry and by examining if profiles of ECEC participation have associations with kindergarten-entry skills. Our findings show membership in profiles in which children spent consistent time in center-based care from birth to five were associated with adverse social-behavioral outcomes including behavioral aggression, school adjustment, peer social skills, and self-efficacy. Practice or policy: Our findings suggest the importance of considering more nuanced differences in children's experiences with ECEC and the need for possible interventions to support the social-behavioral development of children with exposure to five years of center-based care. [This paper was published in "Early Education and Development" (EJ1306422).] more...

Media use is a pervasive aspect of children's home experiences but is often not considered in studies of the home learning environment. Media use could be detrimental to children's language and literacy skills because it may displace other literacy-enhancing activities like shared reading and decrease the quantity and quality of caregiver-child interaction. Thus, the current study asked whether media use is associated with gains in children's language and literacy skills both at a single time point and across a school year and whether age moderates any association. Children (N = 1583) were from preschool through third grade classrooms and language and literacy skills were measured in the fall and spring of the school year. Parents reported how much time their child spends using media on a typical school day. Regression analyses showed that using 4 hours or more of media was related to lower literacy gains, but not to language gains. Multilevel models conducted as a robustness check showed that this effect did not hold when accounting for classroom. In neither set of models was there an interaction between age and media use. Single-time-point models did show some associations that did not manifest in more stringent models, highlighting the limitations of correlational designs that do not have measures of children's skills over time. Given the concern and popular press coverage around children's media use, it is important to acknowledge nonsignificant effects in this domain. These nonsignificant associations suggest that societal fears around children's media use may be exaggerated. Notably, however, characteristics of children's media use, like educational content or adult co-use, may moderate any effects. The relation between media use and language and literacy growth did not differ across the age range investigated suggesting that, within this range, younger children are not more vulnerable to detrimental effects. [This paper was published in "Frontiers in Psychology" v11 Article 1734 2020.] more...

Media use could be detrimental to children's language and literacy skills because it may displace other language-enhancing activities like shared reading and caregiver-child interactions. Furthermore, the extent to which children use media with adults (joint media engagement), the extent to which they use interactive media (apps/games), and the time of the day and week during which media use occurs may attenuate any negative effects. The current study examines the relation between characteristics of children's media use and gains in first graders' language and literacy skills. Children (N = 488) completed direct assessments of language and literacy skills in the spring of kindergarten and the spring of first grade. Parents reported how many hours children used both interactive and noninteractive media during different times of the day on the most recent weekday and weekend day, and responded to items about the extent to which they engage with their children during media use. A quadratic relationship between media use and language gains showed that a moderate amount of media use was related to larger language gains, whereas high use was related to smaller gains. For literacy, an interaction between media use and joint media engagement showed a small negative effect of media use at low levels of joint media engagement and little to no relation between media use and literacy gains at higher levels of joint media engagement. Children's language and literacy skills were not predicted by either the proportion of media time that was spent with apps/games or morning and weekday media use. These results show that moderate amounts of media use may not be a negative influence on children's developing language skills whereas high levels may displace other language-enhancing activities. Additionally, joint media engagement may play an important buffering role in the relation between media use and early literacy skills, aligned with current recommendations encouraging co-viewing. [This paper was published in "Frontiers in Developmental Psychology" v11 Article 2224 2020.] more...

Interactions with teachers and peers are critical for children's social, behavioral, and academic development in the classroom context. However, these two types of interpersonal interactions in the classroom are usually pursued via separate lines of inquiries. The current study bridges these two areas of research to examine the way in which teachers influence child-perceived peer social support and peer victimization for 2,678 children within 183 classrooms in preschool through grade three. Two levels of teacher influence are considered, namely teacher-child closeness and conflict relationships at the child-level, and teacher management of interpersonal interactions at the classroom-level. Results of multilevel regression models showed that teacher-child closeness was associated with the growth of child-perceived peer social support from fall to spring, whereas teacher-child conflict and teachers' behavior management practices were associated with the change in child-perceived peer victimization across the academic year. These associations were unique and above and beyond the influence of children's actual peer social interactions, including reciprocal friendships and the collective classroom reputation of peer victimization. Collectively, findings highlight the multi-faceted teacher roles in shaping children's perceptions of their peer social experiences during the earliest years of schooling. [This paper was published in "Frontiers in Psychology" v11 Article 2746 2020.] more...

Previous research suggests that the ways in which early childhood classrooms are organized may facilitate children's language learning. However, different measures of classroom organization often yield inconsistent findings regarding child outcomes. In this study, we investigated multiple aspects of classroom organization across two time points in classrooms where children made varying language gains. Using a purposeful sample of 60 early childhood classrooms, 30 in which children made higher language gains and 30 in which children made lower language gains, we explored organization of the physical classroom literacy environment, classroom management, classroom time, and classroom activities. Research Findings: Results indicated that organization of classroom time and classroom activities, but not of the classroom literacy environment nor of classroom management, differed across classrooms. Differences between classrooms were particularly salient in the fall. Practice or Policy: Findings suggest similarities and differences in the organizational patterns of classrooms, both at the start of the school year and across time. This has implications for how early childhood classrooms are organized to facilitate children's language learning and highlights the importance of supporting teachers with establishing classroom organization early in the school year. Furthermore, these results emphasize the value of using multiple measures when exploring classroom organization. [This paper will be published in "Early Education and Development."] more...

Using data from the Family and Child Experiences Survey 2009 Cohort (n = 1,073), this study considered the implications of mixed-age education for young children's academic achievement when they experienced continuity and/or changes in classroom age composition across two years in Head Start (at age 3 and age 4). Results from these analyses revealed that children in classrooms with a greater number of younger children during their second year in Head Start exhibited fewer gains in mathematics and language and literacy. Additionally, children who transitioned from being in classrooms with largely older classmates during year one to classrooms with largely same-age peers during year two exhibited greater gains in academics than children who experienced two years of mixed-age classrooms. Stability in children's teachers, one of the hallmarks of mixed-age programming, was not associated with children's academic achievement nor did it attenuate the negative consequences of mixed-age classrooms. [This is the in press version of an article published in "Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology."] more...

Using nationally representative data from the Family and Child Experiences Survey 2009 Cohort (n = 2,798), this study examined patterns of absenteeism and their consequences through the transition to kindergarten. Overall, children were less likely to be absent in kindergarten than from Head Start at ages 3 and 4. Absenteeism was fairly stable across these early years, but children who experienced two years of Head Start were less likely to be absent in kindergarten than their classmates who only attended the program for one year. Ultimately, absenteeism at both ages 3 and 4 was associated with lower math and literacy achievement. However, children who experienced two years of Head Start and were more frequently absent demonstrated greater language development through the end of kindergarten as compared with children who only attended the program for one year. Policy implications are discussed in light of the complexity of early childhood education attendance in the United States. [This paper was published in "Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk" (EJ1174323).] more...

Success in Algebra I often predicts whether or not a student will pursue higher levels of mathematics and science. However, many students enter algebra holding persistent misconceptions that are difficult to eliminate, thus, hindering their ability to succeed in algebra. One way to address these misconceptions is to implement worked-examples and self explanation prompts, which have been shown to improve students' conceptual knowledge. However this effect seems to be greater after a delay. The current study sought to explore such time-related effects on algebra conceptual knowledge. In a year-long random-assignment study, students either studied worked-examples and answered self-explanation prompts (n = 132) or solved typical isomorphic problems (n = 140). A three-way mixed ANCOVA (pre-algebra knowledge x condition x time) found a significant condition by time effect. The growth of algebra conceptual knowledge was greater for students studying worked-examples than for those solving typical problems. more...

In the present chapter, we review the evidence for several principles that are especially promising for improving mathematics instruction. Using the classification scheme proposed by Koedinger et al. (2013), we begin with principles that focus on improving memory and fluency: scaffolding, distributed practice, and feedback. We then move to worked examples, interleaved practice, and abstract and concrete representations, which primarily promote induction and refinement. Finally, we review principles that are geared towards improving sense making and understanding: Error reflection and analogical comparison. In each section, we first describe the principle and the instructional implications. We then evaluate the evidence for the effectiveness of the principle for promoting mathematics learning, first from laboratory studies and then from classroom studies. Finally, we summarize what is and is not known about how these principles relate to mathematics learning, and identify gaps to be addressed in further translational research. The chapter concludes with an overall evaluation of the current state of evidence regarding how the use of these cognitive principles can influence mathematics instruction, both for simple and for more complex skills and concepts; we also suggest research priorities necessary to maximize the potential impact of cognitive science for mathematics instruction. [This chapter was published in D. C. Geary (Ed.), D. B. Berch (Ed.), R. Ochsendorf (Ed.), K. M. Koepke (Ed.), "Acquisition of Complex Arithmetic Skills and Higher-Order Mathematics Concepts, Volume III" (p297-325). New York, NY: Elvesier.] more...

Findings from the fields of cognitive science and cognitive development propose a variety of evidence-based principles for improving learning. One such recommendation is that instead of having students practice solving long strings of problems on their own after a lesson, worked-out examples of problem solutions should be incorporated into practice sessions in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) classrooms. Research in scientific laboratories and real-world classrooms has also identified a number of methods for utilizing worked examples in lessons, including fading the examples, prompting self-explanation of the examples, including incorrect examples, and providing opportunities for students to compare multiple examples. Each of these methods has been shown to lend itself well to particular types of learning goals. Implications for education policy are discussed, including rethinking the ways in which STEM textbooks are constructed, finding ways to support educators in recognizing and implementing effective cognitive science-based pedagogical techniques, and changing the climate in classrooms to include the perception of errors as a functional part of the learning process. [This article was published in "Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences," v2 n1 p24-32 Oct 2015.] more...