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The preschool years are a critical time for math development. Unfortunately, children from low-income backgrounds often enter kindergarten with lower math skills than middle-income peers, perhaps due to less math exposure at home. Few home-based math interventions are available for preschool age children; those that do exist are costly and difficult to implement. Interventions conducted in children's schools using linear numeric board games developed by researchers have been particularly successful with low-income preschool children. Researchers have suggested they may be adapted for home-use by using commercially available board games, such as Chutes and Ladders, and teaching parents how to play. The two studies described in this paper explored the effectiveness of using Chutes and Ladders with a specialized counting procedure with Head Start families. Implementation proved to be challenging and children did not improve as much as in previous classroom-based interventions.

The association between monolingual children's early language abilities and their later reading performance is well established. However, for English language learners, the pattern of associations between early language skills and later literacy is much less well understood for English language learners. This study examined language predictors of preschool, low-income Latino English language learners' (N = 112) spring vocabulary and literacy skills. Only children's English language skills at the start of preschool, not Spanish or conceptual vocabulary (child received credit for knowledge of word in either English or Spanish), were significant predictors of subsequent vocabulary and literacy scores. In addition, vocabulary and language comprehension together accounted for more variance in spring performance than vocabulary alone. Finally, data from a small subset of parents (N = 21) suggested that the children's Spanish skills were being maintained through activities at home. Discussion focuses on the application of findings to assessment and practice in the preschool classrooms.