OBJECTIVE To evaluate the impact of an early childhood, family-centered, school-based intervention on children's kindergarten academic achievement. METHODS This was a cluster (school) randomized controlled trial with assessments from pre-kindergarten (pre-k) entry through the end of kindergarten. The setting was 10 public elementary schools with 26 pre-k classes in 2 school districts in urban...

Using linked Danish survey and register data, we estimate the causal effect of age at kindergarten entry on mental health. Danish children are supposed to enter kindergarten in the calendar year in which they turn 6 years. In a "fuzzy" regression-discontinuity design based on this rule and exact dates of birth, we find that a 1-year delay in kindergarten entry dramatically reduces inattention/h...

Although 1.4 million people speak Northern Khmer in Thailand, they are aware that their language is still in decline. To deal with this threat, native speakers have cooperated with linguists from Mahidol University to work on a community-based research project since 2007. Teaching the Northern Khmer language as a subject in the formal school system was the first project which started at Ban Pho...

OBJECTIVE To assess the amount of food waste by meal components according to the new National School Lunch Program guidelines among pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students. METHODS For 5 consecutive school days in 1 elementary school, the research team collected school lunch trays and separated meal components into bins relative to each food or beverage appearing on the school's daily menu...

Cascio and Schanzenbach estimate the effects of having older peers using data from an experiment where children of the same age were randomly assigned to different kindergarten classrooms. Exploiting this experimental variation in conjunction with variation in expected kindergarten entry age to account for negative selection of some of the older school entrants, they find that exposure to older...

RESEARCH FINDINGS: Data on more than 900 children participating in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care were analyzed to examine the effect of age of entry to kindergarten on children's functioning in early elementary school. Children's academic achievement and socioemotional development were measured repeatedly from the age of 54 months through...

The Community Preventive Services Task Force recommends full-day kindergarten programs to improve the health prospects of minority children and children from low-income families, based on strong evidence that, compared with half-day kindergarten or full-day kindergarten on alternating days, full-day programs substantially improve reading and mathematics achievement-determinants of long-term aca...

A growing number of studies demonstrate associations among false-belief understanding (FBU), executive function (EF), and social competence. This study extends previous studies by exploring longitudinal associations among FBU and its correlates within a low-income sample of preschoolers attending Head Start. Sixty-eight children (time 1 mean age = 5 years 2 months) were assessed over their pres...

OBJECTIVES.Many adults mention past incidences of verbal abuse by the teacher as the most overwhelming negative experience in their lives. The present study examined (1) the course and stability of verbal abuse by the teacher from kindergarten through grade 4 and (2) the link between verbal abuse by the teacher and children’s behavioral, emotional, and academic adjustment. DESIGN. Participants ...

Standardized rating scales represent the most reliable method of identifying socioemotional behavioral problems in children with SLI. However, limited information exists on the situational specificity or stability of rating scales applied to this population. In Redmond and Rice (1998), we presented evidence of limited reliability and stability between ratings collected from teachers and parents...