Children's school readiness skills across the pre-K year: Associations with teacher-student interactions, teacher practices, and exposure to academic content

Abstract

The present study reports associations between features of directly observed classroom processes and school readiness skills across the academic year for 1498 children enrolled in publicly funded pre-K programs in a large and diverse county. In models adjusting for a range of child and family covariates, evidence was detected for the separate, and on occasion additive, associations of several classroom process features with children's skills – overall quality of teacher-student interaction, teachers' direct involvement in educational activities, the rigor of those activities in terms of difficulty, and children's exposure to academic content. Associations were not widespread or large, and overall children's performance appeared to increase modestly when classrooms were more educationally focused and structured, and teachers were supportive and responsive as they were involved with children. Results are discussed in light of efforts to improve the benefits of pre-K programs on children's learning.