The Role of Schools in Sustaining Early Childhood Program Benefits

Abstract

A number of articles in this journal issue have documented effects of early childhood programs on children’s cognitive abilities, achievement, and social adjustment as they mature to become schoolchildren, adolescents, and young adults. This article carefully considers the role that school experiences play in transmitting and sustaining the cognitive gains made by children in preschool. The author discusses the process of schooling in the early elementary grades, focusing on how children’s achievement is influenced by the expectations of parents and teachers, and by school practices such as assignment to within-class ability groups, retention in grade, and placement in special education. Because attending preschool boosts children’s performance, even temporarily, it can ease their transition into first grade and reduce their exposure to negative tracking by the school and to low expectations on the part of their parents and teachers. The link between preschool and first grade is key to understanding and explaining the long-term effects of preschool. T his article examines the role played by elementary schools in sustaining the benefits of early childhood programs, and proposes new ways of thinking about the links between preschool experience and the early years of elementary school. Surprisingly little is known about the process of schooling in the first, second, and third grades, let alone how preschooling interacts with it. Studies of how children respond to preschool programs indicate that preschooling has only transient effects on children’s intelligence quotient (IQ) and cognitive achievement but, nevertheless, is associated with greater success in school. Children who attend preschool are less often retained in grade and placed in special education, and they more often graduate from high school. 1 (See also the article by Barnett in this journal issue.) While these findings are widely reported, little effort has gone into explaining them. How do the early effects of preschool alter the later experiences children have in their families and school classrooms?