Pre-kindergarten Children Research Articles

TBRI® Nurture Group©: tier 2 intervention for preschoolers born during the COVID-19 pandemic & experiencing economic hardship

ABSTRACT This study explored the effectiveness of Trust-Based Relational Intervention® (TBRI®) Nurture Group© to improve social-emotional development among preschool aged students who experienced economic hardship and the COVID-19 pandemic. A mixed-methods approach using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and focus group interviews with teaching staff were used to determine effectiveness of the intervention on pre-kindergarten and preschool students. Significant improvements in social-emotional development among pre-kindergarten children occurred, including reduced conduct and peer relationship problems, decreased emotional behavioral difficulties, and increased prosocial behavior. Preschool children showed positive changes in social-emotional development, though not statistically significant. There was a significant difference in the changes that occurred between classes in the domains of conduct problems and prosocial behaviors, as the pre-kindergarten children experienced significantly larger improvements in these domains. Qualitative findings indicated enhanced empathy and self-regulation skills among children participating in the Nurture Group© and consistency between TBRI® principles and the center’s curriculum. Overall, this study confirms the theory that TBRI® Nurture Group© positively impacts children’s social-emotional development, with implications for occupational therapy practitioners to promote trauma-informed approaches and protective factors through collaboration with educators.

Maternal, Child, and Parenting Factors Associated with Obesity Among Pre-Kindergarten Children in Mississippi

Maternal, Child, and Parenting Factors Associated with Obesity Among Pre-Kindergarten Children in Mississippi

Comparison Between Hip And Wrist Worn Accelerometer Data In Pre-kindergarten Children During Indoor Free-play

Comparison Between Hip And Wrist Worn Accelerometer Data In Pre-kindergarten Children During Indoor Free-play

Validation of the Child Observation Record Advantage 1.5 Assessment Tool for Preschool Children: A Multilevel Bifactor Modeling Approach

This paper reports an investigation into the psychometric properties of the COR-Advantage1.5 (COR-Adv1.5) assessment tool, a criterion-referenced observation-based instrument designed to assess the developmental abilities of children from birth through kindergarten. Using data from 8534 children participating in a state-funded preschool program for disadvantaged 4-year-olds, we employed a multilevel bifactor model to show that CORAdv1.5 has some potential as an unbiased assessment tool for tracking developmental progress in pre-kindergarten children, under a bifactor model parameterization, with fewer dimensions than were proposed by the test developer, HighScope. Examination of factor adequacy indices revealed that, despite the multidimensional structure, CORAdv1.5 items overwhelmingly reflect variance due to the general factors at the child and classroom levels. Evidence for multilevel reliability, response process validity, predictive validity, longitudinal measurement invariance, and generalizability of the items are also reported. The findings of this study have important implications for the use of COR-Adv1.5.

Children and adults rely on different heuristics for estimation of durations

Time is a uniquely human yet culturally ubiquitous concept acquired over childhood and provides an underlying dimension for episodic memory and estimating durations. Because time, unlike distance, lacks a sensory representation, we hypothesized that subjects at different ages attribute different meanings to it when comparing durations; pre-kindergarten children compare the density of events, while adults use the concept of observer-independent absolute time. We asked groups of pre-kindergarteners, school-age children, and adults to compare the durations of an "eventful" and "uneventful" video, both 1-minute long but durations unknown to subjects. In addition, participants were asked to express the durations of both videos non-verbally with simple hand gestures. Statistical analysis has revealed highly polarized temporal biases in each group, where pre-kindergarteners estimated the duration of the eventful video as "longer." In contrast, the school-age group of children and adults claimed the same about the uneventful video. The tendency to represent temporal durations with a horizontal hand gesture was evident among all three groups, with an increasing prevalence with age. These results support the hypothesis that pre-kindergarten-age children use heuristics to estimate time, and they convert from availability to sampling heuristics between pre-kindergarten and school age.

Children's absenteeism from pre-K to kindergarten: A focus on children receiving child care subsidies

As many as 48% of children in prekindergarten (pre-K) miss a month or more of the pre-K year (i.e., 10% or more of the school year), and high levels of absenteeism are associated with adverse academic and social-emotional outcomes in pre-K and in K-12. To date, no studies have examined absenteeism specifically among children receiving child care subsidies, a population of children who may be at greater risk for high absenteeism. Moreover, few studies have explored absenteeism in diverse early care and education (ECE) programs beyond public school pre-K or Head Start programs. This study uses administrative data from Massachusetts to address these gaps by (1) documenting absenteeism rates for children receiving subsidies during the pre-K year in both family child care (FCC) and center-based care (CBC) programs and in kindergarten; and (2) testing whether pre-K absenteeism is associated with kindergarten absenteeism in the full sample and by ECE program type. Results show that children enrolled in subsidized care were absent for an average 8.4% of the school year in pre-K and 5.9% of the school year in kindergarten. Absenteeism rates were lower in pre-K but slightly higher in kindergarten among children enrolled in FCCs, compared to those enrolled in CBCs (Pre-K: 7.2 versus 8.7%; Kindergarten: 6.2 vs 5.8%, respectively). Results from multilevel regression analyses showed that the associations between pre-K and kindergarten absenteeism were positive for children enrolled in both CBC and FCC programs. By documenting the prevalence of absenteeism among a sample of children receiving child care subsidies in diverse ECE programs, this study provides implications for ECE and child care subsidy research, policy, and practice.

The Impact of Block Play on Young Children’s Production of Intrinsic Frame of Reference: A Quasi-Experiment

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Although the importance of block play to children’s spatial ability has been recognized globally, little is known about children’s use of spatial frames of reference during spatial processing. This study investigated the intervention with guided block play to promote children’s use of their intrinsic frame of reference, an identified effective frame of reference for spatial information. Participants included 42 kindergarten children ( months, SD = 3.91, 48% girls) and 42 pre-kindergarten children ( months, SD = 3.63, 57% girls) from one public kindergarten in Shanghai, China. A quasi-experiment method was used with a four-month intervention program designed for the experiment groups. Statistically significant differences were identified in the performance of the spatial tasks between the experiment and control groups in both kindergarten and pre-kindergarten children after the intervention. The results revealed that block-play interventions can effectively increase children’s ability to use their intrinsic frame of reference and their preference in using this frame for spatial representations. Practice or Policy: These findings provided a new perspective on analyzing children’s spatial competence and supported the benefits of block play interventions with empirical evidence.

Dialect density, language abilities and emergent literacy skills of prekindergarten children who speak African American English

BackgroundNumerous studies have observed a significant and unique relationship between children's use of nonmainstream dialect and reading outcomes. We aimed to examine the relationship between nonmainstream dialect and reading at its roots by completing a preliminary evaluation of the relationship between African American English (AAE) dialect and multiple dimensions of emergent literacy skills in young African American children enrolled in Head Start.MethodsSeventy‐eight African American preschoolers completed the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening‐PreK (PALS‐PreK) and a narrative retell of the wordless picture book, Frog, Where Are You? The narratives were used to generate three measures of narrative productivity and the dialect density measure (DDM).ResultsStructural equation modelling found that the PALS‐PreK measures significantly loaded onto a single print‐related emergent literacy latent variable and that the three narrative measures significantly loaded onto a single language‐based emergent literacy latent variable. There was a significant relationship between print‐related emergent literacy skills and DDM, but the overall model had a poor fit, showing that the relationship between emergent literacy and DDM was weak.ConclusionsWe conclude the manuscript by discussing implications of this research and suggestions for further study.

Latent profile analysis of classroom behavior problems in an American national sample of prekindergarten children

AbstractProblematic behaviors impede young children's ability to succeed in the classroom. Examining individual patterns of behavior problems allows researchers to identify profiles of students most in need of support. This study applied latent profile analysis (LPA) among a national sample (N = 2764) of American prekindergarten children and found six distinct behavior profiles, which differed in the severity and type (underactive vs. overactive) of behavior problems and the classroom contexts in which problem behaviors arose (peer, learning, and teacher contexts). About two‐thirds of children displayed positive behaviors across classroom contexts, performed well on assessments of early academic ability, and maintained positive relationships with their teachers, indicating generally appropriate adjustment to the preschool environment. Yet, 24% of children were classified into three risk profiles as they demonstrated elevated and pervasive underactive or overactive behavior problems in multiple classroom settings. Children with these profiles were deemed the most vulnerable in the sample, as those with underactive problems had the lowest academic proficiency, and those with overactive problems showed the most negative relationships with teachers and parents. Implications for practice are discussed.

Parental perceived immigration threat and children's mental health, self-regulation and executive functioning in pre-Kindergarten.

Many children in immigrant households endure unique stressors shaped by national, state, and local immigration policies and enforcement activity in the United States. Qualitative studies find that during times of heightened immigration enforcement, children as young as 3 years of age show signs of behavioral distress related to national anti-immigrant sentiment and the possibility of losing a parent. Using multiple sources of data from 168 racially and ethnically diverse families of children in pre-Kindergarten, the present study examined variability in perceived levels of immigration enforcement threat by parental immigrant status and ethnicity. This study examined associations between immigration enforcement threat and child mental health, self-regulation, and executive functioning and whether parent immigrant status or child gender moderates these associations. We found substantial variability in perceived immigration threat, with immigrant parents and Latinx parents reporting significantly greater levels of immigration threat compared to nonimmigrant parents and non-Latinx parents. Immigration enforcement threat was associated with greater child separation anxiety and overanxious behaviors, and lower self-regulation among boys and girls and among children of immigrant and U.S.-born parents. In contrast to our hypothesis, immigration enforcement threat was associated with higher self-regulation according to independent assessor ratings. Educators and healthcare providers working with young children from immigrant and Latinx households should be aware of the disproportionate stress experienced by immigrant and Latinx families due to a xenophobic sociopolitical climate marked by heightened immigration enforcement threat and racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Parents’ math anxiety and mathematics performance of pre-kindergarten children

Prior research demonstrates that individuals’ math anxiety may be negatively related to their mathematics performance. However, little research has examined how caregivers’ math anxiety is associated with children’s mathematics performance prior to kindergarten. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relation between parents’ math anxiety and the change in children’s mathematics performance during the preschool year. Participants were 310 preschool-age children (155 female; 4.12–5.78 years of age, M = 5.20 years, SD = 0.29). Structural equation modeling results demonstrated that parents’ math anxiety was significantly negatively related to change in children’s mathematics performance during the pre-kindergarten year when controlling for fall mathematics performance and demographics. Moreover, multigroup path analyses revealed that this association did not differ for male versus female children.

Hospitalizations Associated with COVID-19 Among Children and Adolescents - COVID-NET, 14 States, March 1, 2020-August 14, 2021.

Although COVID-19-associated hospitalizations and deaths have occurred more frequently in adults,† COVID-19 can also lead to severe outcomes in children and adolescents (1,2). Schools are opening for in-person learning, and many prekindergarten children are returning to early care and education programs during a time when the number of COVID-19 cases caused by the highly transmissible B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is increasing.§ Therefore, it is important to monitor indicators of severe COVID-19 among children and adolescents. This analysis uses Coronavirus Disease 2019-Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network (COVID-NET)¶ data to describe COVID-19-associated hospitalizations among U.S. children and adolescents aged 0-17 years. During March 1, 2020-August 14, 2021, the cumulative incidence of COVID-19-associated hospitalizations was 49.7 per 100,000 children and adolescents. The weekly COVID-19-associated hospitalization rate per 100,000 children and adolescents during the week ending August 14, 2021 (1.4) was nearly five times the rate during the week ending June 26, 2021 (0.3); among children aged 0-4 years, the weekly hospitalization rate during the week ending August 14, 2021, was nearly 10 times that during the week ending June 26, 2021.** During June 20-July 31, 2021, the hospitalization rate among unvaccinated adolescents (aged 12-17 years) was 10.1 times higher than that among fully vaccinated adolescents. Among all hospitalized children and adolescents with COVID-19, the proportions with indicators of severe disease (such as intensive care unit [ICU] admission) after the Delta variant became predominant (June 20-July 31, 2021) were similar to those earlier in the pandemic (March 1, 2020-June 19, 2021). Implementation of preventive measures to reduce transmission and severe outcomes in children is critical, including vaccination of eligible persons, universal mask wearing in schools, recommended mask wearing by persons aged ≥2 years in other indoor public spaces and child care centers,†† and quarantining as recommended after exposure to persons with COVID-19.§§.

Sex Differences In Physical Activity And Sedentary Behaviors Between Traditional And Nature-based Pre-kindergarten Program Settings

Across all age groups, boys tend to engage in more physical activity (PA) than girls. Previous research has shown that the school setting may have a stronger influence on boys PA and sedentary behavior (SB) than girls, while it has also been suggested that as early as preschool, the school a child attends acts as a strong predictor of moderate- to vigorous-intensity PA (MVPA). PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare sex differences in Pre-Kindergarten (Pre-K) children’s PA and SB between a nature-based or traditional classroom setting. METHODS: 18 boys and 7 girls from one Pre-K program enrolled in this study. Data was collected using waist-worn accelerometers for 4 days (2h45min/day) across one week in the winter. Participants spent two days in a traditional classroom setting, and two days in a nature-based setting. Accelerometer data was analyzed using Butte (2014) cutpoints. Mann-Whitney U Tests were used to detect significant differences (p < 0.05) in PA and SB between boys and girls across school settings. RESULTS: Compared to a traditional setting, boys and girls averaged significantly more MVPA in a nature-based setting (Boys: 6.3 ± 6.3 minutes, p < .001; Girls: 5.8 ± 5.0 minutes, p < .001). The change in MVPA between educational settings was not significantly different between boys and girls (p = .790). In a nature-based setting boys spent significantly more time in moderate-intensity PA (MPA) than girls (Diff: 2.9 ± 1.2% of Wear Time [WT]; p = .047), averaging 20- and 17-minutes of MPA per class period, respectively. There were no significant differences in the PA or SB levels of boys and girls in the traditional classroom setting. CONCLUSIONS: Early education is a period during which children begin forming the PA habits they will follow through K-12 schooling and into adulthood. Therefore, any intervention which can promote higher levels of PA at this age should be explored. Boys and girls experienced similar benefits to PA when attending school in a nature-based compared to a traditional setting, therefore this pilot study suggests that educating children in a nature-based setting may promote greater levels of PA in both boys and girls. Due to the pilot nature of this study however, further research examining the potential factors that may explain the sex differences found in a nature-based setting is needed.

Identifying the Needs of Prekindergarten Children: A Focus on Health, Wellbeing, and Family Environment.

The impact of children’s health, wellbeing, and family environment on their learning and development is evident. Identifying the needs of children and their families is the first step to effectively developing and implementing programs that promote child development. This research employed a convergent mixed methods design and incorporated multiple data collection and analysis techniques to explore the needs of prekindergarten children related to their health, wellbeing, and family environment. A large-scale survey, regional meetings, and focus groups were conducted among a total of 4615 parents/caregivers, organizational representatives, and community members in the state of South Carolina, in the United States. Understanding child development, getting services for children and families, making childcare accessible and affordable, having enough family time, building strong relationships with children, and community support for families were identified as priorities. Parents/caregivers of different socio-demographic backgrounds prioritized different needs.

Reading identities as a developmental process: changes in Chinese-English learners from prekindergarten to kindergarten

ABSTRACT Reading identities are the ways that a person constructs the self as a reader across contexts and time. This study explores reading identities as a developmental process in multilingual children in prekindergarten and kindergarten. Participants were six children ages three to four participating in a Chinese-English family literacy program over a two year period. Children’s reading identities were examined across years and across children to describe areas of development in how children expressed reading identities. Findings describe areas of growth and stability in the reading development of young children that includes their first years of formal schooling.

Multitiered Early Literacy Identification in 3-Year-Old Children in Head Start Settings

Three-year-old children are seldom the focus in studies about supplemental early literacy instructional support. This study examines 3-year-old children’s potential need for additional early literacy support, extending and replicating a previous investigation that identified prekindergarten children (i.e., 4-year-olds) in Head Start classrooms for additional tiers of early literacy support. The sample included 143 children from Head Start centers in a southeastern, urban region of the United States who had received both fall and spring administrations of an early literacy screener (i.e., Get Ready to Read! —Revised). Standard scores were used to classify children into three tiers, and child tier movement from fall to spring was analyzed. Results support the feasibility of a tiered approach for examining 3-year-old children’s early literacy instructional needs. This might allow researchers and practitioners to provide intervention to children much sooner, thereby increasing the potential for positive long-term reading outcomes.

Sustained benefits of a preschool home visiting program: Child outcomes in fifth grade

This study evaluated the sustained effects of the Research-based Developmentally Informed Parent program (REDI-P) at fifth grade, six years after intervention. Participants were 200 prekindergarten children attending Head Start (55% White, 26% Black, 19% Latinx, 56% male, mean age of 4.45 years at study initiation) and their primary caregivers, who were randomly assigned to a control group or a 16-session home-visiting intervention that bridged the preschool and kindergarten years. In addition, the study explored moderation of sustained effects by parenting risks (e.g., less than high-school education, single-parent status, parental depression, and low parent-child warmth). Growth curves over the course of the elementary years examined outcomes in three domains: child academic performance, social-emotional adjustment, and parent-child functioning. At fifth grade, significant main effects for intervention were sustained in the domains of academic performance (e.g., reading skills, academic motivation, and learning engagement) and parent-child functioning (e.g., academic expectations and parenting stress). Significant moderation by parenting risk emerged on measures of social-emotional adjustment (e.g., social competence and student-teacher relationships); parenting risk also amplified effects on some measures of academic performance and parent-child functioning, with larger effects for children from families experiencing fewer risks. Implications are discussed for the design of preschool home visiting programs seeking to enhance the school success and social-emotional well-being of children living in poverty.

Reading identities across language contexts: The role of language of text and talk for multilingual learners

Reading identities are the ways that a child constructs the self as a reader across contexts and time. This study examines the impact of language contexts on the reading identities of multilingual children. Participants were ten prekindergarten children participating in a Chinese-English family literacy programme with a parent or grandparent. Participants read Chinese and English language books across English, Chinese and multilingual contexts. Children’s reading identities were examined across language contexts to explore the interplay between language contexts and reading identities. Findings describe convergences and differences in reading identities across contexts for Chinese, English and multilingual language use and Chinese and English texts, and provide insights into the ways that different language contexts for reading affect multilingual children’s early reading identities. Multilingual contexts appear to provide key spaces for the development of reading identities, and English and Chinese contexts contribute to unique aspects of children’s reading identities.

Pilot test of the Hablemos Juntos Tier 2 academic language curriculum for Spanish-speaking preschoolers

This randomized control trial evaluated the feasibility and promise of a Spanish supplemental curriculum when delivered in small-group settings to pre-kindergarten (pre-k) children who qualified for Tier 2 support. The program focused on Spanish academic language development using shared book reading and extension activities. All 30 classrooms served Spanish-speaking students within a dual language Spanish/English model. The 167 participating students were eligible for Tier 2 support based on scores below benchmark on their district’s screening and progress monitoring measures. Classroom teachers provided about 15 h of Tier 2 intervention across an 11-week period. Results showed effects on proximal outcomes, but not distal, standardized measures. Specifically, children in Tier 2 intervention groups learned explicitly taught academic vocabulary words (d = .50), but there were no group differences for untaught words exposed within the shared reading texts. Classroom teachers were able to implement the Tier 2 intervention with fidelity and reported high satisfaction with the approach. These findings suggest the promise of small-group instruction for targeting higher level, academic language with pre-k children demonstrating risk.

Examining Early Composing: Children’s Differential Writing Performance Based on Task Context and Scoring Conceptualization

ABSTRACT Early writing is a foundational component of emergent literacy. Despite recent increases in early writing research, studies often narrowly focus on transcription (i.e., letter and/or name writing, spelling) to the exclusion of their ability to compose or generate ideas and translate into writing. Research investigating composing approaches it in disparate ways without clear conceptual, empirical, or theoretical foundations. Research Findings: The current study sought to better understand early composing. A sample of 133 pre-kindergarten children completed four composing tasks and which were scored in multiple ways to understand relations between multi-perspective scoring systems and determine if children performed differentially based on task. Findings demonstrated that children’s performance, across task context and scoring conceptualization, was variable but mostly highly correlated. Further analyses indicated the overreliance of composing scoring methods on understanding children’s composing through a transcription lens, with expressed focus upon children’s abilities to transcribe within a composing task context. Results indicated that children performed differentially on tasks; however, this variability was dependent upon scoring method. Practice or Policy: Findings have implications for early childhood teachers given curricular and standards-based emphases on composing, despite the field lacking a strong understanding of the development and nature of composing in young children.