Research

Play through learning. Play = Learning. Play is learning. These are the variations of the play mantra that was repeated by researchers and early childhood educators last week at the annual professional development institute held by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. 

More than 2,000 people attended the institute, which was held in Charlotte, N.C. Several of the presentations are now available online in a searchable directory on the NAEYC web site, which, by the way, received a major face lift last week to make it easier to navigate. Here are a few of the sessions that caught our eye (they cannot be directly hyperlinked but you can get to them by searching by author's name):

One features caped superheroes who fly "into" classic stories like The Three Little Pigs, using their knowledge of letters and words to change the endings. (Don't worry, there's still plenty of huffing and puffing.) The other one puts words front and center, turning them into props and lead characters, such as the wooly wonder whose body is actually formed out of cushiony-looking, three-dimensional letters of S H E E P.

In 2007, when PBS launched these two new television shows for 3 to 6 year olds -- Super Why! and Word World -- most parents saw them as just another couple of programs trying to elbow into the increasingly crowded children's TV market. But they have another dimension. They are part of a federally funded, five-year program to determine whether electronic media can help children learn to read -- and if so how.

Researchers are now releasing data from the first studies of these shows. Results are promising, with SuperWhy! helping children make large gains on the majority of tests of pre-reading skills and Word World having a somewhat lesser, though still significant, impact.

Virtually all the progress made in children's well-being since 1975 -- particularly the improvements since the 1990s -- will be wiped out by the current recession, according to a report released at a New America event this morning.

"We will lose ground that had been gained over the past three decades," said Kenneth C. Land, project coordinator for the Child and Youth Well-Being Index, which uses federal statistics to track how American children are faring in domains such as health, safety and education. The 2009 edition was released today and included a special focus report on anticipating the impacts of the 2008-2010 recession.

You voted. We investigated. In a blog post last month, we asked you to choose what research most piqued your interest among 10 relevant posters released at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. The top 3 vote-getters: Research on "fade-out" in the elementary school years; social behavior in preschool; and early academic outcomes for children in family-based care, center-based or public pre-K. Our final post in this series describes the fade-out research, which is clearly a topic of great interest among our readers, receiving more votes than any other. Thanks again for your input.

Researchers have long puzzled over why poor children who acquire significant cognitive benefits from preschool tend to lose that academic edge by 3^rd grade -- a phenomenon known as "fade-out." Research presented last month by Aleksandra Holod and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn of Columbia University's Teacher College fills in another piece of the puzzle, showing that one factor is whether the child's elementary school serves a population that is mostly poor.

You voted. We investigated. In a blog post earlier this month, we asked you to choose what research most piqued your interest among 10 relevant posters released at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. The top 3 vote-getters: Research on "fade-out" in the elementary school years; social behavior in preschool; and early academic outcomes for children in family-based care, center-based or public pre-K, which we wrote about last week. Here's report number 2, on social behaviors. Stay tuned for the final installment in May.

Can a preschooler's ability to play well with his classmates tell us about something about his chances for success in kindergarten? New data from Arizona State University provides some hints in that direction. The research has provided some of the first evidence to link academic skills to positive social behaviors at such young ages.

Hispanic children are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, yet they are doing worse in school than any of their peers. They need urgent attention, says a new Social Policy Report from the Society of Research in Child Development, which recommends many steps to be taken by government, educational and community organizations. 

Two of the boldest calls to action are to:

• Establish and strengthen dual-language programs, which have been shown in recent studies to be more effective than English-only programs at bridging achievement gaps for Hispanic children.
• Provide more pre-kindergarten programs to Hispanic children, who have been shown in some studies to be less likely to attend preschool.

Poor academic achievement on multiple levels -- including dismal showings among middle class students in America compared to other countries -- has led the United States to lose hundreds of billions of dollars in its gross domestic product, according to a report released by McKinsey & Company today. 

The report makes a case for the devastating economic impact of not improving the nation's schools. Its data show that achievement gaps have imposed "the economic equivalent of a permanent deep recession." The report does not offer specific recommendations for getting out of this ditch, other than to look more closely at the few school systems that are making progress and adopt their practices.

The way out was left to a discussion with education and civil rights leaders at the formal unveiling of the report at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., today. Disappointingly, although the Rev. Al Sharpton voiced strong applause lines about the need for change, there was no specific mention of what might be achieved by offering better early childhood education opportunities to young children and tying those early experiences to what is taught in elementary schools.

You voted. We investigated. In a blog post earlier this month, we asked you to choose what research most piqued your interest among 10 relevant posters released at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. The top 3 vote-getters: Research on "fade-out" in the elementary school years; social behavior in preschool; and early academic outcomes for children in family-based care, center-based or public pre-K.  Here is your first report, on the latter of those three. Keep in mind that these are early findings from not-yet-published research.  Stay tuned for the next two, and thanks for your input.

Children who attended pre-K programs run by the Miami-Dade County Public Schools are doing better in elementary school than their peers who attended community-based child-care settings paid for with public subsidies, according to new research from the Miami School Readiness Project.

Every $1 invested in quality preschool programs saves $10 in reduced expenses down the road. That statistic has been making headlines lately, thanks in part to appearances in major speeches by President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. But how accurate is it? And what does it really mean for early education programs?  

A New York Times story last week delivered a prime example of how this statistic can become misleading -- and how it can create unrealistic expectations among policy makers and the public, who may erroneously conclude that we can generate good returns by expanding existing early childhood programs, without first improving their quality. 

Seeking funding for research on child care centers or Head Start? Have some ideas for the creation of a federal center dedicated to research on young English-language learners?  Consider submitting them to the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation for the Administration for Children and Families. The office, which is part of U.S. Health and Human Services Department, is seeking proposals this spring for three grant programs related to early childhood research.

Details -- pasted from the OPRE news listserv -- are below. Deadlines are quickly approaching. You've got until the end of this month to get letters of intent out the door.