Children's classroom engagement and school readiness gains in prekindergarten.

Child engagement in prekindergarten classrooms was examined using 2,751 children (mean age=4.62) enrolled in public prekindergarten programs that were part of the Multi-State Study of Pre-Kindergarten and the State-Wide Early Education Programs Study. Latent class analysis was used to classify children into 4 profiles of classroom engagement: free play, individual instruction, group instruction, and scaffolded learning. Free play children exhibited smaller gains across the prekindergarten year on indicators of language/literacy and mathematics compared to other children. Individual instruction children made greater gains than other children on the Woodcock Johnson Applied Problems. Poor children in the individual instruction profile fared better than nonpoor children in that profile; in all other snapshot profiles, poor children fared worse than nonpoor children.

Measures of classroom quality in prekindergarten and children's development of academic, language, and social skills.

This study examined development of academic, language, and social skills among 4-year-olds in publicly supported prekindergarten (pre-K) programs in relation to 3 methods of measuring pre-K quality, which are as follows: (a) adherence to 9 standards of quality related to program infrastructure and design, (b) observations of the overall quality of classroom environments, and (c) observations of teachers' emotional and instructional interactions with children in classrooms. Participants were 2,439 children enrolled in 671 pre-K classrooms in 11 states. Adjusting for prior skill levels, child and family characteristics, program characteristics, and state, teachers' instructional interactions predicted academic and language skills and teachers' emotional interactions predicted teacher-reported social skills. Findings suggest that policies, program development, and professional development efforts that improve teacher-child interactions can facilitate children's school readiness.

Teachers' education, classroom quality, and young children's academic skills: results from seven studies of preschool programs.

In an effort to provide high-quality preschool education, policymakers are increasingly requiring public preschool teachers to have at least a Bachelor's degree, preferably in early childhood education. Seven major studies of early care and education were used to predict classroom quality and children's academic outcomes from the educational attainment and major of teachers of 4-year-olds. The findings indicate largely null or contradictory associations, indicating that policies focused solely on increasing teachers' education will not suffice for improving classroom quality or maximizing children's academic gains. Instead, raising the effectiveness of early childhood education likely will require a broad range of professional development activities and supports targeted toward teachers' interactions with children.