In recent years, interest has increased in preschool programs that promote low-income children's early learning and development. Although research in this area has focused mostly on 4-year-olds, a growing number of 3-year-olds attend publicly funded preschool. In fact, in Head Start--a federally funded early childhood education program--the…

This report presents exploratory impact findings for 3-year-olds from the Head Start CARES demonstration, a large-scale randomized controlled trial implemented in Head Start centers for one academic year across the country. The study was designed primarily to test the effects of the enhancements on 4-year-olds, but it also provides an opportunity…

Preschool has long been viewed as a way to promote low-income children's early learning and development. Some promising classroom-based strategies have been found to enhance preschool children's social, emotional, and behavioral competencies. Most of this research has focused on 4-year-olds, even as a growing number of 3-year-olds attend Head…

For socioeconomically disadvantaged children, a positive experience in kindergarten may play a particularly important role in fostering the behavioral adjustment and learning engagement necessary for school success. Prior research has identified supportive student--teacher relationships and classroom emotional support as two features of the…

The objective of this study was to evaluate two early intervention packages to promote successful transitions to kindergarten for preschoolers with behavior problems recruited from Head Start preschools. Fifty children (M[subscript age] = 61 months; 76% male; 98% minority) referred by teachers due to early externalizing behavior problems were…

Children's expression and regulation of emotions are building blocks of their experiences in classrooms. Thus, the authors' primary goal was to investigate whether preschoolers' expression or ability to regulate emotions were associated with teachers' ratings of school adjustment. A secondary goal was to investigate how boys and girls differed…