This report provides a summary of the Home Instruction of Parents with Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program activities and its effectiveness for Houston Independent School District (HISD) student participants. A total of 637 three to five-year children, along with their parents, participated in the HISD HIPPY program during the 2015-2016 academic…

Families who live in poverty face disadvantages that can hinder their children's development in many ways, write Greg Duncan, Katherine Magnuson, and Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal. As they struggle to get by economically, and as they cope with substandard housing, unsafe neighborhoods, and inadequate schools, poor families experience more stress in…

The aims of this working paper were to investigate whether taking part in out of school activities during primary school is linked with end of primary school attainment and social, emotional and behavioural outcomes, for all children and specifically for children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The analysis is based on the Millennium…

Individual differences in temperament can be protective or risk factors that may enhance or interfere with children's healthy development and educational success. This study examined the concurrent and predictive relationships between temperament, school adjustment, and academic achievement in children at-risk. Seventy-seven children at-risk, ages…

While significant attention has been paid to Wall Street investors and families impacted by the current subprime mortgage crisis in the USA, the lives of Sesame Street are minimally discussed. Children and their families are enduring a variety of consequences of foreclosures. The consequences can be hugely disruptive to the approximately 2 million…

Economic inequality is high and rising in a number of developed countries, including in the United Kingdom and the United States. There are growing concerns that this may have negative implications for equality of opportunity, and the extent to which social disadvantage is transmitted across generations. It is widely believed that providing…

Student achievement tests consistently show that certain groups of children score far below children in other groups. The data document a strong association between poverty and students' academic success. The achievement gap begins early in children's lives as the result of physical, social, and emotional deprivations. California is attempting to…

Understanding the consequences of growing up poor for a child's well-being is an important research question, but one that is difficult to answer due to the potential endogeneity of family income. Past estimates of the effect of family income on child development have often been plagued by omitted variable bias and measurement error. In this…

Describes qualities of a good preschool child-development program: Competent staff, parent partnerships, administrative support, and school board support. Provides list of online resources. (PKP)

Study examined why one school district required some children to take two years to reach first grade. Staff interviews, classroom observations, and demographic analysis indicated extra-yearing was implemented by a small, powerful few. More poor and fall-born children were placed in the program, which did not affect student achievement. (SM)

Addresses the need of involving the family and aspects of child development into helping children achieve academic success. Several collaborative efforts are highlighted, and the key features of strategies for collaboration are discussed. The article concludes with analysis of these collaborative efforts to determine the lessons to be learned. (GR)

Reviews evidence from preschool education programs to determine what impacts quality programs can have on poor children's intellectual and social competence. Reviews evidence from Head Start to determine whether preschool programs of national scope have produced the same effects as those produced by model programs. (Author/BJV)

Educators face no greater challenge than improving the academic odds for economically disadvantaged, minority children, because they are at the greatest risk for failure. A recent study from the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill uncovered ways in which, despite good intentions,…

This longitudinal research study summarizes how inner-city children's development and achievement are affected by preschool attendance, varying educational models, parent involvement, and identified risk-factors. The study of Washington, DC schools began with 3 cohorts of 4-year-olds enrolled in 3 different preschool models: child initiated,…

This digest discusses the findings of empirical studies on teacher-directed and child-initiated preschool programs. Three long-term preschool curriculum comparison studies--the High/Scope Preschool Curriculum Comparison, the Louisville Head Start Study, and the University of Illinois Study--were started in the 1970s. These studies indicated that…