Oklahoma's universal pre-K (UPK) program has long been a classic "man bites dog" story. In 1998, Oklahoma became the second state in the U.S. to offer free pre-K to all four-year-olds. Coupled with growing evidence of the critical importance of the early years in brain synapse formation, results like Tulsa's have encouraged state and…

The experiences and learning opportunities children are exposed to in pre-K give them a boost as they enter school. However, the positive effects of pre-K attendance on children's academic and cognitive skills become smaller and sometimes disappear by third grade due to non-attenders "catching-up" to their peers. To make pre-K programs…

The Coping Power Program is an evidence-based intervention for children identified to be at risk for developing externalizing behavioral problems. The Coping Power Program has been adapted to universally prevent behavioral problems in school-aged children. This study sought to test the efficacy of this adaptation, the Coping Power Universal…

Intervention research in education investigates whether and how particular educational programs help students learn. Treatment effect heterogeneity, or variation in a program's impact, makes this effort more complicated, because it means more work must be done to understand what works, for whom, and in what contexts. This dissertation consists of…

Research Findings: This study evaluated the impacts of the Summer Preschools Program on 5-to-6-year-old Syrian refugee and local children from vulnerable communities of Turkey. Developed as a community-based contextually sensitive early intervention model, the program aimed to promote developmental well-being and school readiness of children from…

Rule-governed behavior (RGB) is behavior that is controlled by verbal descriptions of contingencies rather than by direct contact or a history of direct contact with the contingencies. Humans rely on RGB to navigate a multitude of life experiences, and in doing so, we avoid direct contact with destructive or harmful contingencies or contingencies…

Poor physical development in young children has been shown to impact readiness for school, behaviour, social development and academic achievement. This research sought to explore whether a physical intervention programme (Movement for Learning) can improve children's physical development. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children (2nd edition,…

This study examines growth in language and math skills during the summer before kindergarten; considers variation by family income, race/ethnicity, and dual language learner status; and tests whether summer center-based care sustains preschool gains. Growth in skills slowed during summer for all children, but the patterns varied by domain and…

While the COVID-19 vaccines bring hope about the end of pandemic-related closures, leaders worldwide recognize that a fundamental shift has occurred in the way we work, live, and learn. Though we will always need brick-and-mortar schools, our "new normal" must include hybrid and virtual education options for students who do not have…

Young children enter kindergarten with varying levels of readiness and abilities to learn. One factor that contributes to lower levels of school readiness is poverty. One timely, cost-effective, and feasible strategy to boost school readiness, regardless of exposure to high-quality preschool is to leverage the summer months prior to kindergarten…

A small but growing cadre of schools and districts across the nation are turning to interventions rooted in brain science to complement or replace core curricula. Such programs target a related set of cognitive processes, known as executive function (EF), that are key to learning. Executive function skills are essential for planning, executing,…

Research Findings: This study uses data from a comprehensive meta-analytic database of early childhood education (ECE) program evaluations published between 1960 and 2007 in the United States to examine the incremental effects of adding enhancement program components to ECE programs on children's cognitive abilities, pre-academic skills,…

Preparing young children for kindergarten is an important task. There are many skills that need to be learned. Simple everyday school and daily living tasks are kindergarten readiness skills that need to be taught. Many preschool students struggle to learn these skills unless taught directly. There are a sufficient number of interventions that…

Considerable research has examined interventions that facilitate school readiness skills in young children. One intervention, "Red Light, Purple Light Circle Time Games" (RLPL; Tominey and McClelland, 2011; Schmitt et al., 2015), includes music and movement games that aim to foster self-regulation skills. The present study (N = 157)…

A broad range of initiatives including early intervention programmes have been implemented in Australia to assist disadvantaged and at-risk Indigenous parents and children. This qualitative exemplar case study details the perspectives of caregivers and service providers of one such early learning intervention programme situated within the remote…