Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Kindergarten marks a major transition in the lives of most children. During this time, initial performance can strongly influence later educational and social outcomes. Children at risk of learning difficulty due to perceptual (i.e., hearing, vision, or orthopedic) impairment benefit from early intervention programs if early, appropriate, and sustained. How well are these children succeeding compared to their non-disabled peers? Few studies to date have examined the nature and extent of disadvantage of youth with disability in kindergarten.

Multivariate analyses using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) indicate that youth with perceptual impairments lag behind their non-disabled peers in initial cognitive measures of early literacy, numeracy, and general knowledge. While children with perceptual impairment make gains during the kindergarten year that are similar to those without impairment, these gains do not offset initial losses.

Differences in initial scores and gains were not explained by other individual and family level socio-demographic factors that are associated with cognitive performance, nor by the amount of learning exchanges between children and their parents or teachers. Instead, key factors were parental and teacher expectations of ability. Teacher’s ratings of classroom behavior significantly explained or further reduced remaining differences in cognitive scores. This supports a dynamic model of development whereby disability affects cognitive performance in part through altered expectations, which reduce the quality of learning exchanges. Expectations are influenced by behavioral cues, where children with less normative behavior are subject to lower ability expectations and, subsequently, reduced learning exchanges.

Publication Type: Poster Sessions
Abstract: Play is the medium for learning in early childhood. As play becomes more sociodramatic, a child learns the skills required to live in society. Is nature a place the promotes more complex play in early childhood?

Publication Type: Short Research Paper
Abstract: This study documents one kindergarten teacher’s journey as a reflective practitioner as she attempts to implement research-based practices to facilitate students’ voicing of mathematical thinking and reasoning in discussions. The process through which the teacher established the norms of verbalizing and justifying one's ideas was replete with challenges, successes, and pedagogical transformation.

Publication Type: Roundtable Format
Abstract: Implementing differentiated group instruction and a Balanced Reading Approach, using rhymes, repetitive books, and phonics with bilingual kindergarten students to address diversity and the need for new literacy models.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines the interrelationships between family, neighborhood and children’s readiness for school upon entry to Kindergarten. The study is based on data drawn from a national data set, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort (ECLS-K), which we have augmented with data from the U.S. Census. We use two level HLM models to predict children’s test scores in reading, mathematics and general knowledge at the fall entry of Kindergarten. The models include demographic information on children’s residential locations at the level of the census tract together with individual level variables.
Results show that of the three skills tested at Kindergarten entry, children’s level of general knowledge is most sensitive to their social environments, inside and outside the home. Mathematics knowledge shows the least variation according to the measured social environmental conditions. In addition to demographic characteristics, family resources and family educational practices, children’s neighborhood characteristics are also related to their early cognitive skills.
Children residing in neighborhoods with high levels of poverty, high concentrations of foreign born residents and racially segregated neighborhoods have lower levels of cognitive skills than similar children who live in more advantaged neighborhoods. Children living in advantaged neighborhoods, as indicated by the percentage of owner occupied homes, have higher test scores than their counterparts living in less advantaged neighborhoods. Finally, attending a Headstart program may offset some of the disadvantages linked to the general knowledge skills of children who live in Latino neighborhoods, while attending center based daycare will have a similar effect for reading.