The association between and development of school enjoyment and general knowledge.

Learning environments can support the development of foundational knowledge and promote children's attitudes toward learning and school. This study explores the relation between school enjoyment and general knowledge from preschool (2016-2017) to kindergarten (2017-2018) in 1359 children (M  = 55, 61 months, female = 50%; 58.5% Hispanic, 17% Black, 10% Asian, 10% White, 5% multiracial/other; linguistically diverse).

Identifying Teacher Beliefs and Experiences Associated with Curriculum Implementation Fidelity in Early Childhood Education.

Implementation science research points to the importance of improving implementation fidelity to improve outcomes and sustainability of interventions. Despite our growing understanding of factors related to implementation in K-12 settings, much less is known about factors influencing implementation in early childhood education contexts. Understanding factors related to how well early childhood educators implement an intervention is critical to developing ways to improve implementation fidelity and ultimately education quality.

Development and Testing of the Curiosity in Classrooms Framework and Coding Protocol.

Curiosity is widely acknowledged as a crucial aspect of children's development and as an important part of the learning process, with prior research showing associations between curiosity and achievement. Despite this evidence, there is little research on the development of curiosity or on promoting curiosity in school settings, and measures of curiosity promotion in the classroom are absent from the published literature. This article introduces the Curiosity in Classrooms (CiC) Framework coding protocol, a tool for observing and coding instructional practices that support the promotion of curiosity.

Does the timing of kindergarten absences matter for children's early school success?

Although we know that children who are more frequently absent from school do less well academically, we know little about whether absences matter for other domains of development and whether the timing of their absences matter. In order to address these gaps in knowledge, we examined the experiences of 1,131 kindergartners (64% Hispanic, 7% Black, 17% Asian/other, 12% White) from a mid-Atlantic state. Covariate-adjusted regression analyses showed that children who missed school more frequently did less well in terms of their academic achievement and executive function skills both in kindergarten and through the end of first grade.

Persistence and convergence: The end of kindergarten outcomes of pre-K graduates and their nonattending peers.

The present investigation examined the benefits of pre-K through the end of kindergarten for children from low-income homes who lived in a large and diverse county ( = 2,581) as well as factors associated with a reduction in benefits during the kindergarten year. Results revealed that pre-K graduates outperformed nonattenders in the areas of achievement and executive functioning skills at the end of kindergarten, and also that the benefits of pre-K at the start of the year diminished by a little more than half. This convergence between groups' performance was largest for more constrained skills, such as letter-word identification, and was attributed to the fact that nonattenders made greater gains in kindergarten as compared with graduates of pre-K.

Who's in charge? Child behavior predicts teacher subsequent classroom management practice for preschoolers reported to display disruptive behavior.

Most research examining teacher-child interactions focuses on how aspects of the teacher influence children's skills and development. However, teachers report that children who display disruptive behaviors negatively impact their practice. In this study, we examined the within-day reciprocal associations between teachers' interaction quality at the classroom level and preschool children's task orientation and conflict behavior in a sample of children reported by their teachers to display disruptive behaviors.

Children's Engagement within the Preschool Classroom and Their Development of Self-Regulation.

This study used an observational measure to examine how individual children's engagement with teachers, peers, and tasks was associated with gains in self-regulation. A sample of 341 preschoolers was observed and direct assessments and teacher reports of self- regulation were obtained in the fall and spring of the preschool year. RESEARCH FINDINGS: Children's positive engagement with teachers was related to gains in compliance/executive function and children's active engagement with tasks was associated with gains in emotion regulation across the year.

Observations of Children's Interactions with Teachers, Peers, and Tasks across Preschool Classroom Activity Settings.

This descriptive study examined classroom activity settings in relation to children's observed behavior during classroom interactions, child gender, and basic teacher behavior within the preschool classroom. 145 children were observed for an average of 80 minutes during 8 occasions across 2 days using the inCLASS, an observational measure that conceptualizes behavior into teacher, peer, task, and conflict interactions. Findings indicated that on average children's interactions with teachers were higher in teacher-structured settings, such as large group.

Variation in children's classroom engagement throughout a day in preschool: Relations to classroom and child factors.

This study examined sources of variability in preschool children's positive and negative engagement with teachers, peers, and tasks, and how that variability was related to both classroom activity settings (e.g., teacher-structured time, outdoor time, transitions) and child factors (age, gender).

The role of context in preschool learning: a multilevel examination of the contribution of context-specific problem behaviors and classroom process quality to low-income children's approaches to learning.

Research suggests that promoting adaptive approaches to learning early in childhood may help close the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children. Recent research has identified specific child-level and classroom-level variables that are significantly associated with preschoolers' approaches to learning. However, further research is needed to understand the interactive effects of these variables and determine whether classroom-level variables buffer the detrimental effects of child-level risk variables.