This 1-year prospective study aimed to examine associations between children's preschool emotional and behavioral problems and their kindergarten classroom engagement, and to identify any gender differences in this association. In preschool, parents and teachers completed questionnaires assessing aspects of children's (n = 575) emotional…

Validating frameworks for understanding classroom processes that contribute to student learning and development is important to advance the scientific study of teaching. This article presents one such framework, Teaching through Interactions, which posits that teacher-student interactions are a central driver for student learning and organizes…

This study was designed to experimentally examine how supplemental vocabulary instruction provided in either whole-group or small-group settings influences low-income preschoolers' word knowledge and conceptual development. Using a within-subject design, 108 preschool children from 12 Head Start classrooms participated in an 8-week…

This study examined the relations between the home language and literacy environment and emergent skill to use academic language in a sample of 58 3-year-old Dutch children, focusing on production and comprehension in 3 genres: personal narrative, impersonal narrative, and instruction in play. Regarding production, children used academic language…

Between- and within-family changes in 4 dimensions of parent involvement in children's learning were examined from prekindergarten to kindergarten and from kindergarten to first grade. Children's literacy, language, and mathematics skills were individually assessed at prekindergarten entry and end of first grade. Parents' provision of cognitive…

This study examines the impact of 2 forms of professional development on prekindergarten teachers' early language and literacy practice: coursework and coaching. Participating teachers (N = 148) from 6 urban cities were randomly assigned to Group 1 (coursework), Group 2 (on-site coaching), or Group 3 (control group). Pre- and postassessments…

As prekindergarten becomes a more common feature in elementary school, little is known about how early childhood stakeholders are incorporating their child-centered practices into the standards-based accountability reforms that define elementary school. This article addresses this issue by presenting a case study that examined the implementation…

In this article we describe research in which we used focus group data to study the implementation of preschool programs in elementary schools. 20 preschool teachers, 22 kindergarten teachers, and 53 parents from 10 schools in 5 states participated in the focus groups. These data, collected in the spring of 2001, were part of a 3-year multisite…