Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort of 1998 (ECLS-K, 98), a nationally representative sample of kindergarteners in the United States, we investigated the relationship between approaches to learning and spring reading achievement with particular emphasis on classroom and school-level differences. We employed…

Research Findings: Parent involvement is a critical way for children to learn about the importance of education and develop reading skills. Unfortunately, not all low-income parents are able to be involved in their children's education, which can have negative implications for children's reading development. The present study tested if the…

We apply "value-added" models to estimate the effects of teachers on an outcome they cannot plausibly affect: student height. When fitting the relatively simple models that are widely used in educational practice to New York City data, we find the standard deviation of teacher effects on height is nearly as large as that for math and…

This study used Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort data to examine influences of the home and classroom learning environments on kindergarten mathematics achievement of Black, Latino, and White children. Regardless of race/ethnicity, children who started kindergarten proficient in mathematics earned spring scores about 7-8…

This study employed the concept of teachers' sense of responsibility for students' learning to examine the extent to which the gap in math learning growth is reduced and whether such attitudes can improve children's learning outcomes to a degree that is above and beyond their expected achievement relative to their initial academic skills. Analysis…

As special education inclusion policies become more widespread, classroom compositions are changing in ways that affect all students. The present study fills a critical gap in the literature by documenting the extent to which having a classmate with an emotional disturbance (ED) is linked to kindergarteners' absences. Because having a classmate…

This study used latent class analysis to examine profiles of Head Start classroom quality as measured by the Arnett Caregiver Interaction Scale (CIS) and the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R) with a large sample of classrooms (n=379). Data used in the study were taken from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth…

Multilevel modeling was used to investigate the relationship between poverty status, mathematics achievement gains, and behavioral engagement in learning over kindergarten. Data included information on 11,680 poor, low-income, and non-poor kindergartners from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K). Results…

This study used data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2009 4-year-old cohort to examine associations among family characteristics, home and classroom environments, and the emergent literacy skills of Head Start children. Results from hierarchical linear models suggest that both family and classroom contexts play a…

The author examined whether mathematics instruction provided by kindergarten teachers is related to children's mathematics learning during the kindergarten year based on the children's socioeconomic status and race. Hierarchical linear modeling was employed using a large sample of kindergarten students to estimate relationships between the…

We examined whether the early learning environment predicts children's 5th grade skills in 2,204 families from ethnically diverse, low-income backgrounds; tested the mediating roles of children's pre-kindergarten school-related skills and later learning environment; and asked whether lagged associations generalize across White, Black, Hispanic…

Over the past 20 years, the number of teacher's aides in the United States has more than doubled, potentially in response to the growth of special education programs now taking place in general education schools. Surprisingly, little research at all has focused on the role that teacher's aides may play in improving student achievement, and no…

Working memory is an important component of executive functioning, an area of difficulty for many autistic children. However, executive functioning and working memory are highly malleable throughout childhood, and various student-level and environmental factors play important roles in their development. This study used the Early Childhood…

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (N = 13,970), we examined whether two aspects of school-family connections, parental involvement and communication quality, accounted for the association between classroom composition and children's academic and socioemotional functioning following the transition to…

This article explores how the associations between student achievement and achievement growth influence our understanding of the role schools play in academic inequality. Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (ECLS-K:2011), we constructed parallel growth and lagged score…