Research Findings: The present study examined the extent to which instructional practices, including curriculum, in pre-K through third grade are vertically aligned. Attention was directed to teachers' grouping practices, academic content, and pedagogical methods given their importance for students' learning. Variable- and person-centered analyses…

Classroom organization is an important facet of prekindergarten quality but is typically measured at a "global level" and as a "single construct." Little is known about how experiences of different facets of classroom organization--namely, exposure to teacher organizational strategies--vary across "individual…

We examined the extent to which the timing of inferential questioning influenced kindergartners' inferencing performance in a non-reading context, while also taking into account individual differences in language comprehension and executive function. Students completed the eight-week Early Language Comprehension Individualized Instruction (ELCII)…

Measures of self-regulation may not capture adequate variability in children with low levels of self-regulation. This can limit a measure's ability to accurately demonstrate relations with other variables. The present study addressed this issue with a revised version of the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task (HTKS-R), which includes a new downward…

The purpose of this paper is to describe what we know and what we still need to learn about literacy intervention for children who experience significant difficulties learning to read. We reviewed 14 meta-analyses and systematic reviews of experimental and quasi-experimental studies published in the last decade that examined the effects of reading…

Student problem behaviors in early elementary school have been associated with increased teacher burnout, negative emotions, and stress, along with negative student outcomes, including increased risk of emotional and behavioral disorders (EBDs). This study examined the impact of BEST in CLASS--Elementary (BEST in CLASS-E), a teacher-delivered Tier…

Children's ability to monitor subjective feelings of uncertainty (i.e., engage in uncertainty monitoring) is a central metacognitive skill. The study examines the development of uncertainty monitoring as well as its relations with vocabulary and executive function development in children (N = 137, 52% female) from predominately White and…

Effective early mathematics instruction is critical to support long-term mathematics achievement. Given that student response to typical instruction varies, a range of mathematics interventions have been developed to support foundational mathematics development. However, not all students respond to these interventions. To better understand factors…

Although basing instruction on a learning trajectory (LT) is often recommended, there is little evidence regarding the premise of a LT approach--that to be maximally meaningful, engaging, and effective, instruction is best presented one LT level beyond a child's present level of thinking. This hypothesis was evaluated for an empirically-validated…

Background: Vocabulary and domain knowledge are important factors that influence comprehension development. However, these factors have most frequently been examined in relation to reading comprehension and much less frequently examined in relation to listening comprehension. Moreover, almost no empirical studies have examined profiles of…

Objective: This study examines media use of children from low-income homes during school closings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: Caregivers of 151 kindergartners from low-income homes completed questionnaires as part of a larger study. Caregivers reported how much time children spent watching TV/videos and using apps on the most recent…

To better understand the impact of using e-books on students' reading outcomes, we conducted a meta-analysis of 14 studies with students in grades K-12 published between 2007 and 2018. Findings revealed an average effect size across all studies and reading outcomes of 0.9 that did not differ significantly from zero. There was also no statistically…

The present study aimed to identify commonalities and points of divergence in the ways that parents, teachers, and administrators characterize children's transition from public pre-K into kindergarten within a large, diverse school district. A wide range of transition practices were in use across the district, including practices designed to…

Areas of misalignment between children's experiences in preschool and kindergarten are increasingly viewed as contributing to the fade-out of preschool effects. The current study examined alignment and misalignment of classroom experiences across the transition from public pre-k into kindergarten. As part of a longitudinal cohort study, we…

This study examined whether the efficacy of a 50 lesson mathematics intervention program focused on whole number concepts for at-risk kindergarten students, ROOTS, differed by group size and whether initial skill moderated intervention effects by group size. The study utilized a randomized block design with at-risk students (n = 1,251) within…