The transition to kindergarten is a critical period for children and families, with successful transitions setting the stage for short- and long-term academic and social success. This study explored the practices used by kindergarten teachers to help ease children's and families' transition into primary school (termed "transition…

Using nationally representative data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC; N = 5,107), this study assessed prospective connections between children's early education and care (EEC) experiences from infancy through preschool and their cognitive and behavioral functioning in 1st grade. Incorporating 6 waves of data, analyses…

Using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, this study examined the cross-lagged relations between behavioral engagement and reading achievement in elementary school and whether these cross-lagged relations differed between low-socioeconomic status (SES) and mid-…

Review of current federal and state standards indicates little consensus or empirical justification regarding appropriate goals, often referred to as benchmarks, for preschool letter-name learning. The present study investigated the diagnostic efficiency of various letter-naming benchmarks using a longitudinal database of 371 children who attended…

Child development for a cohort of urban Aboriginal children was assessed at three time points: 12 months, 3 years and 4.5 years. This paper reports developmental findings and explores the impact of child, family, home and community variables over time. Overall, child development at 4.5 years was significantly below the standardised mean. Female…

The authors examined the development of oral language and decoding skills from preschool to early elementary school and their relation to beginning reading comprehension using a cross-sequential design. Four- and 6-year-old children were tested on oral language and decoding skills and were retested 2 years later. In all age groups, oral language…

In this 3-year longitudinal study, the authors tested and extended M. Senechal and J. Le Fevre's (2002) model of the relationships between preschool home literacy practices and children's literacy and language development. Parent-child reading (Home Literacy Environment Questionnaire plus a children's Title Recognition Test) and parental teaching…