Eager to Learn Educating Our Preschoolers (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Preschool Program Quality
Preschool Program Quality
Pages 128-181
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From page 128... ...
Studies of preschool programs designed to enhance the learning and development of economically disadvantaged children, including studies of mode] programs.
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From page 129... ...
This research confirms the value of educational, therapeutic, and social services for infants and young children with disabilities. PROGRAMS FOR ECONOMI~LLY DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN Beginning in the early 1960s, preschool programs were developed to provide educational experiences to young children growing up in poverty.
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From page 130... ...
and traditional best-evidence reviews have found that such programs produced meaningful gains in cognitive, social, and emotional development during the preschool years (White and Casto, 1985; McKey et al., 1985; Ramey et al., 1985~. Although the studies of Head Start and public preschool programs have tended to em
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From page 131... ...
have concluded that public programs like Head Start do not improve cognitive functioning, although more intensive and more costly preschool programs may do so. Close examination of the results from these studies suggests that there are long-term positive effects on children's learning and subsequent school success, although the effects on IQ decline over time (Barrett, 1998; Barnett and Camilli, in press)
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From page 132... ...
A review of over 30 longitudinal studies by Barnett (1998) concluded that preschool programs serving disadvantaged children also produced long-term gains in achievement as measured by standardized tests.
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From page 133... ...
Based on close analyses of these descriptions, the following factors were found to be present in most programs: · Curriculum content and learning processes that cultivate school-related skills and knowledge, with a heavy focus on language development, · Qualified teaching staff who use reflective teaching practices aided by highly qualified supervisors, · Low teacher-child ratio and small class sizes, · Intense and coherent programming, and · Collaborative relationships with parents. Detailed descriptions of the curricula used across the longitudinal studies exist for some programs (Bereiter and Engelmann, 1966; Garber, 1988; Karnes et al., 1972; Lally and Honig, 1977; Miller and Dyer, 1975; Palmer and Siegel, 1977; Ramey et al., 1982; Weikart, 1972; Weikart et al., 1967, 1978~.
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From page 134... ...
6 years Full-day Project 3 years 1:3 (Gerber, 1988) preschool 1:7 Perry Preschool Preschool 1:5 20-25 2 years Half-day Project (Schweinhart and Weikart, 1993)
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From page 135... ...
PRESCHOOL PROGRAM QUALITY 135 Teacher Activities ration Intensity Curriculum Qualifications for Parents rears rears rears Full-day Interactive Part- orfull-day Interactive Half-day I nteractive Experienced paraprofessionals to certified teachers Certified teachers Certified teachers and None 2 paraprofessionals Group meetings, home visits Home visits, guided observation in classroom fir 3 years Part-day Structured Certified teacher Weekly home visits during 10 weeks interactive academic year summer rears Full-day Interactive but Paraprofessional Weekly home visits less structured Home visitors/ informal class visits and professional teachers daily notes home years 2 week 2 tutoring Tutors change every None approaches: 6 weeks high concept training school to Ph.D. or discovery candidate rears Full-day Interactive Bachelor's degree with Home visits Early Childhood Education specialty rears Full-day Cognitive Paraprofessional/ Job training, social services, curriculum certified teacher home visits at4 years rears Half-day Interactive Certified teachers Weekly home visits rears Full-day Interactive Experienced Group meetings, home paraprofessionals visits to certified teachers
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From page 136... ...
Of course, these model programs also differed in the focus of the teachers and the program developers. For example, some focused most intensely on cognitive development, while others focused more on social and emotional development (Day and Parker, 1977; Lazar et al., 1977~.
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note that studies of Head Start and public school preschool programs found smaller long-term effects on school success than did studies of mode] programs.
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From page 138... ...
were compared with children in classrooms using other models (Karnes et al., 1983; Miller and Bizzell, 1983, 1984; Weikart et al., 1978~. Other possibly important sources of influence on learning and development, such as teacher-child ratio, class size, teacher training, and child characteristics, were held constant.
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From page 139... ...
The open classroom and interactive curricula are both considered nondidactic because teachers rarely instruct children in groups on discrete skills, although they do use direct instruction with individual children. Table 4-2 presents characteristics of the major curriculum comparison studies.
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From page 140... ...
and a "traditional" nursery school that allow for substantial initiation of activities by the child. These results have been questioned on methodological grounds by, among others, the developers of the direct instruction curriculum (Bereiter, 1986; Gersten, 1986~.
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From page 141... ...
reviewed 10 contrasting models used in Project Follow-Through, which followed preschool children from Head Start. These programs were referred to as experimental intervention programs and were designed or modified to continue the preschool models into the primary grades.
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From page 142... ...
This would be expected if the program was responsible for gains, but it would also be true if less disadvantaged children attended better Head Start programs. Unfortunately, there is no way to judge accurately how Head Start children in the study would have scored on the PPVT-III without intervention.
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From page 143... ...
Some studies relate program structure (e.g., class size, teacher qualifications) directly to child development and learning.
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From page 144... ...
preschool programs that provide much of the research on positive outcomes for children tended to be low even compared with the recommendations of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. For example, the two bestknown programs the High/Scope Perry Preschool and the Abecedarian programs had class sizes of 12 to 13 children with 2 teachers (Weikart et al., 1967; Ramey and Campbell, 1984~.
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From page 145... ...
Studies of large samples of programs that encompass the range of class sizes and ratios currently experienced by children in the United States consistently find that smaller preschool classes and higher teacher-child ratios are associated with greater cognitive gains as measured by IQ, achievement tests, and school success and better social outcomes, including classroom behavior, for children (Phillipsen et al., 1997; Dunn, 1993; CIarke-Stewart and Gruber, 1994; Howes, 1997; Howes et al., 1992; Kontos et al., 1997; Phillips et al., 1987, 1986~. The National Day Care Study (Ruopp et al., 1979)
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From page 146... ...
Class sizes in early care and education rarely are as small as 15 and frequently exceed 20 (Gormiey, 1995~. Moreover, unless they are in a Head Start program (where standards are relatively high)
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From page 147... ...
Responses to Parents The attitudes of early childhood practitioners toward parents also show both similarities and differences across early childhood programs. Early in the century, parents came to be considered crucial players, as the new social and health sciences informed them about the best ways to rear their children.
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From page 148... ...
Most of the longitudinal studies reviewed earlier in this chapter combined center-based experiences for children with extensive parent involvement components. Weekly or biweekly home visits by the child's teacher, parent group meetings, and parent involvement in the classroom were methods used by many of the programs.
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From page 149... ...
Few current early childhood programs continue to offer the kind of parent involvement characteristic of programs in the experimental studies. In most Head Start programs, if home visits are offered, they are infrequent, and the child's classroom staff (Brush et al., 1993; Zigler and Styfco, 1994)
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From page 150... ...
If early childhood teachers are to meet the needs of children individually and in groups and to design curricula and plan interactions that are meaningful they require a grounding in the content and methods of early childhood education and a sound knowledge of early learning and child development. They also need a rich, integrated subject matter mastery, if they are to artfully weave skill and content learning into activities.
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From page 151... ...
As the following sample excerpts from program descriptions indicate, in the experimental programs, teachers and other staff met often to discuss the program and the development of individual children: The research staff offered consulting service on all aspects of the program. Weekly seminars were hel~for the entire preschoo!
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From page 152... ...
Joseph Click commented, after observing all three of the classrooms in this study, "Common to all of the groups is the tremendous amount of preparation" (cited in Weikart et al., 1978:50~. There is evidence in both the Curriculum Demonstration Project and the Karnes comparison study (Karnes, 1983)
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From page 153... ...
compared 22 disadvantaged children in Bermuda attending a high-quality, governmentrun intervention program with 144 children attending other child care programs in Bermuda of varying quality on intellectual, lan
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From page 154... ...
In contrast to the previous findings, Kontos and Fiene (1991) found near-zero correlations between ECERS scores for PennsyIvania child care centers and children's language ability (SIossomIQ and a subscale of the Classroom, Behavior Inventory, and language scores Test of Early Language Development)
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From page 155... ...
(1994) measured the quality of 32 Head Start classrooms in North Carolina.
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From page 156... ...
Frede and colleagues not only found that the magnitude of child gains varied with their global assessment of program quality, but also that more positive child cognitive development was predicted by such specific teacher behaviors as modeling appropriate communication techniques, extending children's activities and problem solving by making suggestions, and using a variety of strategies to make children's recall time (reporting back to the group) interesting.
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From page 157... ...
asserts that early childhood education and care programs functioning currently can be divided in three major groups: first-language classrooms, bilingual classrooms, and English-language classrooms (described in Table 4-3~. Below we present examples of these types of programs.
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From page 158... ...
First language development in their preschool program did
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From page 159... ...
Recall from Table 4-3 that bilingual programs have teachers who are bilingual in L1 and English or are native speakers of L1 paired with a native speaker of English. Children in bilingual programs are all native speakers of L1 or a mixture of L1 and English speakers.
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From page 160... ...
These programs permit us to see what can happen when early education is taken on as a public responsibility. In preparation for this report, the committee held a workshop, "Global Perspectives on Early Childhood Education." Early childhood education in Japan and Reggio Emilia, Italy, drew par
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From page 161... ...
.. as well as the French ecole maternelle and most Japanese nursery schools, routinely have class sizes and child-to-staff ratios far in excess of NAEYC standards....
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From page 162... ...
Moreover, the estimated effects of the French program on the school success of disadvantaged children are quite small by American standards, much smaller than the estimated effects of both model and public school and Head Start programs in the United States (Boocock et al., 1999~. Sheila Kamerman (1999 see footnote 1)
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From page 163... ...
She illustrated this with the preschool program she devised for poor children in Istanbul, Turkey, demonstrating a long-term improvement in assessed academic proficiency from a program modeled on the Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY; Baker and Piotrowski, 1995) that adds the instruction of mothers to the teaching of preschool children in centers.
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From page 164... ...
This is our fullest example to date of a culturally distinctive pedagogy that seems to work as well, in terms of academic performance, as those with which we are more familiar. It is not independent of Western influence, of course, and some Japanese experts attribute it in part to Froebel and Dewey, but its focus on the social and emotional rather than the cognitive aspects of learning gives it a distinctive quality (similar to the "traditional" American nursery school)
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From page 165... ...
94-142. The Early Intervention Program for Infants and Toddlers with
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From page 166... ...
are together designed to provide integrated service delivery for children with disabilities from birth through age 5. The Preschool Grants Program assists States in providing special education and related services to children with disabilities ages 3-5.
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From page 167... ...
In a review of 56 studies of children with communication disorders, McLean and Cripe conclude that early intervention is both effective and more efficient than intervention at later ages, but regarding intervention strategy they conclude "the interventionist must still rely on informed clinical judgment to determine specifically which treatment objectives, settings, and procedures are most appropriate for any one child" (McLean and Cripe, 1997:418~. Research syntheses and meta-analyses of interventions for school-aged children with learning disabilities suggest that the principles for effective teaching are not different in kind from those for typically developing children, although deliberateness of the intervention and attention to task difficulty must be emphasized (Vaughn et al., 2000~.
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From page 170... ...
Emphasis on Communication Language development should be a key feature of all early childhood programs both because the preschool years hold enormous potential for language development and because language, cognitive development, and social development are integrated in complex ways and are critical for survival in society.
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From page 171... ...
compared the effectiveness of a milieu language program with a more didactic approach and found that the former was more successful in increasing language development, but the results suggest an aptitude by treatment interaction: children who benefited most from milieu teaching were those who scored lower before the intervention (had less intelligible speech and more limited vocabulary)
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From page 172... ...
While increased attention has been focused in the last two decades on the importance of social interaction and the development of social skills for children with disabilities, the social interaction skills that the techniques above support for the most part have not generalized to other contexts over time (Gurainick, 1994~. Gurainick and Neville (1997)
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From page 173... ...
Circle time for example, a common feature of early childhood programs, can be particularly challenging to children with delayed development of regulatory capacities. On the basis of long clinical experience, Greenspan and Wieder argue that while a child needs to learn to attend in preparation for later schooling, "every task has its developmental sequence.
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From page 174... ...
Parent engagement is considered particularly important by many who work with and study children with developmental delays (Greenspan and Wieder, 1998; Girolametto, 1988; Camarata, 1993; Girolametto et al., 1994~. Since many children who have disabilities experience delayed development of language and social skills, parent participation in early childhood interventions can extend and reinforce the child's progress in these areas.
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From page 175... ...
While some research suggests parent involvement and training can enhance and extend the benefits of early intervention programs, both the quantity and the quality of research in this regard is limited. Moreover, some research on early intervention for disadvantaged children suggests that parent involvement and training is not an adequate substitute for direct intervention (Ramey and Ramey, 1998~.
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From page 176... ...
But like all research on model programs, positive outcomes may not be generalizable to community-based programs of lower quality. Not surprisingly, Kontos et al.
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From page 177... ...
that children with mild to severe disabilities had with their classmates during free play periods did not differ from the amount of contact that typically developing children had with their classmates (Okagaki et al., 1998~. According to parents' and teachers' reports, a majority of children with disabilities who attended inclusive preschool programs had at least one mutual friend (Buysse, 1993~.
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From page 178... ...
Contact between typically developing children and children with disabilities in inclusive classrooms increases children's knowledge of disabilities. Normally developing preschool children in inclusive classes are sensitive to the limitations associated with physical disabilities.
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From page 179... ...
In a case study of an inclusive, 8-week summer program with three preschool children with severe disabilities and three typically developing young children, Hanline (1993) found no evidence of social rejection of children with severe disabilities by their peers.
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From page 180... ...
A review of several strands of research on program quality suggests that teachers who have higher levels of education and specialized training, are attentive to individual children, have fewer children in their care, and use strategies associated with developmentally appropriate practice generally are more competent at enhancing children's learning and growth. This analysis of the longitudinal studies of experimental preschools and newer studies of the effects of quality in early childhood education and care suggests that the benefits of early childhood programs are related to the interrelated factors of program structure (class size, the ratio of children to teachers, and service intensity)
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From page 181... ...
However, it can be safely concluded that most early education and care programs in the United States do not approach ideal levels of quality and that programs designed to reduce the gap between rich and poor in early childhood educational opportunity are far from optimal. If early intervention is to live up to the promise of the longitudinal results, then Head Start, Title I, child care, and other programs should approximate the standard of quality suggested by the research reviewed here.
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