This study examined development of academic, language, and social skills among 4-year-olds in publicly supported prekindergarten (pre-K) programs in relation to 3 methods of measuring pre-K quality, which are as follows: (a) adherence to 9 standards of quality related to program infrastructure and design, (b) observations of the overall quality of classroom environments, and (c) observations of teachers' emotional and instructional interactions with children in classrooms. Participants were 2,439 children enrolled in 671 pre-K classrooms in 11 states. Adjusting for prior skill levels, child and family characteristics, program characteristics, and state, teachers' instructional interactions predicted academic and language skills and teachers' emotional interactions predicted teacher-reported social skills. Findings suggest that policies, program development, and professional development efforts that improve teacher-child interactions can facilitate children's school readiness.

As the workforce in state-funded pre-kindergarten programs continues to grow in the United States, the promise of these and other early education opportunities (e.g., Head Start) depends in large part on in-service professional development and training in key instructional and interaction skills. In this paper, we describe effects of MyTeachingPartner (MTP), a web-based system of professional development resources, that include video exemplars and web-mediated consultation on specific dimensions of interactions with children for 113 teachers in a state-funded pre-k program. Teachers assigned to receive on-line consultation and feedback targeted to their interactions showed significantly greater increases in independent ratings of the quality of interactions than did those only receiving access to a website with video clips. The positive effects of consultation were particularly evident in classrooms with higher proportions of children who experienced economic risks. Implications of these findings for models of professional development and widespread needs for teacher access and support are discussed in relation to the effectiveness of early education. KeywordsEarly childhood education; In-service training; Professional development; Consultation; At-scale implementation There is currently widespread agreement that the training and professional development of the early education workforce is a key component for ensuring that early childhood education programs make good on the hopes of policymakers, parents, and educators for improving children's success in school (Bogard & Takanishi, 2005; Zaslow & MartinezBeck, 2005). Enrollment of three-and four-year-olds in early education programs is growing annually (Barnett, Hustedt, Hawkinson, & Robin, 2006; West, Denton, & GerminoHausken, 2000), with estimates indicating that 200,000 teachers will be needed to staff © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Robert C. Pianta, Ph.D., Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning, 350 Old Ivy Way, Suite 100, Charlottesville, VA 22903, rcp4p@virginia.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript universal enrollment programs by 2020 (Clifford & Maxwell, 2002). Consequently, identifying effective, relevant, and scalable approaches to training the early education workforce is of paramount importance. Furthermore, there is credible evidence that teachers' effective implementation of instruction that emphasizes the qual...

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In an effort to provide high-quality preschool education, policymakers are increasingly requiring public preschool teachers to have at least a Bachelor's degree, preferably in early childhood education. Seven major studies of early care and education were used to predict classroom quality and children's academic outcomes from the educational attainment and major of teachers of 4-year-olds. The findings indicate largely null or contradictory associations, indicating that policies focused solely on increasing teachers' education will not suffice for improving classroom quality or maximizing children's academic gains. Instead, raising the effectiveness of early childhood education likely will require a broad range of professional development activities and supports targeted toward teachers' interactions with children.

Policy-makers, administrators, researchers, and teachers are increasingly vested in ensuring the quality of preschool instruction, particularly in the areas of language and literacy. This research was conducted to characterize the quality of language and literacy instruction in 135 publiclyfunded preschool classrooms serving at-risk pupils. As all teachers in these classrooms were implementing the same language and literacy curriculum, we also studied the interrelationships among procedural fidelity to a prescribed curriculum and the quality of language and literacy instruction, determining whether procedural fidelity is associated or disassociated with quality instruction. Results showed that the quality of language and literacy instruction in classrooms was low, with few teachers delivering high quality instruction. Although teachers were able to implement a prescribed language and literacy curriculum with a high degree of procedural fidelity, this was not associated with quality instruction. Few structural characteristics of classrooms of teachers were systematically associated with quality of instruction. Findings have important implications for professional development of teachers by suggesting a need for a sustained and coherent focus on the process of instruction to elevate instructional quality in language and literacy.Two-thirds of 4-year-olds currently participate in early education programs, and this figure is growing annually in light of many state-level initiatives to expand enrollment or provide universal access to preschool for 4-year-old children (Barnett & Yarosz, 2004). Complementing these initiatives are movements to improve the quality of instruction within preschool programs, particularly in the area of language and literacy. As an example, the U.S. Department of Education's Early Reading First program provides funds to preschool programs to support their achievement of "excellence" in programming, particularly the provision of high-quality instruction in literacy and language through improved classroom print richness, professional development for staff, and implementation of scientificallybased curricula. The anticipated outcome of such proactive and prevention-oriented initiatives is that more children will enter school with the skills and competencies needed to succeed in early and later reading instruction.Educational-policy initiatives that seek to improve the quality of early education, particularly in the area of literacy and language instruction, are grounded in developmental theory and empirical evidence emphasizing the continuity between children's early literacy and language development and their later achievement of skilled reading (e.g., Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 2001;Lonigan, 2006;Storch & Whitehurst, 2002;Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Evidence shows that children with well-developed language and literacy Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this ear...

Teachers' judgments of relational conflict are unique indicators of children's academic and social adjustment. Using a large, hierarchically nested sample of preschoolers (N = 2282) and teachers (N = 597) this study examines the individual and classroom factors associated with teachers' ratings of conflict, both before and after adjusting for problem behaviors ratings. Over half of the variance in teachers' reports of conflict with children was explained by ratings of children's problem behaviors. However, many children had more (or less) conflict than predicted based on teacher-rated problem behavior. Older children were more likely to have conflictual relationships with teachers than expected based on their level of problem behavior. Furthermore, teachers who reported more depression and lower self-efficacy and teachers who were observed to provide less emotional support in the classroom tended to report more conflict with students in their classroom than expected based on levels of problem behaviors.

Teachers’ ratings of children’s competencies may in part reflect characteristics and perspectives of teachers who assigned the ratings, which compromises their validity as a measure of child attributes. The purposes of this study were to use multilevel modeling to (a) estimate between-rater variance in teachers’ ratings of children’s social behaviors and relationships with teachers and (b) examine characteristics of teachers and classrooms associated with teachers’ perceptions of these social competencies. Ratings of 711 children completed by 210 prekindergarten teachers indicated that between 15% and 33% of the total variance in teachers’ ratings was attributed to mean differences between raters. After controlling for characteristics of children and their families, teachers’ ratings of positive relationships and behaviors were associated with fewer years of experience, higher self-efficacy, non-White race/ethnicity, shorter length programs, better child-teacher ratios, and programs located within school settings. Implications are discussed for interpreting and analyzing teachers’ ratings of children’s competencies.

This study examined associations between peers' expressive language abilities and children's development of receptive and expressive language among 1,812 four-year olds enrolled in 453 classrooms in 11 states that provide large-scale public pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs. Higher peer expressive language abilities were positively associated with children's development of receptive and expressive language during pre-k. The positive association between peers' expressive language abilities and children's receptive language development was stronger for children who began pre-k with higher receptive language skills and within classrooms characterized by better classroom management. Implications of these findings for understanding ecological inputs to children's language development and for designing effective pre-k programs are discussed.