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This monograph addresses the hypotheses that preschool children benefit most strongly when early care and education (ECE) is at or above a threshold of quality, has specific quality features, and/or is of longer duration. These issues are pivotal in recent policies designed to improve the quality of ECE, especially for children from low-income families. Evidence of quality thresholds in which ECE quality has stronger impacts in settings with moderate to high levels of quality than in settings with low quality would inform policy initiatives in which monetary incentives or consequences are allocated to ECE settings based on their level of quality. Evidence that specific features of quality, such as quality of teacher-child interactions and of literacy and mathematics instruction, are predictors of gains in child outcomes could help inform quality improvement efforts. Evidence that more time spent in center-based ECE or in instruction in specific content areas predict larger gains among preschoolers could be useful in designing public preschool programs such as Head Start or prekindergarten. Secondary data analyses of eight large studies of preschool children in center-based ECE were conducted. Analyses focused on quality thresholds and quality features examined the extent to which three types of quality measures predicted gains in children's language, literacy, mathematics, and social skills. The measures comprised (1) global quality measures that provide an overall or global rating of quality, focusing on interactions as well as on physical features of the environment, activities, and routines; (2) interaction-specific measures that focus in depth on the quality of interactions between teachers and children with respect to instructional and emotional support; and (3) domain-specific measures that focus on the quality of instruction and stimulation in specific content areas such as early language and literacy. The goal was to provide replicated analyses with data from several projects in order to address each question. Multilevel analyses that controlled for entry skills were conducted, and results were combined by using meta-analysis, nonlinear and nonparametric analyses, and propensity score analyses. With respect to thresholds, the analyses suggest that increases in the quality of instruction are related to larger gains in language and literacy outcomes, but only in higher quality classrooms. Results point to stronger associations between quality and child outcomes in higher versus lower quality classrooms for measures of the instructional quality of teacher-child interactions and of the quality of specific activities thought to promote early literacy, such as teaching phonemic skills and book reading. In addition, the items focusing on quality of interactions on the global measure also predicted acquisition of language and social skills in higher but not in lower quality classrooms. With respect to quality features, interaction-specific and especially domain-specific measures of quality remained significant pr...

child, children, child well-being, demographic risk, educational attainment, family income, family size, family structure, family well-being, home ownership, index, indicators, measures, outcomes, poverty, poverty indicator alternative, risk, single parent household, social risks, sociodemographic risk index, sociodemographic risk, socioeconomic risk,

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OVERVIEWThe number of U.S. children living in poverty increased in -continuing an upward trend dating back to 2000 , 13.3 million children were living in poverty, up from 11.6 million children in 2000 The percentage of children living in families with incomes below the poverty line has increased from 16.2 percent in 2000 to 18.0 percent in 2007. 3 Thus, a large number of children-nearly one in five-are poor. a Child poverty merits attention because a substantial body of research links poverty with lower levels of child well-being. For a variety of reasons, when compared with children from more affluent families, poor children are more likely to have low academic achievement, to drop out of school, and to have health, behavioral, and emotional problems. These linkages are particularly strong for children whose families experience deep poverty, who are poor during early childhood, and who are trapped in poverty for a long time.This Research Brief draws on Census data for 2007 to present a statistical portrait of children in poverty in the United States, 4 updating similar briefs Child Trends produced in 1999 and. The brief highlights research on the consequences of poverty for children and suggests program and policy approaches that hold promise for decreasing poverty among low-income children and their families.