Children’s Attendance Rates and Quality of Teacher-Child Interactions in At-Risk Preschool Classrooms: Contribution to Children’s Expressive Language Growth

Abstract

The present research examines whether children's daily attendance rates would be predictive of gains in expressive language within the context of high-quality preschool classrooms. The quality of preschool classrooms was assessed by measuring the quality of the teacher's interactions with the children in his or her classroom. Hierarchical linear models, nesting children within classroom, were used to examine children's growth in expressive language in two independent samples (n = 129 children in 14 classrooms; n = 160 children in 46 classrooms). Results showed positive relations between daily attendance and language gains for children enrolled in higher quality preschool classrooms. Findings suggest that at-risk children who are rarely absent from high-quality preschool classrooms show accelerated expressive language growth, thus indicating that preschool attendance is an important factor to consider in future research and policy decisions.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of a Measure of Staff/Child Interaction Quality (the Classroom Assessment Scoring System) in Early Childhood Education and Care Settings and Child Outcomes

“…Nineteen studies [34,36,38,42,45,46,49–51,53–55,57,59–61,64,65,67] used the most recent version of the CLASS [72], 5 studies [43,48,52,62,63] used an earlier version [73], which did not include the Language Modeling dimension, and 11 studies [7,8,30,31,39–41,44,47,56,58] used CLASS domains (emotional and/or instructional climate) from the earlier version. Since we did not have data on the comparability of scores when these scales were combined vs. analyzed separately we chose the conservative route and tested the Emotional Climate domain separately.…”

“…Of the 35 eligible articles, 29 studies [7,8,30,31,34,36,38–45,47,48,50,51,53,54,56,58,60–65,67] provided data for at least one outcome variable that was also included in at least two other samples. Six studies [46,49,52,55,57,59] are not included in Figs 2–7 because they report only outcomes found in less than three samples.…”

“…Star = Zero Order Pearson's Correlation, Unfilled circle = Beta, Filled square = Unstandardized Coefficient, Black diamond minus white X = T-Test, Key clover = Partial Correlation, Downward arrow = Effect Size, Filled circle = F-Ratio. a To improve the readability of this complex table, six papers [46,49,52,55,57,59] that had an outcome that appeared in only one or two samples were omitted from this figure. Several analyses from other papers that had idiosyncratic outcomes were also excluded.…”

“…We also dropped 1 study [46] with insufficient statistics, 1 study [67] with classroom level analyses, and 4 studies [52,55,59,63] with idiosyncratic outcomes. This left a total of 19 independent samples [34,36,38,40–43,45,47–49,51,53,54,57,60,61,64,65] that provided 28 unique relationships of a particular operationalization of CLASS and a child outcome that meet our criteria for the meta-analyses (See Figs 8–10). …”

The Effectiveness of a Large‐Scale Language and Preliteracy Intervention: The SPELL Randomized Controlled Trial in Denmark

“…In early childhood settings in the United States, children's attendance can be highly variable; for instance, one study of Head Start participants reported a mean daily attendance rate of 85% (Hubbs-Tait et al, 2002). Importantly, attendance rates, even when controlling for key background factors, are associated with children's growth in social skills (Hubbs-Tait et al, 2002) and language skills (Logan, Piasta, Justice, Schatschneider, & Petrill, 2011). In the present study, we cannot disentangle the effects of regular attendance in childcare from SPELL exposure, and it may be possible that the two interact in important ways.…”