Content-rich instruction and cognitive demand in prek: using systematic observations to predict child gains

Maier, Michelle F.; McCormick, Meghan P.; Xia, Samantha; Hsueh, JoAnn; Weiland, Christina; Morales, Abby; Boni, Marina; Tonachel, Melissa; Sachs, Jason; Snow, Catherine E.

doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2021.12.010

Cited by 8 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…While the necessity of quantifying pre-kindergarten as being high-quality for all children, and especially so for children who have been historically and structurally overlooked and marginalized, is critical, this task remains elusive given the inherent limitations imbedded in such instruments. In addition to the previously noted lack of cultural awareness, for example, the CLASS (Pianta et al, 2008 ) has also been demonstrated to be limited in predicting pre-kindergarten skills of math, language, and executive function (Guerrero-Rosado et al, 2021 ; McDoniel et al, 2022 ) for children, and as not individualized to children’s specific learning (Maier et al, 2022 ; Moffett el al., 2021 ). There is more recently a growing body of literature that puts forward alternatives to strictly measuring quality by the narrow delineation which is the CLASS (Pianta et al, 2008 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Childhood Education Teacher Well-Being: Performativity as a Means of Coping

Wiltshire

2022

Early Childhood Educ J

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Detrimental circumstances (e.g., poverty, homelessness) may affect parents, parenting, and children. These circumstances may lead to children being labeled “at risk” for school failure. To ameliorate this risk, more school and school earlier (e.g., Head Start) is offered. To improve child outcomes, Head Start teachers are expected to bolster children?s academic readiness in a manner that is beneficially warm, circulating warmth in their classrooms to sustain positive teacher-child relationships and the positive climate of the classroom. The Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta et al., 2008) is one tool by which these domains of warmth are assessed. There are, however, significant personal and professional stressors with which Head Start teachers contend which the CLASS (Pianta et al., 2008) does not consider in its scoring methods. Uplifting the voices of six Head Start teachers, the present study implemented individual and focus group interviews during the summer and fall months of 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, asking (a) What were the stories, histories, and lived experiences of these Head Start teachers with regard to stress and warmth in a time of crisis? and (b) How did these teachers understand and approach the CLASS (Pianta et al., 2008) and its measures of their warmth? Data demonstrated Head Start teachers engaged in a type of performativity to 1) mask their stress, potentially worsening their levels of stress in order to maintain warmth for their students’ sake, and 2) outwit the prescribed CLASS (Pianta et al., 2008) observations. Implications and insights are discussed. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10643-022-01387-2.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Childhood Education Teacher Well-Being: Performativity as a Means of Coping

Wiltshire

2022

Early Childhood Educ J

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“…The team conducted psychometric analyses to validate these measures and determine their reliability (see more in Maier et al, 2022) before creating overall classroom-level scores by averaging across the two observations. Both domains demonstrated high levels of interitem reliability (α s = .90 and .90 for content-rich instruction and cognitively demanding instruction, respectively).…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both domains demonstrated high levels of interitem reliability (α s = .90 and .90 for content-rich instruction and cognitively demanding instruction, respectively). Through these efforts, the team found that even after controlling for the domains of CLASS, content-rich instruction predicted gains in children's math skills during prekindergarten, and cognitive demand was associated with math gains for children's entering prekindergarten with higher scores on math assessments (see Maier et al, 2022).…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We use a seasonal comparison design (SCD) to examine growth in assessed skills across years, comparing changes in disparities on assessment scores during the school year to those same trends during the summer between prekindergarten and kindergarten (i.e., what might have been expected to occur in the absence of schooling). Because classroom processes in the early grades may be an important mechanism for understanding how schools do (or do not) facilitate inequality, we also incorporate data on children’s specific exposure to classroom experiences that have been shown to be associated with academic and behavioral skill development (Maier et al 2022; Weiland and Guerrero-Rosada 2022). In this way, we begin to show not just if schools shape inequality but also how they might do so in the early years.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Role of Early Schooling in Shaping Inequality in Academic, Executive Functioning, and Social-Emotional Skills

Thompson,

Weiland,

McCormick

et al. 2023

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World

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Children from historically marginalized racial/ethnic and socieconomic groups on average, score lower on widely used assessments of academic, executive functioning, and social-emotional skills at kindergarten entry, but the extent to which these differences are shaped by exposure to early schooling is unclear. Using data from a public prekindergarten and kindergarten program in Boston, we leverage a seasonal comparison design to examine how patterns change during the school year relative to summer periods. Although trends vary somewhat by the skill domain and groups compared, we largely find that exposure to early schooling is compensatory or neutral in shaping inequality. This suggests that prekindergarten and kindergarten together contribute to more equitable outcomes than would otherwise be expected in the absence of schooling. However, we find no evidence of systematic differences in access to high-impact classroom processes, which leaves open the question of which aspects of early schooling are most associated with declining inequality.

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“…These curriculum components are typically domain-specific (e.g., focused on early literacy, mathematics, or social–emotional skills) and are especially effective for boosting child skills in the targeted domains relative to more global curricular approaches ( Jenkins and Duncan, 2017 ). The ultimate goal of these two approaches is to elevate levels of social–emotional support and cognitive stimulation in the classroom, and thereby accelerate the pace of growth in school readiness skills ( Jones and Bouffard, 2012 ; Maier et al, 2022 ).…”

Section: Implementing Evidence-based Strategies That Boost the School...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting school readiness program implementation in community-based childcare centers

et al. 2022

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IntroductionTargeted curricular interventions can increase preschool program quality and boost children’s academic and social–emotional readiness skills, but variable funding and weak organizational infrastructure in many community-based childcare centers may reduce the effective implementation of these programs.MethodThis study examined individual teacher and workplace predictors of the REDI program implementation, a targeted school readiness program that was adapted to support delivery in childcare centers. REDI was delivered by 63 teachers in 37 community-based childcare centers with center directors serving as local implementation coaches.ResultsResults showed that individual teacher factors (e.g., teaching skills and receptivity to intervention consultation) predicted the quality with which REDI activities and teaching strategies were delivered, and workplace factors were important predictors across multiple implementation indicators.DiscussionPractice and policy implications for improving intervention implementation and corresponding program quality in childcare centers are highlighted.

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Content-rich instruction and cognitive demand in prek: using systematic observations to predict child gains

Cited by 8 publications

References 45 publications

Early Childhood Education Teacher Well-Being: Performativity as a Means of Coping

Early Childhood Education Teacher Well-Being: Performativity as a Means of Coping

The Role of Early Schooling in Shaping Inequality in Academic, Executive Functioning, and Social-Emotional Skills

Predicting school readiness program implementation in community-based childcare centers

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