My colleague Sarah Sparks has written a fascinating article about research that shows just what is going on inside a child's head when that child is doing tasks such as cutting out shapes or coloring on a page. Such activities are linked to higher "executive-functioning" skills, which are in turn connected to math and abstract reasoning.

Put yourself in the mind of a 4- or 5-year-old, and copying a shape on the blackboard onto a piece of paper is a much more cognitively complex task than it is for an adult: Understanding the design, then holding that shape in your mind and deciding how to start copying, requires working memory, one of the brain's executive functions. Gripping the pencil properly, applying the right pressure to avoid tearing the paper, and keeping the paper oriented on the desk all need fine-motor skills that also, at such ages, require focus and self-control.

The article goes on to describe a research project where young children were given exercises in handwriting and line-tracing, as well as time to play with clay, Lego blocks, fusible beads and stencils, among other toys that worked on visual-motor skills. The children showed significant improvement in math and executive-functioning skills. These foundational skills may be more important than subject-matter instruction in early-childhood classrooms, the researchers suggest.

Early Years is on Twitter! Follow @EarlyYearsEW.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Maine would become the seventh state in the union to offer voluntary universal preschool via school districts under a widely supported bi-partisan bill introduced May 17.

The legislation would set up a framework for early-childhood education and aims to have the plan in place by the start of the 2017-18 school year, a press release from the Senate Democrats states.

Currently, 60 percent of Maine's school districts offer preschool, the Associated Press reports. About 4,500 4-year-old attend such programs—32 percent of the eligible population.

"Early childhood education is one of those issues where there is so much unity about its importance and so much agreement about expanding it," said Senate Majority Leader Seth Goodall in a statement.

Goodall's bill would offer up more than $1 million for the initiative. The money would be parceled out to school districts which would then develop or expand early-childhood offerings. A new position would also be created at the state's Department of Education to oversee such an effort.

Garnering the governor's support is by far one of the largest hurdles, said Lois Kilby-Chesley, president of the Maine Education Association, in an interview.

She noted that the legislature is dominated by Democrats in both the Senate and the House.

"Most people are for this," Kilby-Chesley said. "But we have a Lone Ranger for a governor."

The office of Gov. Paul R. LePage declined to comment on proposed legislation but in the past the Republican has articulated that he's most interested in funding education initiatives in grades 1-3 and in privatization.

As of 2009, only Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma provided universal preschool—a concept advocated by President Barack Obama. The states of Illinois, New York, and West Virginia are working to build similar systems.

To see what other states are doing, click here.

Posted by Julie Blair at 3:56 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

It can be hard to find a guy teaching preschool these days—unless you look at the Teach for America pipeline.

This year, 11 percent of TFA's early-childhood educators are male compared with only 2.3 percent nationally.

Sure, that's only 33 teachers out of the current class of 300 recruits, but I was curious to know whether or not TFA was doing anything special to attract that many men.

So I asked Laura McSorley, who is in charge of TFA's early-childhood initiative and crunched the numbers upon my request.

I brought the subject up after reading a terrific little essay posted on TFA's "Pass the Chalk" blog written by one of McSorley's teachers--Eli Pessar--a California native who taught preschool in Chicago in 2011.

He testified to the need for male role models in preschools and the impact he made with children.

"Males in this field have the opportunity to play the part of much-needed role models in low-income communities," Pessar wrote. "Fifty percent of my students do not have fathers active in their lives. To be clear, that number is better than the area average: A mile east of where my school is located, it's more like 90 percent."

Still, many men instead go on to teacher older children.

McSorley said that TFA doesn't have recruiting men into pre-K as an agenda item, but that it happens naturally.

TFA explains to recruits prior to their service the need for pre-K teachers in general, she said.

McSorley added that with all the brain research done recently, men are possibly becoming more interested in the science behind teaching the youngest children.

TFA, which is based in New York, trains educators for all grades outside of traditional universities, pulling top grads and career-changers into public school settings and offering in-service as well as on-the-job training.

Pessar's essay can be found here.

Posted by Julie Blair at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Twenty states now use student performance in the early grades to assess teachers, yet current evaluation systems don't provide an accurate picture of what's happening in the classroom, asserts a study released today by the Washington-based New America Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to promote equity, access and excellence in education.

When linking outcomes from pre-K through 3rd grade directly to teaching, states must take into account the complexities of teaching young children, carefully pilot evaluation systems, and ensure that data accurately reflects teaching done in the early years, the report, entitled "An Ocean of Unknowns: Risks and Opportunities in Using Student Achievement Data to Evaluate Pre-K-3rd Grade Teachers" states.

Current evaluation systems for early-childhood education "do not tell teachers, principals or policymakers very much at all," says the report, released May 15. "Nearly all teachers are rated as effective yet less than one-third of children are proficient readers by the end of 3rd grade."'

Researchers studied five states and three local school systems and found that three types of assessments are used to decipher what's been learned in the early years—defined as preschool, kindergarten and grades 1-3—all of which have benefits and risks.

The first approach includes tests written by teachers and local administrators for specific classrooms. The second involves district- and state-wide assessments. The third approach tests children later in their academic careers—for example, 3rd or 5th grade—and parses out what was learned earlier in the child's academic career.

Researchers looked at assessment systems in Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Rhode Island, and Tennessee as well as those in the cities of Austin, Texas, and Washington, D.C. They also examined the work done in Hillsborough County, Fla.

None of these systems gauge what the youngest students know well, the study states, nor can their results be applied to teacher performance. That's because the youngest learners are often assessed on math and reading—subjects that are hard to measure at that age and not very descriptive of the important kind of academic and social learning young children do.

"There is little dispute that the impact a teacher has on student learning should be a part of how she is evaluated," the report states. "Figuring out how to do this well is a daunting task, and some states are sailing without a rudder."

The report is available online.

Posted by Julie Blair at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Louisiana lawmakers would link public funding for preschools to student performance and stamp public and private early-childhood programs with letter grades under two different proposals now under consideration in the legislature.

Both Senate bills, which zoomed through the body with little opposition earlier this week, are expected to garner a similar reaction in the House, the Associated Press reported.

They are an attempt to further articulate requirements under the 2012 Louisiana Early Childhood Education Act, which requires that a standard definition of kindergarten readiness be reached, a performance target for all children be established, and uniform assessment and accountability systems be created, among other practices.

"Our current system isn't working—it's confusing to parents and burdensome for providers," said Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal in a press release.

The first bill, authored by Republican Sen. Conrad Appel, would strip schools of funding if their students cannot meet specific—and as of yet unspecified—standards, the Associated Press reported. It would also house all preschool programs under the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, changing the current scenario that allows different programs to be controlled by varying bodies.

The second bill, penned by Republican Sen. Mike Walsworth, would set new licensing guidelines. It would, furthermore, define which preschools and day care centers would be required to be graded.

Louisiana ranks 49th in the nation for early-childhood education, the Associated Press reports.

Posted by Julie Blair at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

My colleague Lesli Maxwell, who covers English-language learners, has an interesting blog post up about how best to educate young students who are still developing English proficiency:

Young English-language learners who are still developing oral and literacy skills in their home languages benefit most in early-childhood programs that regularly expose them to both languages.

That's one of several major takeaways in a new federally funded analysis of the large, and growing, population of dual-language learners, ranging from birth to 5, already enrolled in, or headed for, early-childhood-education programs.

The analysis, released today, also underscores that dual-language learners develop language skills differently than their monolingual, English-speaking peers. Young dual-language learners, who are using two separate language systems, will take longer to reach proficiency in both languages than their peers learning only one.

The full post includes interviews with the study authors and some discussion about what these findings mean for state and federal policymakers.

Early Years is on Twitter! Follow @EarlyYearsEW.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Cross-posted from On Special Education blog.

In 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics released guidelines on how doctors should treat preschoolers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The first step should be parent and/or teacher-administered behavioral therapy. If symptoms continue, the next step is medication with methylphenidate, better known under the brand names Ritalin or Concerta.

But only about 10 percent of medical specialists responding to a survey on their treatment methods said that they followed those guidelines exactly. Many chose medication as a first-line treatment; others chose to prescribe different types of medication, or refused to prescribe drugs even when behavioral therapy was not showing success.

The findings were released at a recent meeting devoted to research in child development, the Pediatric Academic Societies.

Dr. Anthony Adesman, one of the study's authors and the chief of behavioral and development pediatrics at Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, said that a survey was sent to 3,000 preschool ADHD specialists and received 714 surveys in return. The results were limited to 614 specialists who say they diagnose preschool ADHD in 4- and 5-year-olds, including child psychiatrists, neurologists, and developmental pediatricians. The full report is not available online, but Dr. Adesman shared with me his presentation, which offers a detailed breakdown of the numbers.

His survey found that of the 611 specialists in preschool ADHD who responded, about 20 percent said they recommended first-line treatment with medication "often" or "very often." The recommendations were made regardless of the availability of behavioral therapy options.

About 30 percent said they "rarely" or "sometimes" recommend medication if modifying the child's behavior has not been successful.

The survey also found that some doctors were choosing to prescribe drugs other than methylphenidate. Though the AAP recommends that only that particular drug be used with 4- and 5-year-olds, about 19 percent of the respondents are choosing to use amphetamines such as Adderall or Dexedrine, Dr. Adesman said. (Both drugs are approved in children ages 3 or older.) Another 18 percent are prescribing other non-stimulant drugs for ADHD treatment. One such drug, Clonidine, is FDA-approved for use in youth aged 6 or older.

Among the specialists surveyed, only about 10 percent said they followed AAP recommendations exactly. Those most likely to adhere to the AAP guidelines were child psychiatrists; 12 percent of the survey respondents who were child psychiatrists followed those recommendations. The general psychiatrists who responded to the survey were least likely to follow the guidelines exactly; only 4 percent said they did.

In an interview, Dr. Adesman said that the results could reflect that children who see specialists may have more severe symptoms, or that doctors are more familiar with medications. However, another explanation could be that some doctors "are reluctant to recommend behavior therapy, or to give it a chance."

Teachers can play a meaningful and important role in implementing behavior modification techniques with young children, Dr. Adesman said. He also added that medication has a place in treating ADHD if other methods are not successful. "Teachers may want to educate parents that the AAP does see medication as a possible option," he said.

Early Years is on Twitter! Follow @EarlyYearsEW.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

When Head Start programs used a broad curriculum that emphasized both academics and social awareness over specific academics alone, pupils outperformed their fellow Head Start alumni in kindergarten, a new study found.

The study, done by Karen L. Bierman, Robert L. Nix, Brenda S. Heinrichs, Celene E. Domitrovich, Scott D. Gest, Janet A. Welsh and Sukhdeep Gill, looked at 356 Pennsylvania children whose preschool teachers had used the "REDI" curriculum—otherwise known as the Research-based, Developmentally Informed Intervention Program funded by the federal Interagency School Readiness Consortium.

The researchers found that the children taught with the "REDI" curriculum could better decode words, were more engaged in learning, more competent in solving social problems, and less aggressive than their peers who had used traditional curricula that aimed to impart specific knowledge, a report published in this month's edition of the journal Child Development states.

Such findings were true for all children in the study no matter whether they attended rural, suburban, or urban kindergartens, the study states.

The study comes at a time in which Head Start programs are under fire from program critics for their ability to offer long-term gains.

The online journal article can be found here.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.12117/full

Posted by Julie Blair at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Seven years after Teach for America expanded its training program to include preschool teachers, the organization is celebrating: It has now produced 800 instructors in 22 high-poverty sites around the country&mdashg;and higher-ups see the current climate as ripe for further expansion.

With President Barack Obama's interest in early childhood education, TFA—a New York-based nonprofit that offers an alternative teacher-preparation program outside traditional university settings—aims to be an increasing part of the mix.

"It's really a story within a story," said Laura McSorley, managing director of TFA's Early Childhood Education initiative and one of its first graduates, in an interview. "Early childhood is a crucial time to intervene, and we're selecting and recruiting and training the best possible teachers."

The early-childhood program, which started in 2006 with 90 educators, is training 300 teachers this year in high-poverty schools, mostly in Head Start centers and public preschool programs, McSorley said.

Unlike traditional schools of education which often require students to attend classes for years before practicing their skills in classrooms, TFA offers a five-week intensive course then ongoing education when corps members are hired by school districts.

"As states get access to new and sustainable funding sources for early education and get more clarity on standards for what constitutes high-quality early learning, they're able to expand what's available to families," McSorley said. "As they do, they look for high-quality talent to address the needs of students at this crucial state. We're proud to be one such source of talent."

Discussions are currently taking place to expand TFA's reach in early-childhood education, McSorley said, but the organization has yet to reveal where it will do the work.

Posted by Julie Blair at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

It will take dozens of little red wagons to deliver more than 30,000 thank-you notes to President Barack Obama next week, but that's exactly how the folks spearheading the Strong Start for Children campaign aim to do it.

The letters—including pieces of artwork done by children—were written in response to the president's budget, which outlines a multi-billion dollar expansion of preschool programs, said Helen Blank, director of child care and early learning at the Washington-based National Women's Law Center, an advocacy group.

The NWLC solicited the letters along with the 39 other organizations that make up the Strong Start for Children campaign, which is lobbying to pass the budget.

The response was surprising, said Blank: Initially, the campaign had hoped to gin up 10,000 thank-yous.

President Obama "singled out young children and people are very appreciative," she said, adding that letters are still coming in.

To learn more about the NWLC, click here.

Posted by Julie Blair at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend