The NIEER Newsletter will be on hiatus until Dec. 2, 2022. Happy Thanksgiving!
HOT TOPICS
Early Childhood Education: Health, Equity, and Economics
Clear evidence indicates that center-based early childhood education (ECE) programs designed to improve the social and cognitive development of 3- and 4-year-olds “can benefit children, especially those most disadvantaged, with additional societal benefits and positive long-run economic returns,” NIEER Senior co-Director W. Steven Barnett and Robert A. Hahn of Emory University wrote. Read their summary of evidence on the effects of ECE as an intervention in the Annual Review of Public Health here.
Add Today Multiply Tomorrow: Building an Investment Case for Early Childhood Education
A new report outlines evidence for investing in early childhood education (ECE) and the cost-benefit and cost effectiveness of these investments globally. Case studies of effective ECE work in Bhutan, Cambodia, Jordan, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uzbekistan are highlighted. The report, a collaboration between UNICEF, Education Commission and the LEGO Foundation, is available here.
Early Education Leadership in North Carolina: Findings from a Statewide Survey
New research examining how principals in North Carolina support early education programs in schools is the focus of Early Education Leadership in North Carolina: Findings from a Statewide Survey, on Dec. 5 at 1 p.m. EST. Hosted by the North Carolina Early Grades Leadership Collaborative, the webinar features North Carolina State University Assistant Professors Michael Little and Tim Drake and Professor Lora Cohen-Vogel at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill as panelists. Register here.
ECE RESEARCH
Family engagement practices by pre-kindergarten teachers were positively associated with English language learners’ (ELLs) early literacy skills, but their impact on school attendance and classroom socioemotional skills were more pronounced in classrooms with a lower percentage of ELL students, researchers found. Teachers’ more frequent two-way communication and involvement practices correlated with better attendance among ELL children in classrooms with fewer than 20 percent ELL children; that was not the case in classrooms with a higher percentage of ELL students, the researchers wrote. Read the study here.
Assessment of Early Childhood Mental Health in Immigrant and Local Children in Chile
Immigrant parents reported greater instances of their preschoolers experiencing mental health and behavioral problems compared with non-immigrant parents in Chile, researchers found. Parents in general reported more internalizing and behavioral problems than preschool teachers; teachers’ reports on immigrant children were often similar to their reports on non-immigrant children. Read the study here.
Researchers developed a hypothesis on the cognitive, physiological, and neural changes that occur as young children transition away from naps. “Maturation of the brain, particularly the hippocampal-dependent memory network, during early childhood results in more efficient memory storage,” they wrote. That, in turn, reduces the buildup of homeostatic sleep pressure, reflected by slow-wave activity, contributing to nap transitions. “This framework can be used to evaluate multiple untested predictions from the field of sleep science and ultimately, yield science-based guidelines and policies regarding napping in childcare and early education settings.” Read the review here.
High-quality co-parenting appeared to serve as a protective factor for preschoolers whose parents experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), researchers in China found. The researchers identified four groupings of parents with ACEs, ranging from a high ACEs group to a low ACEs group. Read the study here.
Within family increases in child care quality predicted modest increases in quality of the home environment, particularly for children between 6 and 15 months old. Changes were primarily due to children’s experiences of increased home cognitive stimulation, researchers reported. Read the study, by Emma R. Hart, Deborah Lowe Vandell, Anamarie A. Whitaker and Tyler W. Watts, here.
OPPORTUNITIES