Weekly E-News

Hot Topics

Early Achievement Gaps and Their Associations with Preschool Contexts and Parental Engagement in Hong Kong

Jin Sun, Qianjin Guo, Nirmala Rao, Patrick Ip, Han Qin, and Li Zhang examined SES-related early achievement gaps among 877 Hong Kong preschoolers (ages 3–5) in 18 preschools, assessing multiple developmental domains (including academic learning, general knowledge, and fine motor skills). Using preschool quality ratings (ECERS-R) and caregiver-reported home learning engagement, regression results show family SES gaps in academic learning, general knowledge, and fine motor development. Children from low-SES families showed greater gains in academic learning and fine motor development when attending higher-quality preschools, while parental engagement did not reduce these SES-related gaps.

A Blueprint for Developing Dual Language Learner Policies in Early Childhood Education Programs

As districts provide early education for a growing population of dual language learners (DLLs), NIEER’s Blueprint for Developing Dual Language Learner Policies in Early Childhood Education Programs offers a practical “how-to” based on a New Jersey research–practice partnership. The report notes that state policy guidance often has not kept pace with needs, leaving districts to make uneven, site-by-site decisions—especially consequential for consistent implementation of effective strategies and reading achievement.  

The blueprint lays out a 10-step framework for success—from forming a DLL-focused advisory group and setting a shared vision/mission, to using survey and classroom-experience data to guide decisions, reaching consensus on policy content areas, providing focused professional learning, and embedding reflection during implementation. 

Associations Between a Preschool Tuition Credit and Children’s School Success Outcomes: Moving Beyond Test Scores

Vi-Nhuan Le, Diana Schaack, Cristal Cisneros, Brooks Rosenquist, and Jolene Gregory (2026) examined whether receiving a preschool tuition credit through the Denver Preschool Program was associated with children’s school success by the end of 5th grade. Using Denver Public Schools administrative data spanning 2009 through 2018 and propensity-weighted regression models, results indicate that DPP participation was associated with lower likelihood of chronic absence and grade retention by 5th grade, and a higher likelihood of ELL redesignation by 5th grade among children who entered kindergarten needing English language supports. 

NIEER Activity 

NIEER Founding Director Steve Barnett delivered the keynote, “The Cost of Not Investing in Quality Early Childhood Education,” to open the 2026 International Seminar on Early Childhood, hosted by the First Lady of the Dominican Republic and the Executive Director of the Instituto Nacional de Atención Integral a la Primera Infancia (INAIPI). Dr. Barnett reviewed research showing that public investments in early childhood education can generate high economic returns when programs maintain high quality. He also noted the similarity between achievement impacts documented for New Jersey’s strong pre-K program serving children in communities with high concentrations of poverty and estimated impacts of one and two years of preschool education in Latin America and the Caribbean. For the Dominican Republic, he suggested building on the government’s investment in INAIPI through the strategic use of data to support expansion and continuous improvement.

NIEER is Hiring!

We are currently hiring for an Open Data Collector position. In this role, you will administer child and classroom assessment instruments in pre-K through third-grade classrooms at various locations, primarily in New Jersey and the Philadelphia, PA area. Learn more here!

IJCCEP

Variations in Pre-Primary Education Infrastructure Within and Across Administrative Sectors in Rwanda

Remy Pages and Gilbert Munyemana examined differences in structural quality across Rwanda’s pre-primary modalities—centre-based, community-based, and home-based—using data from 4,875 settings in 91 administrative sectors across seven districts. Multilevel models  that home-based settings (most common in rural, lower-SES sectors) had substantially lower infrastructure quality than centre-based settings (about –0.73 SD for physical facilities and –0.85 SD for operational quality), with additional gaps between sectors linked to sector-level SES. 

Research

Biliterate Shared Book Intervention (BISBI) for Low-Income Preschoolers: An Analysis of Program Effectiveness

Viniti Vaish, Baoqi Sun, and Quentin Dixon evaluated the Biliterate Shared Book Intervention (BISBI) with 110 low-income Chinese and Malay preschoolers in Singapore, training parents and teachers to use dialogic reading with 24 unfamiliar books (12 English; 12 in Chinese or Malay) delivered through home and/or school reading conditions. Children were pre/post assessed on receptive and depth vocabulary, print concepts, and phonological awareness in English and the Mother Tongue; analyses using linear mixed-effects models indicate that, after accounting for pre-test scores, BISBI was associated with gains only in English print concepts for the school-only and home+school conditions, with no detectable impacts on other measured language outcomes.

Executive Functions as Mediators Between Family Socio-Economic Status and Pre-Academic Abilities in Early Preschool Children

Margot Rémeau, Philippe Schmitt, Ranka Bijeljac-Babic, Thierry Nazzi, Alex de Carvalho, and Grégoire Borst analyzed data from 2,618 preschoolers (mean age ≈ 42.6 months) and report that executive functions partially mediate the link between family socio-economic status (SES) and early numeracy and oral language skills. Results indicate that inhibitory control is the strongest pathway—especially for numeracy, where the indirect effect is larger than for language.

Social Development from Preschool to Primary School: Contribution of Self-Regulatory Abilities During the Preschool Years

 Aashna Doshi, Sabine Weinert, and Wei Huang used longitudinal data from 1,898 German children to examine whether preschool self-regulation predicts social development through ages 5, 7, and 9. Growth-curve models indicate that cognitive flexibility, delay of gratification, and parent-reported effortful control (ages 3–5) were associated with stronger growth in prosocial behavior, even after accounting for prior social development and child/family factors. Findings for peer relationships were weaker: in full models, links were largely explained by controls and earlier social development.

Opportunities

Project Coordinator, Thrive by Five Index

Associate Director, Early Childhood Leadership Initiative, New York Early Childhood Professional Development Institute

Early Childhood Education Consultant, Bureau of Childcare, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Strategic Consultant, Early Childhood Education

Data Collector, NIEER