Weekly E-News
October 2, 2026
NIEER Activity
NIEER’s new research with the Rutgers Child Care Research Collaborative provides a descriptive portrait of licensed, center-based child care in New Jersey.
The data snapshot series focuses on:
- Infant and toddler child care supply
- Lead teacher pay and workplace benefits
- Lead teacher intentions about turnover and workplace experiences
The Rutgers Child Care Research Collaborative is comprised of the Center for Women and Work, the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, and NIEER. Funding for the Rutgers Child Care Research Collaborative is provided by the New Jersey Department of Children and Families.
Learn more about the Rutgers Child Care Research Collaborative.
Parents Read to Young Children Less Today Than Before 2020
New research by NIEER’s Kwanghee Jung and Steven Barnett, published in JAMA Network Open, "Parent-Child Shared Book Reading With Preschoolers During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic," finds that the frequency of parent-child shared reading has been disturbingly low after the pandemic with less than 3 of 4 families reporting that preschool-aged children are read to at least three times a week. Reading is even less frequent in low-income homes. Findings from this study are based on 5 years of NIEER's Preschool Learning Activities (PLA) survey of American families, made possible by funding from the PNC Foundation's Grow Up Great Initiative.
Additional findings include:
- Each additional 10 physical books in the home is associated with 8 percent higher odds of frequent reading. Access to eBooks had no statistically significant association.
- Screen time is negatively associated with reading frequency, suggesting digital media may displace interactive reading.
- Black and Hispanic parents reported less frequent reading than other parents, but the Black-White difference is statistically insignificant after adjusting for other socioeconomic characteristics.
How State Policies Relate to Public Pre-K Teachers’ Curriculum Use
As many states expand pre-K, policymakers are focused on better understanding the role of curriculum in ensuring students receive high-quality early childhood education.
By combining data from NIEER’s State of Preschool Yearbook with data from RAND's American Pre-K Teacher Survey, NIEER’s Jennifer Duer and Allison Friedman-Krauss and RAND’s Anna Shapiro and Elizabeth D. Steiner investigated the role that state policies related to preschool curriculum play in public school pre-K teachers’ reported curricula use across the United States.
The authors found substantial variation in the curricula that teachers report using across states, and some differences across pre-K programs within states. In addition, specific state curriculum guidance appears to influence classroom curriculum use. When states require that teachers use specific curricula (rather than recommending curricula), teachers reported combining fewer curricula in their classrooms.
Curriculum and Family Child Care: Guidance for Mixed-Delivery Pre-K Programs
With the support of Home Grown, NIEER launched the Enriching Public Pre-K Through Inclusion of Family Child Care (EPIC FCC) initiative in 2024. Through this effort, we worked with pre-K system leaders and FCC educators in Alabama, Nevada, Durham, North Carolina, and Michigan as the established advisory groups, examined their pre-K and FCC systems, and/or developed policies and funding streams to support FCCs in their pre-K systems. NIEER’s FCC & Pre-K Policy Data Snapshots were developed as a result of some of the discussions that occurred during the EPIC FCC initiative.
Check out our latest data snapshot, "Curriculum and Family Child Care: Guidance for Mixed-Delivery Pre-K Programs," and the full FCC & Pre-K Policy Data Snapshots series, here.
NIEER’s new report, funded by the Maher Charitable Foundation, examines the perspectives of child care and Head Start directors in New Jersey who contract with school districts to provide public preschool. New Jersey has a long history as a leader in providing public preschool through a mixed delivery system where policymakers, advocates, and researchers have worked together to address implementation issues. However, efforts to expand the availability of public preschool, along with changes in state policy that no longer mandate partnering with local child care and Head Start providers, bring new challenges. Findings from this study suggest the need for durable, statewide structures to support continued development of mixed delivery.
Join us for a BELLE Social! Meet the Author: Luzdivina Lozano
Join us October 16 at Rutgers University’s Livingston Student Center in Piscataway, New Jersey, for an evening to reconnect with participants and supporters of Building Early Learning Latiné Educators (BELLE), a project housed within NIEER.
BELLE Socials are after-school events designed to give our community a space to mix and mingle, catch up with former BELLEs. This time, we will hear from featured author, coach, and educator Luzdivina Lozano. As the Founder and Leader of Suficiente: New Latina Leadership Development Series, Luzdivina brings over 21 years of experience coaching and developing more than 100 leaders across multiple leadership roles.
International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy (IJCCEP) Weekly Feature
Donna K. Housman reviews evidence supporting the development of emotional competence and self- regulation from birth through age 5 as foundations for later academic, personal, and social success. The article emphasizes that these capacities develop through co regulation within responsive and empathic interactions between young children and caregivers. Housman describes the theoretical basis of the Emotional Cognitive Social Early Learning approach, a social and emotional learning model designed to strengthen these foundational skills through emotional communication, guidance, and structured tools and techniques. Particular emphasis is placed on causal talk about emotions to help children understand their feelings and regulate their responses.
Publish in the International Journal of Child Care and Education Policy (IJCCEP)
- It’s FREE – article processing charges for all articles published in the journal are fully sponsored.
- The journal is indexed by Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and by Scopus.
- All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 license. Authors will retain copyright.
ECE Research
Reconsidering Pre K “Fade Out”: Evidence of Score Convergence Across Income Levels and Pre K Types
Virginia E. Vitiello, Jessica V. Whittaker, and Jamie DeCoster, writing in The Elementary School Journal ahead of the print article, examined pre-K score convergence using statewide kindergarten mathematics and literacy assessment data from 80,602 students, 61 percent of whom had attended public or private pre-K. The findings suggest that score convergence after leaving pre-K is not limited to low-income children attending public programs and may differ substantially by academic domain. The authors highlight the need to examine differences in early literacy and math instruction and whether common classroom experiences after school entry contribute to the convergence of children’s scores.
Martín Malaspina and Ángel Alsina, writing in EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, systematically reviewed 48 studies published from 1982 to 2023 on informal mathematics among children from birth through age 6. Following PRISMA procedures, the review found that research has grown substantially since 2013 and has relied primarily on quantitative methods. Most studies focused on numerical thinking among children ages 3 to 6, while algebraic, measurement related, and probabilistic thinking received much less attention, and only 10.6 percent of studies focused exclusively on children from birth to age 3. The findings indicate that young children’s informal mathematical knowledge is multidimensional but that the research base remains concentrated in a relatively narrow range of math domains and age groups. The authors call for broader research involving younger children, play based math experiences, additional math domains, and stronger collaboration between schools and families.
How You Read the Text Matters: Caregiver Oral Reading Prosody During Shared Reading Relates to Preschoolers’ Language Skills
Kelsey E. Davison, Helen Gray-Bauer, Talia Liu, Juliana Ronderos, and Jennifer Zuk, writing in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, examined whether the way caregivers read aloud relates to language skills among 41 children ages 4 to 5. Caregivers read a children’s book as they normally would at home, and researchers analyzed features of their oral reading prosody, including intonation and pausing, in relation to children’s receptive vocabulary and broader language skills. A wider range of caregiver intonation was associated with stronger vocabulary, while inappropriate or ungrammatical pauses were associated with weaker core language skills. Caregivers’ own reading skills were also indirectly related to children’s language through their reading prosody, with the relationship between intonation and vocabulary particularly strong among families reporting less frequent shared reading. The findings suggest that how caregivers read aloud, including expressive intonation and appropriate pausing, may be an important feature of shared reading that supports preschool language development, especially when opportunities for shared reading are limited.
Lei Wu, Kamariah Abu Bakar, and Khairul Farhah Khairuddin, writing in Computer Speech & Language, developed an artificial intelligence system designed to generate developmentally appropriate questions during preschool picture book reading. The system uses pretrained language models and speech recognition technology to create questions at three cognitive levels: memory retrieval, inference, and prediction. Experimental evaluations showed that the system achieved 83.1 percent accuracy in generating questions at the intended cognitive level, while speech recognition errors were reduced to 19.8 percent following language model processing. A simulated spoken interaction achieved a 94 percent session completion rate, and comparisons with parent and child reading conversations suggested that the generated questions reflected patterns found in natural shared reading. The findings demonstrate the technical potential of artificial intelligence to support more responsive dialogic reading experiences, although further research with preschool children is needed to determine whether the system improves language development, comprehension, or adult child interaction.
Ruohan Qian, Suxia Wang, Yuxuan Wang, and Ling Ye, writing in Acta Psychologica, examined relationships among kindergarten organizational climate, psychological security, and subjective well-being in 287 preschool teachers from mainland China. Using latent profile analysis, the researchers identified three organizational climate types: Negative Alienation (13.94 percent), Balanced and Medium (51.57 percent), and Open Harmony (34.49 percent). Teachers working in kindergartens characterized by an open and harmonious organizational climate reported the highest levels of psychological security and subjective well-being. Psychological security also statistically mediated the relationship between organizational climate and teachers’ well-being, suggesting that feeling safe and supported in the workplace may help explain why teachers in more positive organizational environments experience greater well-being. The findings highlight the importance of supportive leadership, positive workplace relationships, and psychologically secure environments in strengthening preschool teachers’ professional well-being.
Opportunities
Sr. Project Manager of ECE Strategy, Policy, and Planning, City of Philadelphia
Sr. Project Manager of ECE Initiatives and Partnerships, City of Philadelphia
Vice President, Early Childhood Policy, Center for American Progress
Advisory Services Analyst, Early Childhood Programs, Mathematica
The Authors
Allison Muhlendorf manages external affairs for NIEER, including communications, earned and owned media, government relations, partnerships, and outreach.
About NIEER
The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at the Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, conducts and disseminates independent research and analysis to inform early childhood education policy.
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