Title: Impacts of a prekindergarten program on children's cognitive, executive function, and emotional skills /
Authors: Weiland, Christina.; Harvard University.
Year: 2011
Subjects: Early childhood education United States.; Education, Preschool United States.; Early childhood education Curricula Research United States.
Abstract: In recent years, many states and districts have established or expanded state- and locally funded prekindergarten programs, with the goal of improving children's school readiness. A small body of research suggests that these programs have achieved small to moderate impacts on children's literacy, language and numeracy outcomes ( 10-13 ). We report findings from a rigorous large-scale quasi-experimental study of the impact of one such program on children's school readiness. We make several important contributions to the literature. First, using a regression-discontinuity (RD) design, with a birthday cutoff for entry into the program in a given year providing exogenous assignment to the treatment and control conditions, we present the first evidence of the causal impacts of a publicly funded prekindergarten program on essential components of school readiness besides mathematics, literacy, and language, such as executive functioning and emotional readiness. Second, we possess detailed information on the counterfactual condition. Unlike prior studies, we can describe in detail what kinds of services control group children received. Third, because the prekindergarten program was the first in which explicit curricula were implemented across study classrooms, our study provides practical guidance about the conditions under which prekindergarten programs can achieve positive causal impacts at scale. Finally, our findings are robust to critical methodological issues that have gone unexamined in prior evaluations of similar publicly funded prekindergarten programs.