Early Education

Early EducationThe League is keeping an eye on what various organizations are doing, particularly regarding funding.  Requirements for a preschool includes training and credentialing teachers, having a curriculum in place for California, and the fiscal ability to expand excellent existing programs.

 

 

Reports

Learning Policy Institute – Untangling the Evidence of Preschool Education Insights for Policymakers.  January 2019. This report presents the evidence on the effects of preschool, finding that well-implemented programs support substantial early learning gains and can have lasting impacts throughout school. We explain how the findings from evaluations of the Tennessee Voluntary Pre-K and Head Start programs inform our interpretations of preschool effectiveness and demonstrate how study methodology used to compare children in a program to those outside the program shapesthe interpretation of research results.

Organizations

California Head Start Association, Budgets, cost of living data, and political information regarding preschool age children.

Early Edge California, Advocating for Transitional Kindergarten. Information on the Early Learning Lab.

First Five California, Learn about state activities to bring children’s health and education to top priority status.  Created under Proposition 10 in 1998 and is sustained by the tobacco tax.

First Five Alameda, Programs helping Alameda County kids in their development up to age 5.

Early Head Start, Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center.

National Institute for Early Education Research – Find research reports, briefs, and journal articles about preschool age children.  Website is through Rutgers Graduate School of Education.

Media

TED Talk on Infant Learning.  Patricia Kuhl shares astonishing findings about how babies learn one language over another.  They listen to the humans around them and “taking statistics” on the sounds they need to know. Clever lab experiments (and brain scans) show how 6-month-old babies use sophisticated reasoning to understand their world. (Filmed at TEDxRainier.)

For Creative Problem Solving, Why Young Kids can Outwit College Students.  More news about Psychologist Alison Gopnik’s study of preschool children and their problem solving abilities.  She is a professor at UC Berkeley.  League members met her at the Annual Meeting on May 22nd, when she spoke on this topic.

Reading Rockets Launching Young Readers.  This is a PBS series of 30 minutes TV programs  that explore the stages of learning to read. Takes a look at different strategies based on the most recent reading research. For parents, teachers, caregivers or anyone else interested in helping children learn to read.

Literacy

Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Read the often cited report from 2006.