Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Salem Keizer Prenatal-Grade Three Evaluation & Technical Assistance, Center For Improvement Of Child And Family Services

Early Childhood

The purpose of this document is to provide information and resources to schools, early childhood programs, and others who are seeking to improve school readiness, family engagement, and school success within a Prenatal-Grade 3 framework. While the information presented is not a comprehensive list of programs and strategies, the list reflects resources that have been identified as potentially useful within Oregon and/or strategies that have been used in Oregon to strengthen child and family outcomes. This document is one of three compilations of programs, activities, and resources. This document includes resources related to (1) Children’s Kindergarten Readiness and Transition to …

Prenatal To Grade 3 Alignment Initiative, Callie H. Lambarth, Beth L. Green, Diane Reid

Early Childhood

The purpose of this project is to create stronger connections between elementary schools & providers of early childhood care/education programs; and between schools & parents of young children in 10 grantee communities across Oregon. The evaluation team developed data collection tools and is currently providing data collection and utilization training and technical assistance, and conducting systems evaluation data collection and analysis.

Language Rich Early Childhood Classroom: Simple But Powerful Beginnings, Erin E. Flynn

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article highlights research exploring the benefits of small group storytelling as a way to promote rich language in early childhood classrooms. Using the storytelling of children from a preschool classroom serving lower SES children, the collaborative affordances of story circles are explored. Results show that small group storytelling engages children in ways of using language associated with literacy learning. When storytelling, children use language in extended, multi-clause turns, relaying what happened in another context. Story requires children to communicate what happened as well as the interpersonal significance of events. Small group storytelling also gives children a chance to practice …

Evaluation Of The Kindergarten Readiness Partnership & Innovation Grants, Beth L. Green, Lindsey Brianna Patterson, Mackenzie Morris, Lindsey Anne Cochran, Callie H. Lambarth

Early Childhood

In July 2014, Oregon’s Early Learning Division provided first-time funding for sixteen communities across the state to implement Kindergarten Readiness Partnership & Innovation (KRPI) projects. The KRPI projects share the common goal of improving children’s school readiness and, ultimately, improving school success and reducing the achievement gap. To achieve these goals, grantees were given considerable local flexibility to implement innovative approaches in one or more of the following areas:

1. Supporting kindergarten readiness skills and smooth transitions to kindergarten;

2. Increasing family engagement in children’s learning and connecting families and schools;

3. Providing professional development to early learning and/or elementary …

Research-To-Practice Brief: Promising Evidence That Early Head Start Can Prevent Child Maltreatment, Rachel Chazan-Cohen, Beth L. Green, Catherine Ayoub, Jessica Dym Bartlett, Adam Von Ende, Carrie Jeanne Furrer

Child Abuse & Neglect Prevention

This brief addresses two main questions in a sample of Early Head Start eligible children: 1) the number and type of maltreatment episodes and 2) the impact of Early Head Start on child and family involvement in the child welfare system. These findings are especially important given the lack of scalable and effective preventive interventions. In addition, they are also timely given the recent interest in fostering collaborations between early care and education programs and child welfare agencies, agencies responsible for overseeing child protection from maltreatment (OHS & ACYF, 2010; ACYF & OHS, 2011; ACYF & OCC, 2011). The current …

Evaluation Of The Start Making A Reader Today (Smart), Beth L. Green, Amanda Cross-Hemmer, Lorelei Mitchell

Early Childhood

The goal of the Start Making a Reader Today (SMART) program is to support young children to develop early reading and literacy skills, as well as to increase their interest, confidence, and enthusiasm about reading. SMART pairs trained adult volunteers with PreK-3 rd grade children, primarily in schools serving significant proportions of low-income families. Thus, SMART augments the one-on-one reading support available in typical elementary schools. Volunteers read to children for 30 minutes, either once or twice a week, and provide books that children can take home and keep for themselves. Prior evaluation research (Baker, Gersten, & Keating, 2000) found …

Special Focus Programs, Magnet Programs And Schools, And Early Childhood Education Centers: Equal Access In Portland Public School's Elementary Options, Nancy Seidule Hauth

Dissertations and Theses

As parents and educators demand more choice programs in their school districts, it is important for district officials to govern issues around equal access. When specialty programs are designed by grassroots groups and school staff without district-level guidance or funding, as it is in Portland, Oregon, equal access provisions can be overlooked resulting in lower ethnic and socio-economic diversity.

The purpose of this study was threefold: to determine if all families in Portland Public School district have equal access to special focus/magnet programs at the elementary grades; to better understand the link between Portland's past desegregation policies and current choice …

The Home-School Connection: Parental Influences On A Child's English Second Language Acquisition, Catharine Jauhiainen

Dissertations and Theses

Few would dispute the tremendous impact that parents have on the intellectual, emotional, and social development of their children. An important issue in child second language acquisition is whether, or to what extent, parental attitudes and behaviors are associated with the success of language minority children in elementary ESL and mainstream classroom settings. The effects of parental educational values and expectations, and parental perception of ability to assist in the educational journey of their offspring, have been the focus of much research regarding majority language children. However, research exploring the beliefs and behaviors of language minority parents and their relationship …

Portfolios As Developmentally Appropriate Assessment In Early Childhood Education, Deborah Thompson

Dissertations and Theses

Traditional use of formal assessment techniques in early childhood education is not congruent with the knowledge and philosophies that have begun to guide curriculum and practice. The discontent with current assessment approaches has created a need to develop alternate assessment methods. The practice of portfolio assessment is posed as a developmentally appropriate alternative in this thesis. Current literature on portfolio assessment related to kindergarten/first grade setting supports portfolio assessment in both theory and practice in early childhood education.

Pre-Kindergarteners' Performance On The Btbc, Amelia Wittwer Ouellette

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to detect the amount of variability in performance among low, middle and high SES pre-kindergarteners on the entire Boehm Test of Basic Concepts. The study sought to answer the following questions. What is the distribution of BTBC scores among low, middle and high SES pre-kindergarteners? Do the scores of pre-kindergarten children vary significantly as to socioeconomic status?

Early Childhood Education And Compensatory Education In The Portland, Oregon, Public Schools, 1965-1984, Dolores Jean Robinett Pappas

Dissertations and Theses

This investigation had the dual purpose of exploring, in historical perspectives, the academic discipline known as Early Childhood Education and the use of Early Childhood Education as a vehicle for compensatory education in the Portland Public Schools from 1965-1984.