The present study traced the emergence of the neural circuits for reading in five-year-old children of diverse pre-literacy ability. In the fall and winter of kindergarten, children performed a one-back task with letter versus false font stimuli during fMRI scanning. At the start of kindergarten, children with on-track pre-literacy skills (OT) recruited bilateral temporo-parietal regions for th...

Executive Summary There is growing evidence that children who enter kindergarten ready for its academic, socio-emotional, and physical demands are more likely to achieve future academic success (Duncan et al., 2007; Hair et al., 2006). In contrast, children who enter kindergarten behind their peers in these areas are at risk for academic underachievement (Cabell, Justice, Logan, & Konold, 2013)...

Preschool years (ages 3-5) are a critical period in growth and development. Emerging studies suggest that preschool attendance may be linked to future weight, and perhaps obesity. This study examined relationships between public preschool attendance, demographic variables, and weight at kindergarten entry. Participants included 2,400 children entering kindergarten in 2006. Height and weight wer...

Number sense development was tracked from the beginning of kindergarten through the middle of first grade, over six time points. Children (n = 277) were then assessed on general math achievement at the end of first grade. Number sense performance in kindergarten, as well as number sense growth, accounted for 66 percent of the variance in first-grade math achievement. Background characteristics ...

In 2003, Jordan initiated a period of education reform, one component of which was an effort to improve readiness for first grade by opening public kindergartens. This study had three goals: (a) To describe the school readiness of Jordanian children; (b) To compare the first grade readiness of children who had and had not attended kindergarten; and (c) To compare the 2004 and 2007 readiness of ...

The transition to kindergarten represents an important developmental milestone for children and may pose unique challenges to children with disabilities, their families, and teachers. The primary goal of the current study was to investigate teacher concerns regarding the transition to kindergarten as well as teacher and parent-reported transition preparation practices and involvement for a samp...

BACKGROUND Injuries are very common and can occur at any point of time in a day. Unintended injuries in kindergarten children are the most common and need immediate life saving care which is known as first aid. This study aimed to investigate knowledge, attitude, practice, and associated factors of first aid among kindergarten teachers of Lideta sub-city Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. METHOD A cross-...

The present study sought to examine whether preschool children’s emotion regulation, problem behaviors, and kindergarten behavioral self-regulation in the classroom were predictors of kindergarten achievement scores. The children (N = 122, 47% male and 63% European American) who were participating in an ongoing longitudinal study, were seen at both a preschool and kindergarten assessment. The p...

Background: The transition to child care is a challenging time in a child's life and leads to elevated levels of cortisol. These elevations may be influenced by the quality of the mother-child relationship. However, remarkably little is known about cortisol production in response to the beginning of child care among children-at-risk such as children with an immigrant background. However, attend...

The authors used a large sample of children (N ≈ 7,400) participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study--Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) to estimate kindergarten children's academic achievement growth trajectories in reading and mathematics. The authors were particularly interested in whether the growth trajectories of children with learning disabilities (LD) or speech language impairments...