Improving Children's Kindergarten Readiness

A new $3.4 million 5-year grant from the Institute of Education Sciences to researchers Justice, Purtell, Logan, and Jiang will examine impacts of specific kindergarten-transition practices on children’s academic and social-behavioral development during preschool, their adjustment to kindergarten, and their trajectories from preschool to the end of first grade. Over 1,000 preschool children will be followed from preschool to the end of the kindergarten year, and research results will fundamentally improve our understanding of how preschool and kindergarten teachers can facilitate children’s kindergarten transition. CCEC researchers are actively recruiting Ohio-based preschool programs to serve as partners in this project, and will announce the formal partnership for the research project this summer.