Kids in Columbus Study (KICS) investigates how families with young children, specifically those living in low-income households, access and use community resources that are funded each year by the city of Columbus.
Kindergarten
Franklin County Early Care and Education Landscape Study
The Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy is partnering with the City of Columbus and Future Ready Columbus to conduct a study on the Early Care and Education Landscape in Franklin County (“Landscape Study”).
The Landscape Study aims to identify salient early care and education experiences for children under the age of five in Franklin County. This includes participation in formal and informal care arrangements, caregiver beliefs and practices, and home learning activities and experience. The study also hopes to identify barriers and enablers to early care and education for families in the Columbus area.
It’s a struggle: Transitioning children into kindergarten
A recent questionnaire surveying kindergarten teachers found that a majority (72%) said children had difficulty in the transition to kindergarten, with boys and children with IEPs more likely to have difficulty. This white paper shares research about children's kindergarten transitions and key recommendations for policymakers, researchers and practitioners.
ProPELL: Promoting Preschoolers’ Early Language Learning
The Crane Center's Promoting Preschoolers’ Early Language Learning (ProPELL) project is an IES-funded project designed to investigate preschoolers’ early language learning. This project is done in partnership with colleagues from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Childhood-related policy hopes for 2021
Our policy team shares four things that they will be paying attention to in 2021 regarding early childhood policy. They are careful to note, these are not* predictions (after what 2020 taught us about making predictions for the year).
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT: 7 different pathways to kindergarten
With only a few studies on the pathways that children take from birth to kindergarten, this OSU study shows the variety of pathways children take to reach kindergarten.
Striving Readers
Crane and Schoenbaum Centers, in partnership with Greene County Educational Service Center and Madison-Champaign Educational Service Center received a Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Grant to form the Ohio State Research Foundation Consortium which aimed to improve literacy outcomes for Ohio children birth to age five.
Kindergarten Transition Practices
Considerable efforts are underway across the United States to expand access to early childhood education for young children. Corresponding to increased access to early childhood education across the country is a need to improve children’s transition from early education settings into the primary grades. When children start kindergarten, they are transitioning into a context that is distinct from their earlier experiences.
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT: Long-term consequences of school absenteeism by Dr. Arya Ansari
There are many misconceptions about school absenteeism. This new study from the Crane Center shows that early absences do matter, and in ways we may not have considered. Read here for a summary of the findings and for a link to the full published research.
Steps to Sustainability: Fundamental Reforms to Our Systems of Child Care and Early-Learning Programs
Our Broken Child Care System and How to Fix It, Part 3: The final segment of this series examines how the many systems that make up U.S. child care are failing. Fixes that are both sweeping enough and realistic aren’t obvious, so Dr. Laura Justice turns to three experts to weigh in.