Early Childhood Education

Research on Early Childhood Education

Last Updated Aug 20, 2008 09:18 AM

Kathleen Cotton and Nancy Faires Conklin

INTRODUCTION

Education in the second half of the twentieth century has been characterized by increases in the provision of educational programs for preschool-age children. The largest wave of preschool education activity has been the federally funded Head Start program, established in the 1960s to help children overcome the cognitive, social, emotional, and physical deficits that frequently accompany growing up in economically deprived homes. By providing an array of educational and social services to children and their families, Head Start programs are designed to foster general well-being and enhance school readiness, so that these children might gain the full benefit of their school experiences and be more successful in life generally.

If Head Start and other programs for economically disadvantaged children can be shown to make a positive difference in these children's school and life experiences, their impact can be very widespread. Schweinhart (1985) points out that one-fourth of all children under the age of six are living in poverty, and that three-fifths of the mothers of three- and four-year-old children now work outside the home. However, fewer than 20 percent of the nation's threeand four-year-olds from poor families are currently enrolled in Head Start programs.

Kindergarten enrollment has also increased dramatically in recent years. While only seven states mandate kindergarten attendance, about 95 percent of all children currently attend kindergarten (Sava 1987), and 23 percent of these attend full-day programs (Karweit 1988).

In addition to the generally recognized need to provide some kind of extra support to children from low-income homes, there is another reason for the dramatic increase in educational programs for children before first grade. This is the increase, alluded to above, of mothers in the workforce. Many parents who are not at home with their children in the daytime are not satisfied with unstructured day care or babysitting, preferring that their children participate in more formal learning experiences.

Finally, some of the increased interest in and push for structured preschool programs comes from the unfortunate notion, held by some, that education is a race to be won, and those who start first are more likely to finish ahead. Commenting on this source of pressure for preschool education, Elkind (1988) says:

...the choice of the phrase "Head Start" was unfortunate. "Head Start" does imply a race. And not surprisingly, when middle income parents heard that low-income children were being given a "Head Start," they wanted a similar "Head Start" for their children. (p. 23)

A great many educators and researchers view early childhood education as beneficial to children's cognitive and social development. These proponents-- including virtually all of the researchers and theorists whose work was consulted in order to prepare this document--base their conviction on personal observation and on the many research studies linking early childhood programs to desirable outcomes. These outcomes will be described in detail in a later section of this report.

It is important to note, however, that some educators, such as Elkind (1988), Katz (1987), Zigler (1986), and representatives of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (1986) warn against too much formal, highly structured education for very young children. These and other writers have called attention to three major objections to school-based programs. As summarized by Katz, these objections include:

Such programs, because they are to be conducted in schools normally serving elementary-age children, will inevitably adopt formal academic teaching methods that early childhood specialists generally consider developmentally inappropriate for under-six-year-olds.
Research reporting positive long-term benefits of early education programs is based on the kind of high quality of staff and program implementation unlikely to be duplicated in most school districts.
Others...cite the special risks of public school programs for young black children, suggesting that such children need comprehensive programs that include health, nutrition, social services, and parent involvement, as well as informal curriculum/methods. (p.2)
In addition, writers such as Herman (1984) and Puleo (1988) call attention to the issues surrounding the half-day/full-day kindergarten controversy. They note that some educators and researchers feel that the additional hours are too fatiguing for young children and that, in any case, increasing allocated time does not necessarily enhance program quality.

Given this array of assertions and reservations about preschool and kindergarten programs, it is important to examine what well-designed research studies reveal about the long- and short-term effects of early childhood education.

It is also important to determine whether different effects are produced by different models for early childhood programs--to determine, for example, whether didactic, teacher-directed programs or less-structured, "discovery" models produce superior cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Finally, we need to determine whether different populations of students respond differently to early childhood education in general or to particular program models.


THE EFFECTIVE SCHOOLING RESEARCH

The relationship of the early childhood education research to the general effective schooling research is also of interest to teachers, administrators, theorists, and researchers. The effective schooling research base developed over the past two decades tells us a great deal about what school and classroom practices are effective for students in general.

The series of topical synthesis documents of which this report is a part examines particular topic areas against the backdrop of the general effective schooling research to determine points of congruence and identify any areas where the general and specific bodies of research do not match.

To achieve this, the present report invokes the general effective schooling research cited in Effective Schooling Practices: A Research Synthesis (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory 1984). In reviewing the many research findings cited in this document, it is important to remember that they did not, for the most part, emerge from studies conducted with children younger that first graders. Many of these studies are therefore not applicable to these very young children, because the settings and treatments employed in them represent what Katz described above as "formal academic teaching methods that early childhood specialists generally consider developmentally inappropriate for under-six-year-olds." (1987, p. 2)

There are, nevertheless, several points of congruence between the two literatures, and these will be noted following a discussion of the research on early childhood education.

See also Early Childhood Education 441 1 - 10