New Study Suggests More Time in Preschool Offers Bigger Gains

One of the big topics in early learning today is the roles of standards and curriculum in preschools. A study released this week suggests teachers should dedicate more time to self-control exercises and children should spend more time in preschool.

Results suggest effects accumulate and that more preschool is better than less, as children demonstrated significant growth during both years of school. Thus, children completing their second year of preschool had higher scores on decoding and letter knowledge than children finishing their first year of preschool, even though the two groups of children were similar in age. In contrast, vocabulary growth was not associated with time spent in school for either year of preschool. – "Schooling effects on preschoolers’ self-regulation, early literacy, and language growth." http://news.msu.edu/media/documents/2011/01/8fb2bd77-0764-48b4-9a84-327a80377e79.pdf Early Childhood Research Quarterly. 2011.

by Paul Nyhan

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