Fostering Early Learning Collaboration

1. Fostering Early Learning Collaboration Gail E. Joseph

2. Welcome • Take a few minutes and introduce yourself to everyone at your regional team table • Who is here today? • Overview of NCQTL

3. The National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning • NCQTL is collaborating with early educators and trainers to make a lasting impact for young children

4. Leadership Team - NCQTL *University of Washington • Susan Sandall, Director • Randi Shapiro, Executive Director • Gail Joseph University of Virginia • Robert Pianta • Bridget Hamre Vanderbilt University • Mary Louise Hemmeter • Rob Corso

5. Our four goals • Identify research-based practices that support school readiness • Move these into everyday practice • Higher Education opportunities • Sustain the gain

7. Child’s Inventory • FAMILY • CONNECTION • Child’s interests • Hopes/concerns • Languages spoken • Early learning experiences • GOLD • “WHOLE CHILD” ASSESSMENT • Comprehensive • assessment • Social and emotional • Physical • Language and literacy • Cognitive • EARLY LEARNING COLLABORATION • Similar to family connection • Process to be developed in 2011-12 school year

8. Today’s Goals • Provide overview of school readiness and influence of transition/alignment • Provide useful frameworks and accompanying tools for this work • Evaluate what you are doing well, and where else to focus your efforts • Begin developing the WaKIDS early learning collaboration plan for each team/region

9. If Transition Partnerships Are the Answer, What Is the Question? Washington State Transitions Summit November 5, 2011 Dr. Thomas Schultz – thomass@ccsso.org

10. Framing Transitions Efforts , • 3 Pictures • 2 Stories • Data on Teaching & Young Children

14. Transitions Story I “It is the first day of school as the big yellow bus pulls to a stop. By the side of the road, eight children line up, in descending order of height, as parents cluster behind. One by one, the children step aboard, flash a smile to the driver & take their seats. However, the smallest child at the end of the line, a kindergartner, is less willing than his peers to get on board. His parents first coax, then push him toward the bus door. Tears begin to run down his face and he screams that he doesn’t want to go. As the parents force him to the door, he grabs on to either side of the door, props his leg against the stair, & offers his last, futile resistance as he is pushed aboard & the door swings shut.” Young Children’s Perceptions of Kindergarten and Beliefs on School Readiness, Unpublished Dissertation, James Squires

15. Transitions Story II “Sarah lives at the end of a long, dirt road. Lacking transportation, this only child had little opportunity to interact with other children or adults during her first five years. Several months before she was scheduled to attend kindergarten, a home visitor began to help Sarah and her parent prepare for the transition. During the weekly visits, Sarah was introduced to learning materials and activities and talked about what she could expect to see and do in kindergarten. When the first day of school arrived, the home visitor picked up Sarah and her parent to take her to school. As Sarah looked into the classroom from the hallway, she whipped off her coat and told her mother before running inside, “This is going to be great!”Young Children’s Perceptions of Kindergarten and Beliefs on School Readiness, James Squires

16. Data on Pre-K/Kg. Practices

18. How are Young Children Doing? (Not Well) • ↑ Disadvantage • ↑ Diversity • ↑ Disparities

20. How Are Children Doing? ↑ Diversity • Numbers of young immigrant children 0-8 years increased from 4.3 million in 1990 to 8.7 million in 2008. • 51% of young immigrants live in poverty; 37% are ELLs at age 5; 25% have parents who lack a high school degree, but 89% live in 2-parent families. • Washington St. increase in children 0-8 with immigrant parents from 74,000 in 1990 to 171,000 in 2007 (from 11% to 26% of all young kids).

21. How Are Children Doing? ↑ Disparities

22. Why We Care About Reading Proficiency?

23. How Are Children Doing: Disparities 1200 College Educated Parents Working Class Parents 600 Welfare Parents Cumulative Vocabulary (Words) 200 16 mos. 24 mos. 36 mos. Child’s Age (Months) Source: Hart & Risley (1995)

24. Early reading scores for children entering kindergarten: 2006-07 Male Female White Black Hispanic Low Middle High Sex Race/ethnicity Socioeconomic status

25. How Are Children Doing? Disparities • Low-income 4-5-yr-old children are 12-14 months below national norms in language development. (Layzer) • 40% of low-income children did not know all the letters of the alphabet at the end of kindergarten (Head Start Impact Study).

26. What Do You Think? • Are educators sufficiently informed, alarmed and focused on gaps in the early years? • Are parents receiving accurate, honest feedback on how well their children are progressing?

27. What Hinders Us? • Belief in strengths-based views of children. • View that variability in early development means that we should not use outcome standards in assessing young children. • Worry that highlighting disparities can generate cycles of blame or despair.

28. Keep Hope Alive: Enriched Opportunities Matter PPVT PPVT 36m Total Literacy Environment Score Pre-K Total Literacy Environment Score

29. What Do You Think? If Transition Partnerships Are the Answer, What is the Question? Can Early Childhood & Kg-to- Grade 3 Educators Join Forces to Prevent/Minimize Disparities?

30. Contact us at: Contact us at: NCPFCE@childrens.harvard.edu Or 855-208-0909 (Toll Free) Thank you! Thank you.

31. Transition and Alignment to Enhance School Readiness

32. Is this a losing battle?

33. Transitions Across the Lifespan Transition: Code word for CHANGE

34. What Contributes to Adjustment? • Information, relationships, continuity…and time! • Going someplace new Children need our help to access these supports

35. How successfully are children adjusting to kindergarten? Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta & Cox, 2000

36. Why do we care so much about the transition to kindergarten? • Early school years are a “critical period” for learning and development (early experiences/preschool matters) • Kindergarten teacher-child relationships predict: • Academic and behavior outcomes through eighth grade, particularly for children with behavior problems in kindergarten (Hamre & Pianta, 2001) • Conflict with teachers is stable over time (Jerome et al., 2009) • Kindergarten family involvement is associated with: • More cooperative, self-controlled, socially engaged children (McWayne et al, 2004) • Lower rates of high school dropout, increased on-time high school completion, and highest grade completed (Barnard, 2004) • Higher school competency, higher achievement in language and math, and higher ratings on peer interactions (Rimm-Kaufman et al., 2003) • How quickly children adaptively adjust across settings

37. Youtube videos – either children or parents are crying

38. Setting Changes LaParo et al., 2009

39. Family Transition Experiences “His teacher called several days before school started; it was great and really made Nate feel great.” “I am pleased… the teacher called after the first two days of school to say how well she was doing.” “The teacher called me the first week of school and said she should have been evaluated for Ritalin because she can’t teach her.” “I’m not happy with it… I sent in notes but got no response from the teacher… The first day of school I sent him with a dollar for lunch but he didn’t eat all day… something got mixed up. I tried again with a dollar the next day, but he didn’t eat that day either. He wet his pants. The teacher is young and she’s not very organized. I’m anxious about this year.”

40. Misalignments and Shifts in the Transition to Kindergarten • Changes in academic demands / curricula • Less family connection with school • Complexity of social environment (peers and adults) • Less time with teacher(s) • Adjustment sets the course for things to come

41. School readiness: A child-focused view Early Experiences Kindergarten Child Child

42. Peers Teachers Child Community Family School readiness: When connections are the focus Early Experiences Kindergarten Peers Teachers Child Community Family Rimm-Kaufman & Pianta, 2000

43. Child and Family-School Connections • Child goal: To foster children’sfamiliarity with the classroom setting and people within it • Increase comfort and decrease anxiety • Build teacher-child relationships • Expose to new setting prior to school starting • Family goal: To foster family collaboration and involvement with the school • Share information about individual children • Get parents familiar with school routines • Become partners in the process

44. Early School and Community-School Connections • School goal: To provide children with stable high quality classroom experiences across time • Increase consistency for children across contexts through alignment of relationships routines, curricula, learning standards, and assessments. • Community goal: To facilitate the transition process within the community • Getting the word out • Clarify community needs and expectations regarding schools and transition • Inter-agency connections with key players

45. SO WHY DO WE NEED TO DO ALL OF THIS?

46. Transition activity 99 89 95 100 99 97 97 100 98 92 96 Had child visit a kindergarten classroom Met with a kindergarten teacher Met with the principal Took a tour of the school Talked with preschool staff about kindergarten Visited the kindergarten classroom Talked with parents of child’s new classmates Participated in elementary school-wide activities Attended a workshop for parents Met with child’s anticipated kindergarten teacher Attended an orientation to kindergarten Child & family connections with school: Transition experiences families found useful % of families who found the experience helpful Pianta et al., 1999

47. Preschool Transition Practices are Associated with Children’s Adjustment to Kindergarten • In the NCEDL project, more transition activities were associated with all of the following child outcomes at the beginning of kindergarten: • Greater frustration tolerance • Better social skills • Fewer conduct problems • Fewer learning problems • More positive approaches to learning • Transition activities were most helpful for children from low-income families. LoCasale-Crouch et al., 2008

48. Kindergarten Transition Practices are Associated with Academic Skills and Family Involvement • Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (Schulting, Malone & Dodge, 2005) • 17,212 children, 992 schools Fall K Transition Practices Spring K Academic Skills and Family Involvement = Even more for children from low-income families

49. School-school connections: Transition experiences teachers found useful

50. School – School Connections Support Children’s School Readiness • In NCEDL study: • Connection between preschool and kindergarten teacher single most predictive practice of children’s adjustment (LoCasale-Crouch et al, 2008) • The Chicago Child-Parent Center Program: • Included a tightly aligned preschool and kindergarten program • Children were more likely to obtain higher levels of education (Ou and Reynold, 2006)