Poster #72 - Classroom Quality and Practices in Rural Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms and Associations with Academic Outcomes

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

High-quality prekindergarten (pre-K) can positively impact children’s academic development (Yoshikawa et al., 2013), but gains made during the pre-K year have not always lasted into elementary school (Phillips et al., 2017). Looking at maintaining gains from pre-K into kindergarten involves being able to identify how classroom quality and practices promote gains during pre-K and/or kindergarten, and determining whether classroom quality and practices differs across years. It has been assumed that children would benefit more if pre-K quality and practices linked to gains in pre-K were extended into kindergarten (e.g., ensuring quality of kindergarten classrooms). This poster will examine this question by comparing which classroom quality and practices predict gains during pre-K and kindergarten in a longitudinal cohort study of low-income children who attended a publicly-funded pre-K program in rural North Carolina.

Sixty-three pre-K classrooms, and 455 children within classrooms, were randomly selected to participate. This sample was followed into kindergarten, with 84% retention of the original sample. Fall/spring child assessments in pre-K and kindergarten included Woodcock Johnson (Woodcock et al., 2001) Picture Vocabulary (PV), Letter-Word Identification (LW), and Applied Problems (AP). Classrooms were observed in the winter of pre-K and kindergarten using the CLASS (Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008) and the Language Interaction Snapshot (LISn; Sprachman et al., 2010). CLASS subscales of Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and Instructional Support were combined for this study. LISn captured language and instruction as experienced by individual children, and three LISn variables were examined for this study: teacher complex language (elaborates language, elicits information, sustains conversations), content-related activities (teacher book reading [PV], literacy activities [LW], or math activities [AP]), and percent time in whole-group activities. Covariates included child age and gender, maternal education, and dual language learner (DLL) status (see Table 1). Two-level HLM analyses were conducted, testing associations of classroom quality and practices with gains in children’s academic outcomes.

As seen in Table 2, findings showed that classroom quality and practices related to gains in outcomes differently in pre-K versus kindergarten. CLASS was positively associated with LW gains in pre-K, but negatively associated with PV, LW, and AP gains in kindergarten. Teacher complex conversations were positively associated with PV gains in pre-K only. Literacy activities were positively associated with LW gains in kindergarten only. Whole-group activities were negatively associated with LW and AP gains in pre-k but positively associated with LW gains in kindergarten.

These findings suggest that quality and practices from pre-K into kindergarten reflects variation in the benefits conferred by classrooms at each level, which adds to the complexity of accurately measuring quality over time. Implications include a need for aligned measures of quality across early childhood classrooms, as well as the need for professional development opportunities for teachers in rural areas to help them improve their use of classroom time and language interactions to benefit the children in their care.

Authors

• Mary Bratsch-Hines, UNC-Chapel Hill
  Presenting Author

• Peg Burchinal, University of North Carolina
  Non-Presenting Author