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What Matters in Sustaining the Benefits of Pre-K through Early Elementary School

Thu, April 8, 2:45 to 4:15pm EDT (2:45 to 4:15pm EDT), Virtual

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Enrollment in pre-K at age 4 has been seen as one promising avenue for mitigating opportunity gaps and preparing children for kindergarten. At the same time, however, there is growing evidence that the benefits of pre-K diminish shortly after program exit. This pattern of convergence has drawn attention to the key targets and factors that may explain how to sustain the early gains of pre-K. This panel brings together three papers that explore the leading hypotheses regarding pre-K convergence.

The first paper considers whether enrollment in pre-K has more lasting benefits for children’s unconstrained skills (e.g., expressive vocabulary or effective problem solving), which are more open to ongoing development and improvement as compared with constrained skills (e.g., basic math skills and identification of letters or words). The second paper examines whether kindergarten classroom practices matter for sustaining the academic benefits of pre-K, with a specific focus on the quality, dosage, and mode of instruction. The third and final paper considers whether a combination of classroom and student-level factors matter for explaining patterns of pre-K convergence and what share of convergence is attributed to factors outside the scope of early schooling. The discussant, a leading expert in early intervention and early childhood education, will discuss the implications of this work for research, policy, and practice.

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