Quality early learning is a powerful poverty-fighting tool that helps narrow achievement gaps among children. Researchers spend a lot of time focusing on those gaps in preschool, but there is not much work on these divides in babies and toddlers, a new report says.

A Child Trends report begins to change this with a study of data on 11,000 children that shows the achievement gap - differences in cognitive skills, behavior and health – actually shows up as early as nine months.

Researchers discovered many of these gaps widened by the time children were two years old. Poverty and low education among mothers were the two most prevalent risk factors, though they found gaps in two other demographic areas: racial/ethnic minority status and non-English home language.

This is a major finding for the early learning community because it’s further evidence of the importance of quality infant and toddler care. If the achievement gap starts so early, quality child care has to start as early.

This important study underscores a key truth: if a price tag could be put on future workforce productivity in our country, the growing number of children in poverty is very expensive. Very soon, the line of credit we have been using by not investing wisely in children from an early age is going to bankrupt us, – Marian Wright Edelman, head of the Children’s Defense Fund, wrote at Change.org on Friday, “Leaving the Littlest Ones Behind.”

The report also offers ideas on how to deal with these early achievement gaps, and one of them is “Improve the Quality of Early Care Settings.”

Two promising ways to address the quality of early care environments would be to focus on curriculum development and professional development within both home-based and center-based settings that serve infants and toddlers. – “Disparities in Early Learning and Development: Lessons from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort.

The report was released by Child Trends last summer and funded by the Council of Chief State School Officers. It is worth checking out.

Television programs helped preschoolers develop reading skills and get ready for kindergarten, a new study found, suggesting the tube isn’t all bad.

In the study of 398 preschoolers from poorer neighborhoods, TV-watching students outscored those in a comparison group on all five measured categories, showing impressive gains in letter recognition and story concepts. Their curriculum relied, in part, on television programs and playing interactive games.

Perhaps the study’s most interesting finding is that students who were furthest behind had the biggest gains, according to the Center for Children and Technology, one of two groups that worked on the study.

“If media can be harnessed to help close this literacy gap, as this study has shown, it's a powerful new tool for preschool teachers,” William Penuel, director of evaluation research for SRI International’s Center for Technology in Learning, the other group leading the study, said in a statement. “We know public media can improve literacy skills when kids watch at home; what we didn't know is that content from multiple shows could be effectively integrated into a curriculum and implemented by teachers.”

Of course, these teachers were not showing their students “The Simpsons” or “The Ren and Stimpy Show.” They relied on PBS’s “Sesame Street,” “Super Why!” “ and “Between the Lions.” (An interesting note: the Commission for Public Broadcasting backed the study, according to School Library Journal.)

I covered the intersection of video games and television with families for a few years, and I wound up somewhere in the middle. Video games and television are not necessarily bad, but require engaged parenting, like so many aspects of childrearing. I try to limit my kids’ TV time to two hours and sometimes three hours a week – our baby gets none – and I don’t think it’s making them stupid.

 Thanks to the National Institute for Early Education Research for finding this story.

A foundation of early learning work is that kids can fall behind early and a new study suggests an achievement gap between Hispanic and white students shows up by third grade, though the two groups learn at roughly the same pace after that grade.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to make the connection to early learning. If an achievement gap is evident that early it means getting Hispanic students into top-quality preschool and pre-k classrooms could help close that divide.

While the report out of Oregon indicates a gap exists, it also suggests it is somewhat stable. In third grade, there was a 24-percent math gap, with 60 percent of Hispanic students meeting or exceeding state standards and 84 percent of white students hitting those benchmarks, according to the report, “The Hispanic-White Achievement Gap in Oregon.” By 10th grade, the gap remained nearly the same, 28 percent, with 30 percent of white students at or above benchmarks, compared to 88 percent of white students.

“This means that Hispanic students start out behind, but learn at about the same pace as white students,” the report, funded by the Portland, Ore.-based Chalkboard Project, said.

Achievement gaps are some of the biggest challenges in education today, though there has been progress, such as the rise in preschool enrollment among Latino families in California. The report by Oregon-based EcoNorthwest offers factors behind the Hispanic divide.
“Although Hispanic students and black students each face unique challenges, findings show that both minority groups are more likely than white students to change schools and be taught by inexperienced teachers. These characteristics can be potential barriers to success for any student.”

The good news is that English as a second language programs, or ESL, help.

“On average, Hispanic students who remained in ESL between 3rd and 6th grades gained about three points in reading relative to non-ESL whites. However, these students still remain about 12 points behind non-ESL whites by the end of 6th grade.”

Further reading:

• Chalkboard Project press release
• Full study. “The Hispanic-White Achievement Gap in Oregon”
• Story in The Oregonian: “Close Oregon's achievement gap by starting early, study urges"

(Thanks to the National Institute for Early Education Research for highlighting this report.)

We are seeing another burst of evidence and arguments that early learning matters, with researchers backing up what is happening in Washington State by finding public-private partnerships, quality and curriculum help.

The Daily Progress in Virginia reports on a new study that says quality early learning leads to measurable achievement later in “Report Stresses Early Education for Area Children.

“Key study recommendations include:

It also highlights interesting findings about how pre-k can close achievement gaps.

“Data showed that of those kindergarten students with such program experience, 93 percent and 95 percent, respectively, achieved the required assessment benchmarks in the fall and the spring. Those who did not had 72 percent and 84 percent passing rates.

Economically disadvantaged students who had pre-kindergarten education also fared just as well, if not better, than non-disadvantaged students who did not partake in those programs.”

A couple of hours North, Montgomery County Public School received more kudos for its early learning success in a new book, “Leading for Equity.” ($26.95 at Amazon.com), according to The Early Ed Watch Blog.

What jumped out at me was mention of perhaps early learning’s hottest topic: math matters, even in preschool.

But (Montgomery County Public School Superintendent) Weast also recognized that to access those classes and perform well on those exams, students first needed strong reading and math skills - and the development of those crucial skills must begin not in high school, when it was often too late, but in early childhood. – Early Ed Watch, 8/6/09.

I may have saved the best for last because University of Chicago professor James Heckman eloquently explains why early learning is one of the best tools to fight poverty on NPR’s “Tell Me More.”

“And as a result of a series of studies over my whole lifetime, actually, I found that the effectiveness of early intervention is much, much higher than many of the interventions that American society has traditionally adopted to try to remediate, to patch up, to fix the problems that arise from disadvantaged environments.”

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“Because in the long run, when we really understand how to solve the problem of poverty, we're going to understand that disadvantage in the early years and disadvantage through childhood is increasingly playing a role in producing the two societies that America is becoming.” – “Tell Me More” 8/5/09.

(Thanks to Early Ed Watch for highlighting this interview.)

The early learning community spends a lot of time on quality in preschool and pre-kindergarten, but new research suggests cognitive gaps between poor and middle class children show up in the first year of life, and that income and a mother’s education are the two biggest factors.

By nine months of age kids from lower income families scored lower on cognitive tests and were less likely to be in excellent or very good health than kids above the threshold for working poverty – 200 percent of the federal poverty line. These disparities grew by the time children were two years old.

Meaningful differences are being detected as early as 9 and 24 months; this speaks to the need to intervene early in children’s lives to address the gaps in development. In particular, research suggests that interventions should be high-quality, comprehensive and continuous for children ages 0 to 3 as well as ages 3 to 5. – “Disparities in Early Learning and Development: Lessons from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study.”

The report offers plenty of recommendations, such as parent education, but with a few twists. For example, it suggests helping mom and dad finish high school or get a higher degree as part of an intervention.

Why? The report found income and a mother’s education are the biggest factors, trumping race and ethnicity. In fact, babies of mothers who didn’t hold a high school degree scored worse on a behavior index than those moms who finished college, the report, which was funded by the Council of Chief State School Officers, said.

Racial and ethnic gaps in school readiness and later achievement have been a focus for many researchers. However, an examination of the distribution of sociodemographic risk factors noted in this report indicate that low income and low maternal education are the more common risk factors for young children.

Since many lower-income parents rely on in-home care, researchers also recommend more efforts to improve curriculum and professional development in those settings.

There is a lot more work to do, the authors stressed, since there is little research about gaps occurring among infants. They also warned against drawing causal links between risk factors and outcomes.