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The National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education awarded six grants totaling slightly over $1 million. Recipients included institutions of higher education and a media entity. The topics to be studied are: promoting children's language development in Head Start classrooms; using children's play as a tool for helping children with disabilities; assessing low-income children's changing environments and its effects on school readiness; the effects of discrepancies in the expectation about school readiness and children living in poverty; improving the parenting skills of low-income families; and the quality of child care programs.
The Effects of Discrepancies in School Readiness Expectations on Young Children Living in Poverty
This study will examine the impact of discrepancies in parents’, preschool teachers’, and kindergarten teachers’ school readiness expectations on the transition to kindergarten of preschool children living in poverty and on ratings of their school readiness.
Contact: Dr. Chaya Piotrkowski
Graduate School of Social Service
Fordham University
113 West 60th Street
New York, NY 10023
(212) 636-6652
Project Period: 2 years
Year 1 funding: $145,920
Assessing Low-income Children's Changing Environments and Effects on School Readiness
This study will track at least 250 female welfare recipients with preschool-age children in Tampa, Florida to assess changes in developmentally relevant facets of the home environment and in non-parental child care and preschool settings during welfare reform implementation.
Contact: Bruce Fuller
PACE, School of Education
University of California
3653 Tolman Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-1670
(510) 642-7223
Project Period: 3 years
Year 1 funding: $164,682
Home Activity and Play Intervention
This project will develop, implement and evaluate an early intervention service that: facilitates young children's developmental progress and intellectual growth through play and family routines, and increases parental involvement in their children's learning.
Contact: Cordelia Robinson
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center
4200 E. 9th Avenue
Denver, CO 80262-0234
(303) 315-5209
Project Period: 3 years
Year 1 funding: $224,160
Parenting Through Play for School Readiness
This project will develop, test, refine and nationally disseminate a training video and a printed manual based on curricula developed by the co-applicants. The video-based program would be used to train parents and other caregivers to engage 3-5 year-olds from low-income families in highly motivating play techniques, which research has shown to enhance children's school readiness skills.
Contact: Harvey Bellin
The Media Group of Connecticut, Inc.
70 Birch Hill Road
Weston, CT 06883-1712
(203) 277-7555
Project Period: 2 years
Year 1 funding: $99,038
Promoting Children's Language Development in Head Start Classrooms: Explorations with Collaborative Research Teams
This project will develop and evaluate a model that will: a) promote Head Start children's language development, with an emphasis on beginning school with essential language-based learning strategies; b) link Head Start classroom practices with the children's homes; and c) investigate the effectiveness of collaborative research teams comprised of teachers, parents, aides, and researchers.
Contact: Jeanne Wilcox, Ph.D.
Infant-Child Communication Research Programs
Arizona State University
P.O. Box 871908
Tempe, AZ 85287-1908
(602) 965-9397
Project Period: 3 years
Year 1 Funding: $199,720
Engagement as an Outcome of Program Quality
This project will study 68 infants and toddlers and 68 preschoolers who attend child care centers in central North Carolina for an average of at least six hours a day. It will measure relationships among child age, temperament, global child engagement, home environment, socioeconomic status, child care center classroom quality, and children’s developmental outcomes.
Contact: R.A. McWilliam
Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center
University of North Carolina
CB# 8180
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-8180
(919) 966-7485
Project Period: 3 years
Year 1 Funding: $225,000
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