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Early learning and school readiness: Can early intervention make a difference?

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There is little controversy about the conclusion that children from very low-resource families are at great risk for poor academic progress; in contrast, there still are vigorous debates within the political and scientific arenas concerning whether or not investment in early educational interventions produces major benefits (e.g., Bruer, 1999; Herrnstein & Murray, 1994). By posing extreme questions such as "Are the first three years the only years that matter?" "Are we forcing children to learn too early?" "Will academically stimulating preschool programs prevent children from playing and learning social skills?" critics create an aura of uncertainty that the life course of at-risk children can be altered. In this chapter, we begin by sharing our insights into why the scientific evidence continues to be debated, ignored, or distorted. Second, we provide an up-to-date summary of key scientific findings from our own experimental studies, here and abroad, regarding educational interventions to promote positive health and education outcomes in vulnerable young children. We emphasize the consistency of findings and the pattern of benefits to children over their life course. Further, we note that some children benefit more than others do and suggest mechanisms that account for these differential benefits. Third, we identify those program features we judge to be essential to produce measurable benefits in children's academic and school performance and note that our research also supports the idea of spillover effects--that is, unintended benefits that improve parent and family well-being. Fourth, we report, with sadness and our own sense of moral obligation, from firsthand observations that there currently is widespread neglect as well as poor-quality instruction in many preschool, child care, and Head Start programs. These include programs designed to implement evidence-based practices but that fail to understand adequately what young children need to promote language, early literacy and math skills, and good social-negotiation and problem-solving skills. We conclude by identifying strategies we think are promising to produce effective and timely correction of a nationally unacceptable situation in which many children are in harm's way. (author abstract)
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