A majority of 3 and 4 year olds in the United States now participate in non-parental early care and education, most of them in center-based programs. Yet to date there has been little guidance on how best to align the instructional experiences of young children as they move from preschool into early elementary school. This represents a missed opportunity to build on the benefits of attending high-quality early care and education programs and improving young children's outcomes overall.
A new Social Policy Report by Dr. Deborah Stipek and colleagues, published by the Society for Research in Child Development, draws upon research to help inform productive PK-3 instructional alignment, providing guidance to both policymakers and education leaders.
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Contact Hannah Klein at hklein@srcd.org to receive the full Social Policy Report, a two-page summary called the Social Policy Report Brief, or to set up an interview with the authors.
The authors are members of the Development and Research in Early Math Education (DREME) Network, a group of scholars dedicated to advancing the field of early mathematics research and improving early math education for all children. The DREME Network is funded by a generous grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation.
SRCD was established in 1933 by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. The Society's goals are to advance interdisciplinary research in child development and to encourage applications of research findings. Its membership of more than 5,700 scientists is representative of the various disciplines and professions that contribute to knowledge of child development. In addition to the peer reviewed publication SRCD Social Policy Report, SRCD publishes the research journals Child Development, Child Development Perspectives, and Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.