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Preschool programs improve academic performance among low-income Latino children
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Public school prekindergarten programs enhanced the academic performance, social skills and English-language proficiency of low-income Latino children compared with center-based care, per a study published in Child Development.
“Despite the wealth of research on children’s early school experiences, the few existing long-term evaluations of model programs have not included Latino children,” Arya Ansari, PhD, a postdoctoral associate at the University of Virginia, and colleagues wrote. “Just as importantly, much of what is known about the Latino population is limited to Mexican-American children and families and does not generalize to the Latino population in the U.S. more broadly.
Arya Ansari
“This lack of knowledge is concerning when one considers that early education programs are often the first time Latino children are immersed in U.S. culture and the English language.”
The researchers culled data from the 2008 Miami School Readiness Project to report the associations between low-income Latino children’s participation in large-scale, public preschool programs and their third grade performance outcomes to describe these knowledge gaps. The previous study — a longitudinal, cohort-sequential, university-community collaborative, school-readiness project — included 11,902 children observed during a 4-year period; 75% of children were eligible for free or reduced-price lunches and 80% were in the process of learning English. The researchers studied children’s academic performances at baseline and end of each year, standardized test scores in math and reading in the third grade and grade point average at the end of third grade.
Further, the researchers assessed whether children who were among English-proficient and English-language learners benefited in social-behavioral skills and academic performance.
Analysis showed that Latino children who attended public school prekindergarten programs prior to kindergarten scored higher on the standardized reading (beta = 0.12; P < .001) and math (beta = 0.11; P < .001) segments of standardized tests than Latino children in center-based care programs. Moreover, preliminary analyses indicated that Latino children in public programs achieved greater pre-academic (beta = 0.43; P < .001) and social-behavioral skills (beta = 0.25; P < .001) at the end of the preschool year compared with Latino children in center care.
Additionally, the researchers found that children in public programs learning English (n = 9,695) entered school with a stronger proficiency in the language (beta = 0.16, P < .01) and were more likely to perform better overall in third grade compared with their center-care based attending peers (n = 2,207; beta indirect = 0.02-0.03; zs = 3.82-3.91; ps < .01).
“Although all Latino children in our sample performed reasonably well through the end of third grade as compared to other public school children in the region, those who attended public school prekindergarten at age 4 outperformed their classmates previously in center-based care on math and reading, and they had higher GPAs in third grade,” Ansari said in a press release.
“While our study results are not causal, they provide much-needed insight into the experience of Latino children in publicly funded early care and education programs in Miami,” added Adam Winsler, PhD, professor of psychology at George Mason University and principal investigator for the original Miami School Readiness Project. “Our work reveals that policymakers should consider that such programs can help put Latino children on a path toward more positive school achievement.” – by Kate Sherrer
Disclosure: This study was funded by the Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe, the Children’s Trust, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Research Center on Hispanic Children and Families, which is funded by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation within the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. department of health and human services. The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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