You Choose: Which 2 Studies from SRCD Do You Want to Learn More About?

[Voting concluded at 9 a.m. on April 9. Thanks for your input. Based on your votes, I’ll be working on #9, #4 and #1. (See my note in the comment field for the full tally.) Stay tuned! -LG]

By the time the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development concluded in Denver on Saturday, thousands of research projects had been presented and discussed, critiqued and disputed. Even the most conscientious attendee at the conference could not have learned about even a fraction of them.

Thank goodness, then, for the 464-page conference program and its online searchable database. Anyone who is motivated to dig in further can search by topic or author to see what was missed. You could even contact the researchers for more information, if you’re so inclined.

At Early Ed Watch, we are, indeed, so inclined. But even when we narrow our search to include only those papers with direct bearing on early childhood policy, the possibilities are overwhelming. That is why, dear Early Ed Watch reader, we are asking for your help.

Here are 10 research studies — out of hundreds — that caught our eye. Vote for your top two choices in our blog’s comment section. Based on your answers, we’ll explore them in later blog posts after doing interviews with the researchers and contacting other social scientists who can help to put their work in context.

By the way, the studies listed below are from “poster sessions,” meaning that they are first drafts and mere slices of what the researchers hope will eventually turn into more comprehensive published papers. But they often offer hints of some of the larger trends in published research that will be coming down the pike in the next few years. We’ve listed them here in the order in which they appeared at SRCD.

Pick two and paste them in the comment section to signal which studies you want us to write about. Ready? Vote!

1. “Social Behavior in Preschool: Does it Predict Academic Outcomes in Preschool and Kindergarten?” by Laura K. Clary, Laura D. Hanish, Carol Lynn Martin and Richard A. Fabes.
2. “The Impact of Family Poverty and Early Care Experiences on Pretend Play,” by Megan Elizabeth Siebert and Stephanie M. Jones
3. “Child Talk and Engagement in Prekindergarten Classrooms Predict Gains,” by Tracy Cummings, Kerry Guess Hofer, Dale C. Farran, Mark Lipsey and Carol Bilbrey
4. “Early Academic Outcomes for Children in Family Day Care, Center-Based Care and Public Pre-K Programs,” by Jessica J. De Feyter, Henry Tran, Adam Winsler, Louis Manfra, Laura Bolzani Dinehart, Charles Bleiker, and Sabrina Sembiante
5. “A New Universal Prekindergarten Program in Childcare Centers: Predicting Child Language and Early Literacy Outcomes,” by Rebecca A. Marcon, Phyllis K. Kalifeh, Beverly G. Esposito and Saralyn Grass
6. “Do More Years of Curriculum Implementation Make a Difference: Findings from the Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research,” by Ina F. Wallace, Melissa Raspa, Randall H. Bender, Renate M. Houts, Jeniffer Iriondo-Perez
7. “Retention in Kindergarten: Predictors at the Program, Classroom and Teachers Levels,” by Amy B. Schultin and Walter S. Gilliam
8. “Kindergarten Entry Age and Student Achievement in Literacy: Findings from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study,” by Tina M. Durand
9. “Do Elementary School Characteristics Influence the ‘Fade Out’ of Preschool Cognitive Gains?” by Aleksandra Holod and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
10. “The Effectiveness of Early Reading First Preschool Enrichment: Results from Year 2 Project Implementation,” by Jorge E. Gonzalez, Robert J. Hall, Ernie Goetz and Tara Payne