Boosting school readiness: Should preschool teachers target skills or the whole child?

• Published in: Economics of education review 2018-08, Vol.65, p.107-125
• Main Authors: Jenkins, Jade M., Duncan, Greg J., Auger, Anamarie, Bitler, Marianne, Domina, Thurston, Burchinal, Margaret
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0272-7757; 1873-7382
• DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2018.05.001

•We aggregate data from a multi-site experimental study of preschool curricula.•We compare mandated “whole-child” curricula with academic-skill curricula in boosting skills.•Academic-skill curricula boost literacy/math skills; widely used whole-child curricula do not.•Findings show little correspondence between measures of classroom quality and children's skills. We use experimental data to estimate impacts on school readiness of different kinds of preschool curricula – a largely neglected preschool input and measure of preschool quality. We find that the widely-used “whole-child” curricula found in most Head Start and pre-K classrooms produced higher classroom process quality than did locally-developed curricula, but failed to improve children's school readiness. A curriculum focused on building mathematics skills increased both classroom math activities and children's math achievement relative to the whole-child curricula. Similarly, curricula focused on literacy skills increased literacy achievement relative to whole-child curricula, despite failing to boost measured classroom process quality.