Mobile messaging programs are a low-cost, scalable approach to building parents’ knowledge and capacity to support their children’s development. These programs directly deliver simple and straightforward information, tips, and activities that parents can incorporate into daily routines.
Elisa Garcia
SRI Author
Leveraging Flexible Teacher Certification Policies to Address the Bilingual Teacher Shortage
In this brief, the authors share strategies that state education agencies may use to provide more flexibility in teacher certification policies and thereby mitigate bilingual teacher shortages.
The Efficacy of Digital Media Resources in Improving Children’s Ability to Use Informational Text: An Evaluation of Molly of Denali from PBS KIDS
Informational text—oral or written text designed to inform—is essential to daily life and fundamental to literacy. Unfortunately, children typically have limited exposure to informational text. Two nine-week randomized controlled trials with a national sample of 263 first-graders examined whether free educational videos and digital games supported children’s ability to use informational text to answer real-world questions. Participants received data-enabled tablets and were randomly assigned to condition. Study 1 found significant positive intervention impacts on child outcomes; Study 2 replicated these findings. Combined analyses demonstrated primary impact on children’s ability to identify and use structural and graphical features of informational text. Results are discussed in the context of the scalability of educational media to support informational text learning.
A pre-print version of the manuscript submitted to the American Educational Research Journal is available on ResearchGate.
Early science and engineering: The impact of The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! on Learning
Over 450 children living in low-income households across the U.S. participated in this study, which explores whether providing families with access to PBS KIDS The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! ™ videos, digital games, and hands-on activities can help 4- and 5-year old children learn physical science and engineering concepts and practices.
Teachers’ perceptions of students’ executive functions: Disparities by gender, ethnicity, and ELL status
In this short-term longitudinal study, we assessed whether students’ gender, ethnicity, and English language learner (ELL) status predicted teachers’ reports of students’ EFs, beyond what would be expected based on direct assessment of EFs.
Peers matter: Links between classmates’ and individual students’ executive functions in elementary school
Students’ executive functions (EFs) are linked to school success. Although school-age children spend much of their time interacting with peers, few studies have explored how children’s classmates may promote EF development in elementary school. In this study, we test whether mean levels and variability in classmates’ EF skills are associated with growth in individual students’ accuracy and speed on EF tasks among third, fourth, and fifth graders (N = 806). We find that classmates’ speed, but not accuracy, on EF tasks is linked to significant improvements in individual students’ EFs over the school year. Classmates’ average EFs, as indexed by faster accurate responses on EF tasks, are associated with improvements in individual students’ speed on EF tasks. These results were robust to the inclusion of individual students’ general processing speed. In contrast, variability in classmates’ accuracy and speed on EF tasks was not associated with individual students’ EF growth. Our results highlight the role of peers and the school context for EF development in middle childhood.
Getting Ready to Learn: Creating Effective, Educational Children’s Media
Getting Ready to Learn describes how educational media have and are continuing to play a role in meeting the learning needs of children, parents, and teachers. Based on years of meaningful data from the CPB-PBS Ready To Learn Initiative, chapters explore how to develop engaging, playful, and developmentally appropriate content. From Emmy-Award-winning series to randomized controlled trials, this book covers the media production, scholarly research and technological advances surrounding some of the country’s most beloved programming.
Postsecondary Education-Focused Transition Planning Experiences of English Learners With Disabilities
Transition planning is particularly important for dually identified English learners with disabilities, who frequently face additional challenges to postsecondary education success. This study examined postschool expectations, transition planning experiences, and supports of a nationally representative sample of English learners with disabilities, based on secondary analysis of the National Longitudinal Transition Study (NLTS) 2012.
What parents talk about when they talk about learning: A national survey about young children and science
This study used a nationally representative parent survey, combined with in-depth interviews and home visits with a smaller sample of families, to learn how parents of young children, particularly low-income parents, encourage and take part in their children’s learning, especially their science learning. This study also investigated parent perceptions and reported use of science-related educational media, such as television shows, videos, online games, and mobile apps.
