Developmental Science

This week, the National Journal’s expert blog asked writers to respond to a series of questions about assessment. I zoomed in on several lessons from early childhood assessments, PreK-3rd grade, that educators can and should integrate into 3rd – 12th grade standardized assessment practices.

The National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) has released new policy proposals to better recruit, prepare and build the capacity of effective principals. One of these new proposals is to strengthen elementary principals’ knowledge about early childhood development, which is an important step in helping principals know what to expect when they walk into kindergarten through third grade classrooms.

One of the least-discussed federal special education programs is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part C grants for infants and toddlers. IDEA Part C is a $443 million program housed in the Department of Education. It currently offers early intervention (EI) services to 350,000 infants and children between birth and age 2.

We’ve written before about kindergartners’ widely divergent school experiences, with some attending full-day kindergarten and ot

As children pine for toys they see in store circulars and on TV, parents want to please. But they also wonder: will this toy keep my child occupied or get tossed in the back of the closet after 10 minutes? One piece of information that might help has less to do with the toy itself and more to do with what’s happening around it.

This fall, the Harvard Graduate School of Education is publishing a series of one-page memos for policymakers and early learning leaders on how to improve young children’s literacy. Using evidence from research on reading and its precursors, these Lead for Literacy one-pagers are designed to help leaders avoid common mistakes in their early education programs. Nonie Lesaux, a Harvard education professor and reading expert, leads the research group behind the project.

This week on Slate, I wrote about a new twist to an experiment many Early Ed Watch readers are likely familiar with: the Stanford Marshmallow experiment, a classic measure of childhood willpower in which kids who managed to sit at a table with a marshmallow in front of them and not eat it for 15 minutes were rewarded with a second marshmallow.

Last week the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) released its 2013 guide to preschool and K-5 social and emotional learning programs. The guide is an update of the group’s 2003 report, Safe and Sound: An Education Leader’s Guide to Evidence-Based Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Programs.