The Impact Of Full-Day Kindergarten On Learning Outcomes And Self-Regulation Among Kindergarten Children At Risk For Placement In Special Education

Abstract

Two-year, play-based, full-day kindergarten (FDK) has been shown to have long-term academic and self-regulation benefits for young children.This article addresses the question of whether FDK has particular benefitsfor children who may be at risk for placement in special education.Participants included 592 kindergarten children in their second year ofkindergarten, with an average age of 5 years, 9 months. Parent reportsindicated that 56% of the children spoke a language other than English athome. The research design exploited a natural experiment that occurreddue to the phasing-in of FDK, creating two groups of children whoattended either FDK or half-day kindergarten (HDK). Kindergartenchildren’s outcomes in vocabulary, reading, writing, mathematics, andself-regulation were used to create two achievement groups based on datacut-points: below average and average to above average. Following aseries of binary logistic regression analyses, results showed that HDKchildren were significantly more likely than FDK children to be in thebelow average group in the areas of reading, vocabulary, and selfregulation.In fact, results for self-regulation showed that HDK childrenwere three times more likely to fall into the below average group. Theseresults are consistent with our larger study on the longitudinal impact ofFDK to Grade 3. The article discusses the importance of play-basedlearning in fostering self-regulation and providing opportunities for smallgrouplearning in the FDK program. For children who struggleacademically, full-day learning through play with the guidance of aneducator team may present additional benefits