New NWEA research provides further evidence of the challenges that young learners are currently facing from the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study used longitudinal data from a sample of 467 preschoolers to examine (1) if children’s executive function (EF) skills at the beginning of pre-K predict growth in their mathematics achievement across the pre-K year, (2) whether growth in learning behaviors, specifically task orientation, mediate the associations between EF and mathematics achievement, and (3) if there are sex differences in these associations.

Using data from the Applied Problems subtest of the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement administered to 1,364 children from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Childcare and Youth Development (SECCYD), this study measures children’s mastery of three numeric competencies (counting, concrete representational arithmetic and abstract arithmetic operations) at 54 months of age.

This study examined the stability of social-emotional learning (SEL) skills and the extent to which students’ initial level in SEL skills in 6th grade and growth in SEL skills from 6th to 8th grade are related to students’ successful transition to secondary school. Findings suggest that understanding how a student develops social-emotionally can improve identification of students not on track to succeed in high school.

Researchers interviewed parents whose children participated in a three-week structured kindergarten transition program designed to promote parental involvement in school, reduce students’ chronic absenteeism, and increase children’s readiness for kindergarten. Interviewees expressed that participating in the program yielded benefits for themselves and their children, and proposed various ways that adjusting the program could better meet the needs of all stakeholders. Parent suggestions were synthesized into multiple implications for practice and substantiated by current relevant literature.

This study identifies students’ academic trajectories in the middle grades relative to a set of college readiness benchmarks. We apply math and reading college readiness benchmarks to rich longitudinal data for more than 360,000 students across the nation. Student-level and school-level demographic characteristics significantly predict academic trajectories.