July 2025
LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR
Dear Friends of the ECEI,
At the Early Childhood Education Institute (ECEI), our goal is simple: use research to help improve the lives of young children and families, especially those facing the greatest challenges.
This mission also aligns with the University of Oklahoma’s updated plan to create positive change in people’s lives. We’re honored that our work was recently featured in the Spring issue of Sooner Magazine as an example of how research at OU is helping to create a better future for Oklahomans.
One big way we work toward this goal is through partnerships—with state and local communities, with early childhood programs, and with other organizations across the state and country.
New Project: Understanding Families’ Access to Child Care
We’re excited to engage in a new project with the Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness (OPSR). Supporting Families’ Access to Quality Care for Infants and Toddlers: A Systems Approach is a project of Oklahoma’s Preschool Development Grant and will explore how families find and choose early childhood care. We’ll talk with families and leaders in the field to better understand their journeys, barriers, and experiences with accessing quality care. This project will advance state efforts to ensure that systems are designed to meet the real needs of our youngest learners and their caregivers.
Our Partnership with Tulsa Educare
Our long-term research-practice partnership (RPP) with Tulsa Educare helps us study how high-quality early childhood programs support young children’s development, strengthen families, and support the teachers who do this essential work.
An early partner in the Educare National Network, Tulsa Educare leverages values of learning, relationships, commitment, and data to transform children’s lives. We are deeply grateful to Tulsa Educare and other early childhood providers for their ongoing dedication to Oklahoma’s youngest learners.
National Spotlight on Tulsa
This spring, we welcomed VOX Media producer Coleman Lowndes to Tulsa as part of his project about what makes early childhood programs in Oklahoma so special. His short documentary features local classrooms, educators, and leaders—and you can now watch it on YouTube through VOX.
As we look back at a successful year of research and collaboration, and prepare for another year of learning, we reflect with gratitude and look ahead with purpose. Summer invites us to slow down, reconnect, and reset—and I hope you’ll find time to do just that.
Together, we are building a brighter future for children, families, and communities. Let’s keep going—let’s keep changing lives.
Warmly,
Kate Gallagher
RESEARCH-PRACTICE PARTNERSHIP
Tulsa Educare
Since 2006, the ECEI has partnered with Tulsa Educare as their Local Evaluation Partner (LEP) to provide continuous evaluation of children’s development, classroom practice, and workforce development. We value this partnership which helps Tulsa families and children receive high-quality care and programming, preparing them for success in school and life.
Educare National Network
Tulsa Educare belongs to a national network of 25 schools in 15 states, including urban, rural, suburban, and tribal communities. This network, founded in 2000, builds public-private partnerships in each Educare community to elevate the quality of early childhood education. The Educare model has four core features: data utilization, embedded professional development, high-quality teaching practices, and intensive family engagement. In addition to the LEPs partnered with each Educare site, there is a national evaluator, the Frank Porter Graham Center at the University of North Carolina, which leads the national evaluation and aggregates data from all 25 programs.
Oklahoma has more Educare sites than any other state, with four in Tulsa and one in Oklahoma City. The first Tulsa Educare site opened in 2006, adjacent to Kendall-Whittier Elementary School, with the second location at Hawthorne opening in 2010 followed by MacArthur in 2012. The fourth Educare site, located adjacent to Celia Clinton Elementary, opened in 2020. All four Tulsa Educare sites provide full-day, year-round early childhood education and family support services.
ECEI's Role
The purpose of our RPP with Tulsa Educare is to document the features of Educare and how implementation of the model contributes to program quality. ECEI research associates work side-by-side with the staff at each site. They administer assessments for children’s learning and development, observe in classrooms, and learn about children’s families and home environments through interviews, parent surveys, teacher surveys, and child ratings. ECEI project directors and researchers work closely with the staff and leadership to analyze data and disseminate learning. The National Network’s researchers use a longitudinal repeated measures design to understand benefits of the Educare model for children, families, and the early childhood workforce.
Brittany Swain is a former ECEI research associate and project director who now serves as a school director at Tulsa Educare – Hawthorne. Brittany reflected on the RPP process, citing its benefits: "Having worked at both ECEI and now at Tulsa Educare, I've had the unique opportunity to see both sides of the RPP. This collaboration allows us to dive deeper into the data and use it in real time to inform decisions that directly impact children, families, and classrooms. It's a partnership rooted in learning and continuous improvement, and it helps ensure that the work we do every day is grounded in both evidence and the lived experiences of our school community."
Our RPP with Educare paved the way for the Educare Randomized Control Trial in 2011. This collaborative study evaluated the effectiveness of the Educare program by examining children’s cognitive, language, social-emotional, and executive functioning. Collaborating with five other Educare sites, we followed children from the age of 18 months to 3rd grade, finding that children enrolled in Educare experienced significant long-term academic benefits into elementary school.
Educare Network Meeting in Tulsa in 2026
We’re also excited that Tulsa will host the Educare National Network Meeting in 2026—bringing early childhood program leadership and researchers from across the country to our community. This is an annual opportunity for partners from all sites to share, problem solve and participate in professional learning regarding issues of program and policy development, implementation, and continuous improvement of the Educare model. Hosting the meeting here in Tulsa will provide a great opportunity to showcase Tulsa Educare’s innovative work and what we are learning with our RPP.
Read more about our Tulsa Educare research:
- Kwon, K.A., Jang, W., Ford, T., Horm, D., Yazejian, N., & Bryant , D. (2025). A longitudinal study of Head Start teacher turnover trends and factors. Teaching and Teacher Education, 156, 104916. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2024.104916
- Horm, D. (2024) High-quality early childhood education is worth the investment. Oklahoma Education Journal, 2(3), 13–20. OEJ article.
- Frechette, L., Castle, S., Jeon, S., Horm, D., Martinez, I., Vega Ruvalcaba, D., & Schaefer, S. (2023). Effects of family and neighborhood vulnerability on dual language learner and monolingual children’s preschool outcomes. Frontiers in Education. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.955967
- Horm, D. M., Jeon, S., Clavijo, M. V., & Acton M. (2022) Kindergarten through Grade 3 outcomes associated with participation in high-quality early care and education: A RCT Follow-Up Study. Education Sciences, 12(12), 908-930. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12120908
- Laurin, D. E., Guss, S. S., & Horm, D. (2021). Caregiver-infant and toddler interactions during diapering: Caregiver responsiveness and child well-being and involvement. Infant Mental Health Journal. http://doi:10.1002/imhj.21933
- Yazejian, N., Bryant, D., Kuhn, L., Burchinal, M., Horm, D., Hans, S., File, N., Jackson, B. (2020). The Educare Intervention: Outcomes at Age 3. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 53, 425-440. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2020.05.008
- Raikes, H. H., White, L., Green, S., Burchinal, M., Kainz, K., Horm, D., Bingham, G., St. Clair, L., Greenfield, D., & Esteraich, J. (2019). Use of the home language in preschool classrooms and first- and second-language development among dual-language learners. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 47, 145-158. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.06.012
- Guss, S.S., Morris, A.S., Bosler, C., Castle, S.L., Hays-Grudo, J., Horm, D.M., & Treat, A. (2018). Parents’ adverse childhood experiences and current relationships with their young children: The role of executive function. Early Child Development and Care. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2018.1513921
- Horm, D., File, N., Bryant, D., Burchinal, M., Raikes, H., Forestieri, N., Encinger, A., & Cobo-Lewis, A. (2018). Associations between continuity of care in infant-toddler classrooms and child outcomes. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 42, 105-118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2017.08.002
- Yazejian, N., Bryant, D., Hans, S., Horm, D., St. Clair, L., File, N., & Burchinal, M. (2017). Child and parenting outcomes after one year of Educare. Child Development, 88(5), 1671-1688. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12688
- Yazejian, N., Bryant, D., Horm, D., Hans, S., St Clair, L., & File, N. (2017). The Educare randomized controlled trial: Language and social-emotional development and parent-child interactions through age 2. Child Development, 88(5), 1671-1688. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12688
This is just a sample of some of the great data that has come out of our RPP. To see all of our publications based on our Educare research, click here.
RESEARCH STAFF SPOTLIGHT
Hanna Lee, Project Director
Tell us about how you got to the ECEI (when and how you decided to go into education, where you went to school, etc.).
When I graduated high school and started at the University of Kansas, my mother’s one request was that I, please, not go into education. As a teacher in Oklahoma, she understood the challenges facing her profession, but even though I studied East Asian languages and literatures and economics, I always found myself teaching. I taught English to international students at KU and young children in China, organized an early learning group in my home, and finally found myself administering Cambridge English grade school exams in Peru.
Tell us about your recent work within the ECEI:
When I finally returned to the States, I was fortunate to join the ECEI in the School Experiences and Early Development (SEED) Study, which followed over 1,300 children from age 3 through third grade. This large, longitudinal study gave me a breadth of experience with early childhood assessments, classroom observations, and data collection and cleaning. It matched my analytical mind with my love for learning.
Once the SEED Study was complete, I received the opportunity to integrate another area of education that is very important to me: teacher wellbeing. Raised by a career teacher myself, I was so excited to join a project whose mission was to implement and evaluate ways to support and improve early childhood teachers’ holistic wellbeing. As the Happy Teacher Project Director over the last three years, I was inspired by the dedication and passion I found at so many early childhood centers across our state. I truly hope the work from that study leads to overall improved wellbeing for our teachers.
What is your favorite part of your job?
I have really enjoyed meeting and working with our partners through the Happy Teacher Project and now the Advancing Indoor Environment Research for Children in Oklahoma (OK-AIR) Study. We have partnered with various agencies and Head Start centers across the state to support them in their mission of serving families and children, including UCAP, Delta Head Start, NEOCAA, Sunbeam, and Cherokee Nation. The work they do is of immeasurable importance and to play a role in supporting their work is truly an honor.
Sooner Magazine Feature
ECEI Director Kate Gallagher was featured in the Sooner Magazine Spring 2025 edition. Kate discusses how the ECEI aligns with the recently updated strategic plan "Lead On, University: The Next Phase". Read the full article here.
Photo by Jacobi Campbell
RESEARCH BRIEFS
OK-AIR: 2x2 Randomized Trial to Improve Indoor Air Quality and Reduce Absences in Head Start
Diane Horm, Changjie Cai, Craig Van Pay, Elnaz Ghorbani, Stephanie Farris, Mingze Zhu, Kristen Shelton, Jason Vogel, Bukunmi Akanji, and the OK-AIR Research Team
Click here to read this OK-AIR brief and to see more of ECEI's research briefs.
RECENT EVENTS
Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)
Minneapolis, MN May 1-3
Happy Teacher Presentation
The Happy Teacher Project team - Dr. Kyong-Ah Kwon, Dr. Timothy Ford (not pictured), and Hanna Lee - presented key findings from the Happy Teacher Wellness Intervention to our partners at the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah in June. Principal Investigator Dr. Kwon shared this information - "Dr. Gallagher, Dr. Sun Geun Kim, and Jenny Min also joined the meeting and introduced themselves to the leadership team. We shared data on the current working conditions and well-being of their teachers and leaders, as well as promising results showing the intervention’s positive impact on teachers, leaders, and children. Together, we explored ways to strengthen collaboration and further support the early childhood workforce. Our partners expressed enthusiasm about the findings and shared exciting news about upcoming expansions to their facilities and programs for children and families in the Cherokee Nation. We are deeply grateful for the strong partnership we have built and for their continued support of Head Start educators, children, and families. We look forward to future opportunities to collaborate!"
PUBLICATIONS
Leveraging Natural Language Processing to Deepen Understanding of Parent-Child Interaction Processes and Language Development
Wonkyung Jang, Diane Horm, Kyong-Ah Kwon, Kun Lu, Ryan Kasak, Ji Hwan Park
https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.13198
The current study aimed to analyze the fine-grained processes of parent–child interactions using modern machine learning and natural language processing algorithms. This study examined whether children exhibit greater syntactic development when parents engage in semantically relevant conversations during mealtime and toy play, using semantic network algorithms. Additionally, it investigated gender differences in conversational topics during toy play using topic modeling and word embedding algorithms. Data from the Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development Corpus, focusing on a subset of 62 children, were analyzed.
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