Dear Colleagues,

Greetings from Tulsa, Oklahoma! I am thrilled to have joined the team at the Early Childhood Education Institute as the Director and GKFF Endowed Chair of Early Childhood Education. Since starting August 1, I have engaged in an expertly curated onboarding process meant to bring me up to speed on all things ECEI, the University of Oklahoma, Tulsa sites and restaurants, and of course, SEC football.

You may have learned about my background and experiences in the July newsletter; however, in case you missed it while vacationing (and I hope you were!), I’ll share a bit about myself. Before coming to Tulsa, I lived in Omaha, where I worked as the Director of Research and Evaluation with the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska. Previously, I researched and taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute and completed my doctoral studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

My childhood was split between urban Chicago and rural Pennsylvania, so I learned to love walking communities and mountain hikes. I studied theater in college until being inspired to teach, and received a degree in education with licensure in early childhood and special education. In my hard-working practice years, I taught toddlers in early intervention and kindergarten, directed a preschool childcare program and later an inclusive birth – 5-year program partnered with Early Head Start, and a public-school program for preschoolers with disabilities. My experiences working directly with children, families, and ECE professionals has always informed my research and evaluation and teaching. And there is nothing I would rather be doing than this work.

The team at ECEI has been welcoming beyond imagination! I arrived in August to a decorated office, lots of OU and ECEI swag, and visits from smiling scholars and staff. Much of my time has been spent meeting people at OU, our partner sites, and in the community.

I am also getting to know our team members at ECEI and learn about our work and partnerships. Staff are hard at work with evaluation assessments underway at Tulsa Educare and CAP Tulsa sites. The ECEI team welcomed Dr. Cara Kelly, a postdoctoral researcher from the University of Delaware. In late September, I and many of our team attended the Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness Research Symposium where ECEI work was well-represented in presentations and posters by OU and ECEI faculty, researchers, staff, and graduate students.

Recently, Diane Horm presented an engaging “History of the ECEI” for our team. As you may know, Diane is a great storyteller. It was a delightful experience learning about the creation of this Institute, the challenges and achievements, and especially about the many people (some here for many years!) who helped to build our work and impact. In the next months, we will have the opportunity to celebrate Diane’s contributions and achievements before her retirement at the end of the year. She will remain with the ECEI part time for the next year to lead the cutting-edge OK-AIR project to its next steps. More on that next time…

After two months, I am still learning the role and expect that to be my story for a while. I am grateful to work directly with Diane for my first semester and for the ECEI staff, OU faculty, and community partners who are helping me learn.

You will learn more about the projects and activities at ECEI in this newsletter. I welcome your comments and suggestions. Please call (918-660-3985) or email (kgallagher@ou.edu) with any feedback you may have.

Best Wishes,

ECEI Director Kate Gallagher

RECENT STAFF CHANGES

RECENT CONFERENCES

OPSR Research Symposium

The ECEI was well-represented at the Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness (OPSR) 2024 Oklahoma Early Childhood Research Symposium Sept. 23-24 in Oklahoma City with one presentation and six posters. Wonkyung Jang's poster "Exploring the Relationship Between Working Conditions and Teacher Well-Being: A Latent Profile Analysis" won first place overall and Cara Kelly's poster "Head Start Teachers' Perceptions of Quality: Promoting High-Quality Environments", placed third!

OKACAA Annual Conference

OECP Summit

UPDATES FROM THE FIELD

Our ECEI Research Associates spend a significant amount of time observing and playing games with the young children who take part in our various research studies. Here are a few of our favorite interactions:

The Role of Language and Literacy Skills in Science Learning from Kindergarten to 5th Grade: Mitigating Gender, Racial/Ethnic, and Socio-Economic Disparities

Wonkyung Jang, Kyong-Ah Kwon, and Diane Horm

https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090994

Despite the acknowledged impact of early science achievement on future success, there is a noticeable gap in research focused on understanding the dynamic longitudinal patterns of children attaining science learning milestones in their early years, as well as few investigations of potential factors that may mitigate gender, racial/ethnic, and socio-economic disparities. This study analyzed nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of Kindergarten Cohort 2011 (ECLS-K: 2011), involving 18,174 children from 1328 schools across the United States, selected through a multistage probability sampling process and spanning kindergarten through 5th grade. Using survival analysis with the dependent variable as the time required to attain a specific milestone, the study revealed that boys, non-Black, non-Hispanic, and high-income children reached the science learning threshold earlier than their counterparts—girls, Black, Hispanic, and low-income children. Furthermore, the study underscored the crucial role of language and literacy skills in mitigating these disparities. The study’s implications stress the importance of targeted interventions to address early science education disparities, emphasizing professional development and integrating language and literacy with science learning. The research also enriches the global discourse on educational standards by introducing innovative methodologies to assess both the frequency and duration of science learning milestones.

High-Quality Early Care and Education for Low-Income Families: Toddlers’ Cognitive and Emotional Functioning During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Lukas D. Lopez, Anabel Castillo, Elizabeth Frechette, Shinyoung Jeon, Sherri Castle, Diane Horm, Kyong-Ah Kwon

https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12619

High-quality early care and education (ECE) programs are associated with positive outcomes, especially for children from low-income families. During the initial COVID-19 pandemic lockdown many of these families faced an abrupt halt to ECE. Here, we examined how toddlers from economically disadvantaged backgrounds enrolled in high-quality ECE programs in the United States during the 2020 pandemic (n = 48) fared on cognitive and socioemotional outcomes compared to a 2019 pre-pandemic cohort (n = 94) and a pandemic 2021 cohort (n = 132). Toddlers in the 2020 cohort scored significantly lower on executive function compared to toddlers in 2019 and 2021 cohorts. Toddlers in the 2020 cohort had higher ratings self-regulation compared to the pre-pandemic cohort, but not 2021 cohort. There were no differences on attachment ratings between cohorts. Findings suggest that the abrupt halt to ECE programs due to the COVID-19 pandemic impacted US toddlers’ cognitive and socioemotional abilities. This underscores the importance of continued high-quality ECE for infants and toddlers from low-income families during disruptive times. Further work is needed to investigate the long-term impacts of experiencing an abrupt halt to ECE due to COVID-19.

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