oa Voor- en vroegschoolse voorzieningen, effectief of niet? - De samenhang tussen deelname aan voor- en vroegschoolse voorzieningen en de taal- en rekenprestaties van leerlingen op de korte en langere termijn

Early childhood facilities: effective or ineffective?

Early childhood facilities refer to policies which were designed to improve the language and math performances of children between two and a half and five years old from low-socioeconomic background. This study investigated to what extent early childhood facilities are related to language and math performances in second grade and performance differences between second and fifth grade. We performed longitudinal multilevel analyses on data of the COOL^5-18 cohort study, measurement waves 2007/2008 and 2010/2011. Our findings, based on information of 3922 children, show that early childhood facilities are ineffective in creating short- and longer-term improvements in language and math performances. This study also indicates that children participating in center-based programs progress more in language between the second and fifth grade than children who participate in family-oriented programs.