The federal Institute for Education Sciences has awarded a large-scale grant for determining the effects of the Early Learning Matters (ELM) Curriculum on a range of children’s school readiness skills. The five-year study is the first to look at the outcomes of ELM, including cost effectiveness. It holds strong promise of making a major contribution to the growing research literature on early childhood programs.
The study will occur in rural and urban early childhood centers, including the federal Head Start program, in Oregon, Georgia, and Texas. A total of 660 children between 3-5 years of age, their families, and teachers from 132 preschool classrooms will participate. The ELM Curriculum will be assessed with evidence-based measures of children’s language, literacy, writing, math, self-regulation, social-emotional competence, and science.
Sara Schmitt of the University of Oregon is the study’s principal investigator. She is the ELM Curriculum’s expert for self-regulation and social-development content, and leads the ELM training and implementation group. Her study collaborators include nationally prominent researchers at Purdue (David Purpura, Robert Duncan), Georgia State (Gary Bingham), Texas A&M (Hope Gerde), and Michigan State (Courtenay Barrett) universities. The ELM Academy at Purdue will provide curriculum training and implementation support. Purdue also is providing in-kind contribution toward ELM classroom and family materials.
The investigation employs a scientifically rigorous design that includes random assignment of programs to offer the ELM Curriculum, and systematic collection of information on the quality of ELM Curriculum implementation in study classrooms.
ELM Curriculum leaders are exploring funding possibilities for a separate study of ELM’s comprehensive infant-toddler component.
The North Carolina Child Care Commission has approved the use of the ELM Curriculum and Virtual Laboratory School resources. ELM is now included on the approved curricula list for the North Carolina Pre-Kindergarten Program’s four-year-old classrooms in four- and five-star child care programs. The list is recommended by the Commission for use with all early care and learning programs choosing a curriculum for birth to five-year-old children. The Commission is part of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) has added the ELM Curriculum to its list of recommended high-quality curricular materials. The selection is the result of a three-part IDOE evaluation process that includes (1) independent review by a credible third-party research entity, (2) independent review by state educator reviewers, and (3) consensus by IDOE’s hosted review committee. Materials for the two age groups supported by the ELM Curriculum – infant-toddler and preschool – were approved for inclusion in the list. IDOE seeks to inform curriculum adoption, instructional practices, and professional development by publishing a list of recommended high-quality curricula.
Presentations on strategies for effectively adopting a new early childhood curriculum were offered by Elizabeth Schlesinger-Devlin at the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s Learning Institute in June 2023 and the National Coalition for Campus Childcare conference in March 2023. She is a member of the ELM team and director of Purdue’s Ben and Maxine Miller Child Development Laboratory School. The presentations shared examples of implementing the ELM Curriculum.
Ways in which the ELM Curriculum uses puzzles to promote cognitive development, including inquiry skills, were the focus of a presentation at the National Association for the Education of Young Children national conference in November 2023 by ELM team member Elizabeth Schlesinger-Devlin.
The National Head Start Conference in May 2023 included a presentation on “Infants and Toddlers in Science!” that highlighted the ELM Curriculum’s cognitive development resources. ELM team member Chanele Robinson-Rucker led the session.
The ELM Curriculum’s evidence-informed approach to promoting self-regulation skills was featured in two sessions at the annual meeting of the Indiana Association for the Education of Young Children, one focused on infants and toddlers and one session focused on preschool-age children. ELM team members Chanele Robinson-Rucker and Elizabeth Schlesinger-Devlin conducted the sessions at the May 2023 meeting.
The Oklahoma Department of Human Services awarded a one-year grant to Sunbeam Family Services and Child Care Inc. of Oklahoma for supporting pilot implementation of the ELM Curriculum by Oklahoma child care providers. Professional development specialists from Sunbeam participated in a two-day training on ELM in June 2023 at Purdue’s Ben and Maxine Miller Child Development Laboratory School, which is a demonstration site for the ELM Curriculum. The specialists in turn are providing ELM training to Oklahoma’s child care providers. 565 early childhood providers across Oklahoma participated in training from September 2023 to early May 2024.
Early childhood teachers from the REACH Early Learning program at Fletcher Place Community Center in Indianapolis participated in a training at Purdue’s Ben and Maxine Miller Child Development Program in June 2023 on successful implementation of the ELM Curriculum.
The Virginia Department of Education has added the ELM Curriculum to its list of approved programs for publicly-funded early childhood classroom settings and programs for Birth to Five. The Department uses a two-step process to review components of a high-quality curriculum, including teacher-child interactions and provisions for individualized professional development.
The 2022 National Head Start Conference included a presentation on how the ELM Curriculum promotes social-emotional and self-regulation development from infancy through preschool. The session was led by Chanele Robinson-Rucker and Elizabeth Schlesinger-Devlin of the ELM team.
Federal funding for assisting military child development programs in implementing the ELM Curriculum has been awarded to Purdue University by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture as part of the DoD-USDA Partnership for Military Families.
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