Scaling up the Implementation of a Pre-Kindergarten Mathematics Curricula: Teaching for Understanding with Trajectories and Technologies

The proposed focuses on teachers and students in Head Start and State funded pre-K programs that serve predominately low income and minority populations. The assumption is that this is a key age group in that lagging proficiency in school subjects, mathematics included, often has roots in the preschool years. The intervention is a pre-K mathematics curriculum that is based on knowledge of human development and that employs technologies fitting for multiple levels. A randomized experimental design will be used to investigate the efficacy of the curriculum for students served by Head Start and state-funded pre-K programs. The proposed study will increase knowledge of scaling up pre-K intervention across programmatic contexts for diverse low-income students in their growing knowledge of mathematical ideas. They research design will permit inferences about what contextual variables contributed to outcomes.