Effects of the Nurturing Curriculum on Social, Emotional, and Academic Behaviors in Kindergarten Classrooms.

Effects of the Nurturing Curriculum on Social, Emotional, and Academic Behaviors in Kindergarten Classrooms--Vespo, Capece, & Behforooz

The importance of the quality of the first few years of life has been discussed by many national advocacy organizations, government panels, and early childhood researchers. While much other research has centered on academic readiness for schooling, research on interventions that target the social and emotional development of young children is not as extensive. The current study examines the Nurturing Curriculum teacher-implemented intervention in kindergarten classrooms, which is designed to enhance young children's self-concept, empathy for others, communication skills, problem-solving and negotiation skills, and abilities to appropriately express anger and frustration.

Children in eight ethnically diverse kindergarten classrooms and their teachers participated in the study, which was conducted in an inner-city setting in the northeastern United States. Teachers from two schools were trained in a workshop prior to the start of the school year on classroom lessons; each lesson was designed to be implemented in about 20 minutes. The lessons included information on a specific social skill with connections for continuity into the home. For the kindergarten intervention, 71 lessons were provided for teacher use. Lesson implementation was tracked by teachers in journals (on average, 35 percent of lessons were conducted) and through independent observation by a participant observer. Teachers could implement the lessons at the times and days of their choosing. The participant-observer rated each child on a modified version of the Teacher Checklist of Social Behavior. Assessments on children were collected in October, January, and June of the children's kindergarten year.

Ratings of children at each time period were averaged, providing one total score for each child. Analysis of variance tests was conducted to examine an increase in social and emotional skills across the school year. Results indicated that there were time effects across the school year, with decreases in negative behaviors (i.e., aggression, dominance, disruptive behaviors, social insecurity, and academic immaturity) and increases in prosocial behaviors. Effect sizes also were calculated and were all above .80. To assess whether these changes could be linked to the Nurturing Curriculum instead of just the maturation of kindergarten children, the authors compared the results of the intervention group to a pilot sample of children who had been rated with the assessment tool but had not received the Nurturing Curriculum. The results revealed that children in the pilot sample were rated as more aggressive than children in the intervention sample, yet there were no significant changes to the children in the pilot group over their kindergarten year. Based on an argument advanced by Harter (1990), the authors suggested that children whose scores increased or decreased by more than one standard error of measurement seemed as indicators that the intervention was effective in modifying children's social and emotional skills. The authors also performed a stepwise multiple regression to assess the relationship of social and emotional behaviors to academic behavior. That analysis indicated that prosocial behavior and disruptive behaviors accounted for 72 percent of the variance in academic immaturity scores.

The results of this study suggest that social and emotional intervention with young children may have a pronounced effect on children's behavior. If such intervention also can improve academic readiness and success for the primary grades, social and emotional interventions could provide the foundation for continued success in school. This research was conducted with children who were more likely to be at-risk for poor transitions to school. Longitudinal research on this particular social and emotional intervention with a variety of groups of children is needed. In addition, the contribution of the home environment to the behavioral change of children associated with this intervention will contribute to a more complete understanding of how exactly these efforts contribute to successful transition to school.