What Causes Fade Out?

The recently released results of the Tennessee Pre-K Study show that improved outcomes gained during the Pre-K year are not sustained by the end of the third grade.  These results are similar to others studies such as the Head Start Impact Study.  Linda Smith, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood Development, responded to the "fade out" factor in her message, "Responding to the Tennessee Pre-K Study".  Smith suggested we consider these factors as contributors to 'fade out':

"First, fade out is not well understood.  There are several things that should be considered.  Do the gains fade out because of the quality of the Pre-K program or because of the quality of K thru Grade 3?  Is the fade out the result of K-3 teachers focusing on those children who have had no formal early learning experiences — sometimes referred to as 'catch-up' — or is the dosage of the Pre-K experience (one year vs. two years or half-day vs. full-day) something that needs to be better understood?

"Second, what do we really know about the quality of the Pre-K experiences overall?  The quality of early learning programs has not been studied closely.  In the years since the Head Start Impact Study was conducted in 2002, much has been done to improve the quality of Head Start....

"Third, how a child performs on certain scales such as literacy and mathematics are important, but alone are not the only measure of how a child is doing.  It is well understood that the social-emotional development of children is at the core of their ability to learn academic skills and function in society....  As anyone who has ever taught kindergartners will attest, skills such as self-regulation may be the biggest indicators of how a child will perform later in life.  What happens to this aspect of development during the K thru Grade 3 period deserves more study...

"Fourth, another question that is still largely unstudied is how the quality of the learning experiences in the schools the children attend impacts fade out and why.  Do the gains fade out because there is no alignment between the Pre-K and elementary school approaches to learning or curriculum?  If so, how do we improve the alignment between two systems that are so different?

"Fifth, are there more sustainable gains if children are provided rich early learning experiences earlier, beginning at birth, as the neuroscience suggests?  If, as research demonstrates, by the age of three, poor children have heard 30 million words less than their economically advantaged peers, then the time to start is much earlier than Pre-K for four-year-olds."

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