From birth to age eight, children take the first steps in a lifelong learning journey. EDC speeds them on their way by designing, studying, supporting, and scaling up programs that enhance school readiness and success. We have a special focus on meeting the needs of children from disadvantaged communities and dual language learners, engaging and supporting families, and building the capacity of educators and communities to sustain improvements.

In the United States, we work to create strong, coherent preK-Grade 3 systems and advance knowledge of how to improve early science, mathematics, and literacy learning. Around the world, we implement innovative early childhood programs that build literacy and numeracy skills, excite interest in learning, and help educators, volunteers, and parents enrich early learning.

Read "A Fair Start for Every Child" to learn more about EDC's work to support early childhood learning.

Learn about EDC’s work with Family STEM Communities.

Learn about EDC’s work to strengthen early childhood interventions with Continuous Quality Improvement.

Learn about the work of EDC’s Center for Children and Technology.

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Resources

Here are a few of our resources on early childhood development and learning. To see more, visit our Resources section.

Reports

This report, published by the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) and the Center on School Turnaround (CST), describes how three schools in Massachusetts, Missouri, and Nebraska int

Reports

Conducted by EDC and SRI International, the study’s goal was to understand the extent to which providing access to media resources focused on critical science and engineering concepts can help children living in low-income households learn.

Reports

This is the executive summary of a report that describes the proceedings from the first State-Federal STEM Summit, held June 2018 in Washington, D.C.

Reports

This report presents findings from a study that examined whether child care providers that partnered with Head Start programs showed improvements in the quality of their services compared with similar child care providers that did not partner with Head Start. The authors report that partnership predicts improved classroom quality; partnership duration predicts observed quality; and partnership predicts some improvements in school readiness outcomes.

Reports

This report, intended for early childhood educators, identifies promising practices to support emergent bilinguals in a variety of early childcare settings.

Resource libraries

The Children’s Safety Network (CSN) is a national resource center for the prevention of childhood injuries and violence.

Reports

This factsheet provides an overview of some of EDC’s work to strengthen systems and services to help families, home visitors, community members, educators, and healthcare professionals ensure that

White papers

In this research brief, the authors present findings from an online national survey of Child Care and Development Fund administrators, Head Start State Collaboration Office Directors, and State Departments of Education Early Childhood Specialists.

Reports

This executive report summarizes the activities of the project, recommendations and lessons learned of the Literacy, Language, and Learning (L3) Initiative, a five-year project funded by the U.S.

Toolkits

Published by Brookes, the Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation (ELLCO) pre-K and K–3 toolkits are research-based instruments that enable teachers, leaders, and researchers to observe,