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.
Related Content
A New Language for Mathematics
Young children often struggle to write down their mathematical ideas. Could computer programming be an easier language for them?
EDC Talks: Making Time for Family Math
What are some fun, easy activities that families can do to encourage math learning at home? (Hint: You are probably already doing some of them.)
Tapping, Swiping, and Learning Science
Research findings on The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!™ have implications for parents, educators, and educational media developers.
Helping All Children Learn and Thrive
EDC’s David Jacobson discusses his ideas for changing—and improving—early childhood services.
Tools to Support Preschool Learning
New resources support educators on integrating technology and working with emergent bilingual learners.
The Other Side of the Screen
As a researcher, Tiffany Maxon gets to help develop the next generation of children’s television shows.
Projects
Resources
Here are a few of our resources on early childhood development and learning. To see more, visit our Resources section.
This brief describes EDC’s deep commitment to ensuring that all young children have the support they need during the critical early childhood window of time.
The Bullying Prevention Resource Guide provides links to organizations, programs, publications, and resources focused on bullying prevention. It is divided into seven sections:
This app demonstrates that handwashing, covering your cough, and washing surfaces can reduce the spread of illness.
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
This report, intended for early childhood educators, identifies promising practices to support emergent bilinguals in a variety of early childcare settings.
This report examines Cyberchase: Mobile Adventures in STEM, a bilingual family engagement program for families with children ages 6 to 8 years old that uses weekly text messages and media to encourage parents and kids to do fun, hands-on environmental learning activities at home.
Interactive audio instruction (IAI) is a distance-learning technology that provides educational services, often to schools and school systems worldwide.
This case study examines how support from EDC’s First 10 initiative has advanced East Providence’s goals to strengthen and align its early education and support structures, improving services for children and families.
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
This report summarizes the results of the Time to Learn project in Zambia, which was funded by the U.S.