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Overview
Curiosity Corner is a comprehensive early childhood curriculum designed to help children at risk of school failure because of poverty. The program offers children experiences that develop the attitudes, skills, and knowledge necessary for later school success with a special emphasis on children's language and literacy skills. Curiosity Corner comprises two sets of 38 weekly thematic units, one for three-year-olds and one for four-year-olds. Each day the program staff present children with learning experiences through sequential daily activities. The program provides training, support, and teaching materials for teaching staff and administrators. Parents are encouraged to participate in children's learning through activities both inside and outside the classroom.
Research
One study of Curiosity Corner met the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards with reservations. 1 The study included 316 three- and four-year-old children from four urban, high poverty school districts in New Jersey. This report focuses on immediate posttest findings to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. 2 The WWC considers the extent of evidence for Curiosity Corner to be small for oral language and for cognition. No studies that met WWC evidence standards with or without reservations addressed print knowledge, phonological processing, early reading/writing, or math.
Effectiveness
Curiosity Corner was found to have no discernible effects on oral language and cognition.
| Oral language | Print knowledge | Phonological processing | Early reading/ writing | Cognition | Math | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating of effectiveness | No discernible effects | na | na | na | No discernible effects | na |
| Improvement index3 | Average: +9 percentile points Range: +1 to +17 percentile points |
na | na | na | Average: -7 percentile points | na |
| na = not applicable | ||||||
2 The evidence presented in this report is based on available research. Findings and conclusions may change as new research becomes available. Curiosity Corner is being studied under the Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research (PCER) Grants administered through the U. S. Department of Education's Institute for Education Sciences. The final PCER reports were not released in time to be reviewed for this report.
3 These numbers show the average and range of student-level improvement indices for all findings across the study.
