EDC supports the development of engaging and safe educational programs for young children.
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.
Parents with young children are facing an unprecedented demand to support their children’s learning at home—and technology can help.
This presentation describes the innovative strategies, accomplishments, and lessons learned of the Child Safety Collaborative Innovation and Improvement Network at EDC.
This study of Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI), written for the World Bank by EDC staff, shows that radio is an accessible and effective tool for active learning inside and outside of the classroom.
This study examines the effects of EDC’s interactive radio instruction (IRI) programming on student learning outcomes in classrooms in India, documenting the significant positive effects of the structured support for instructional improvement that IRI provides.
This study was designed primarily to measure learning gains among Standard One-level treatment beneficiaries of the Radio Instruction to Strengthen Education project in Zanzibar.
Interactive audio instruction (IAI) is a distance-learning technology that provides educational services, often to schools and school systems worldwide.
As part of the 2015–2020 Ready To Learn Initiative, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) devised a new model of community partnerships called Comm
This is the summary pre-print report of a pair of national research studies examining the impact of the PBS KIDS series Molly of Denali on children’s ability to use informational text to answer real-world questions.
This resource focuses on how distance education technology benefits teachers and teaching.
This case study walks through a town's response to developing an early childhood prevention program by walking through how they conducted a needs assessment and developed their capacity building plan.