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.

Resources

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

Reports

This report describes the proceedings from the first State-Federal STEM Summit, held June 2018 in Washington, D.C.

Fact sheets

This infographic spotlights the researchers’ theory of change and illuminates conditions at the teacher, classroom, and school/system levels that are key to effective teacher professional development.

Reports

This brief describes how EDC works with multi-sector partners to pioneer new ways to harness the power of digital tools to support families and enhance early teaching, learning, and health promotion.

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

This report shares findings from EDC’s evaluation study of Cha-Ching Money Adventures.

Reports

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.

Studies

This study analyzes data from the 2002/03 Head Start Impact Study (U.S.

White papers

This paper provides a resource for prospective DRK–12 grantees by identifying some of the theories that current and recent DRK–12 grantees are using in their research on broadening participation.

Studies

This brief provides insights into formal and informal support that child care providers’ seek and receive to help them form successful collaborations.

White papers

The authors share the findings of an EDC study that investigated whether the Child Safety Collaborative Innovation and Improvement Network framework could be applied in the field of injury and violence prevention to reduce fatalities, hospitalizations and emergency department visits among 0–19-year-olds.