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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Tapping, Swiping, and Learning Science
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Helping All Children Learn and Thrive
EDC’s David Jacobson discusses his ideas for changing—and improving—early childhood services.

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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.

Toolkits

This toolkit is designed to support state, territory, tribal, and local teams as well as individuals in examining and acting toward advancing health equity in Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood

Reports

This final report summarizes the evaluation of the impact of EDC’s Early Childhood Caregiver Professional Development and Certification Program in Rwanda.

Reports

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.

Toolkits

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.

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

Reports

The Bullying Prevention Resource Guide provides links to organizations, programs, publications, and resources focused on bullying prevention. It is divided into seven sections:

Reports

This report summarizes the results of the Time to Learn project in Zambia, which was funded by the U.S.

Reports

In this report, the authors share findings and recommendations from their review of existing research, exploration of teacher professional development programs, and interviews with teachers.

Reports

Sustainable Finance Initiative: Identifying multi-year financing opportunities for school meal programs with a focus on low- and lower-middle income countries.

White papers

This paper describes the work of the Home Visiting Collaborative for Improvement and Innovation Network (HV CoIIN).