Research-Based Lessons

An initial study in 2010, published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly (ECRQ), compared children's vocabulary development over the course of the preschool year and controlled for key demographic variables. The study included children at Settlement's Kaleidoscope preschool as well as those attending a matched comparison site that was not fully arts integrated. Both programs were Head Start sites, NAEYC accredited, and with the same, highest Keystone Stars rating.

Using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), this study found that children at Settlement's Kaleidoscope preschool showed more than 3x the gains in receptive vocabulary over the course of the school year.

In a 2017 study in the journal Child Development, it was found that emotional benefits of arts-integrated preschool could be documented at a physiological level. Dr. Brown and colleagues asked, "Can the arts get under the skin?" and found that indeed, levels of the stress hormone cortisol were lower after music and arts versus homeroom classes, positively influencing brain areas involved in learning and memory.

In a study published in 2013 by Early Childhood Research Quarterly, children at Settlement's Kaleidoscope preschool showed greater positive emotions than their peers at the preschool that was not arts integrated. They showed growth across the year in positive skills for managing or regulating their emotions, whereas those at the comparison site did not show significant growth.

And, although children at both preschools showed a decrease in negative emotion regulation problems over the course of the year, that decrease was five times greater at Kaleidoscope.

Dr. Brown and colleagues set out to examine an overall index of school readiness skills, and their findings were published in a 2018 study in Early Childhood Research Quarterly. They used the Bracken Basic Concepts Scale to examine things like letters, numbers, colors, shapes, and sizes - and again found a striking advantage for children at Settlement's Kaleidoscope preschool.

Children at the arts-integrated preschool made greater gains than those found for the normative sample. Children facing economic hardship who attended Kaleidoscope ended the year scoring higher than their middle-income peers in terms of overall school readiness.