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The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) focuses on children's early school experiences beginning with kindergarten through fifth grade. It is a nationally representative sample that collects information from children, their families, their teachers, and their schools. ECLS-K provides data about the effects of a wide range of family, school, community, and individual variables on children's cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development, their early learning and early performance in school, as well as their home environment, home educational practices, school environment, classroom environment, classroom curriculum, and teacher qualifications.

With a few exceptions, the fifth grade data file contains all data collected from parents, children, teachers, or schools in the base year (fall and spring), first grade (fall and spring), third grade (spring), and fifth grade (spring) data collections. To streamline the file, however, the data from the household rosters that listed all household members, their relationship to the sampled child, and selected other characteristics are not included in the file. The composite variables describing critical household roster-based information, such as the children's family structure and selected characteristics of the family members, have been retained on the file.

Specific subjects covered by the variables in this data file include parent/child gender, parent/child race, family background, socioeconomic status, household income, parents' education level, and parents' employment and marital status. Other variables include type of childcare and childcare arrangements, the child's math, science, and reading scores, the child's learning problems and autism, as well as the child's diet issues, food security, and school food service. Variables about teachers include age, race, background, qualifications, job satisfaction, their level of impact on curriculum and policy, and time spent on classroom activities and specific subjects. Other variables include diversity of classroom students, parent-teacher discussions, family participation in school events and fundraising, whether the child's school has bars on the windows and doors, fire alarms, sprinklers, and fire extinguishers, the presence of school graffiti, as well as bus/transportation issues.

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999, Kindergarten-Eighth Grade Full Sample includes the kindergarten, first, third, fifth, and eighth grade data collections for the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K). Unlike the public-use longitudinal files released in previous rounds, this file contains all data for all ECLS-K sample cases that have been publicly released in any of the rounds. Thus, it can be used for within-year (cross-sectional) analyses of any round of data collection and cross-year (longitudinal) analyses of combinations of rounds. It focuses on children's early school experiences beginning with kindergarten through eighth grade. It is a nationally representative sample that collects information from children, their families, their teachers, and their schools. ECLS-K provides data about the effects of a wide range of family, school, community, and individual variables on children's cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development, their early learning and early performance in school, as well as their home environment, home educational practices, school environment, classroom environment, classroom curriculum, and teacher qualifications. The list below summarizes each wave of this study.

• 1998-1999 (the Kindergarten year-Rounds 1 and 2): The ECLS-K child assessments, parent interviews, and teacher questionnaires were conducted in the fall. Children, parents, and teachers participated again in the spring, along with school administrators.

• 1999-2000 (the First grade year-Rounds 3 and 4): The ECLS-K conducted child assessments and parent interviews for a 30 percent sub-sample in the fall. The full sample of children, parents, teachers, and school administrators participated in the spring.

• 2002 (the Third grade year-Round 5): The ECLS-K conducted child assessments and parent interviews in the spring. Teachers and school administrators completed questionnaires.

• 2004 (the Fifth grade year-Round 6): The ECLS-K conducted child assessments and parent interviews in the spring. Teachers and school administrators completed questionnaires.

• 2007 (the Eighth grade year-Round 7): The ECLS-K followed the children into middle school. Information was collected from the children, their parents, teachers, and school administrators.

For more detailed information about this data collection, please refer to the user guide.

The Impacts and Implementation of the i3-Funded Scale-Up of Success for All study examined the implementation and impacts of a whole-school reform model, Success for All (SFA), which seeks to increase reading proficiency among students in elementary schools serving low-income children, as this model was scaled up under an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant from the United States Department of Education. The impact evaluation used a cluster random assignment design in which 37 schools in five school districts were selected at random either to implement SFA (the program group schools) or to put in place their business-as-usual reading program (the control group schools). This collection contains Parts 1 to 7 for public use; and Part 8 for restricted use only.

In Part 1: Primary Student Sample data, children who began kindergarten in sampled schools and remained in them through second grade were assessed using standardized assessments of phonics skills, reading fluency, and comprehension. In Part 2: Auxiliary Sample, additional analyses examined third-year impacts on reading skills for all second graders, whether or not they remained continuously enrolled in the study schools, and for students in grades 3 through 5. The analysis also examined impacts for subgroups defined by ethnicity, early literacy skills measured upon entry into kindergarten, and other variables.

Part 3: School Achievement Snapshot Data contain implementation data for analysis using an instrument created by SFA's developers that measures the extent to which program elements were put in place at each program group at the end of each year. This instrument was utilized to assess fidelity to the program model. The implementation analysis was also informed by principal (Part 5: Principal Survey) and teacher surveys (Part 4: Teacher Survey) in all schools, as well by logs (Part 6: Teacher Log) that asked teachers to document their instructional practices in early reading classes. These data, collected in all three study years, make it possible to measure implementation over the study period and to compare program group schools and control group schools on a variety of dimensions.

Part 7: Scale-Up Sample Data provided data on the schools that adopted SFA (and those which were approached, but did not adopt), and schools that adopted before the Investing in Innovations grant. Part 8 is the restricted version of Part 7, which retains geographic location variables.

The Improving Literacy Instruction for Adults study commenced in 2005 as a project of the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. Research for the project was undertaken with three aims: (1) to identify relationships among reading component skills and global literacy outcomes for adults with low literacy; (2) to design adult literacy interventions based on findings from the first aim (1); and (3) to examine the efficacy of these interventions on learner outcomes in authentic settings. This release contains descriptive datasets from the first aim; data related to the second and third aims will be made available in the future.

Initiation of the study involved the collection of reading assessments from volunteer participants at 13 adult education sites throughout Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. Data were collected using a number of adult literacy evaluation methods, including but not limited to: General Educational Development (GED) tests, the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests (WRMT), the Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency (TOSWRF), the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE), the Tests of Adult Basic Education (TABE), the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS), the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP), the Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT), the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF), and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Study participants also completed a background questionnaire designed to assess students' learning goals, motivations for seeking adult education classes, and any barriers or difficulties faced while pursuing adult education. Background questions also gathered demographic and personal information, including participant age, gender, ethnicity, language, education level, employment status and history, marital status, number of children, religious participation, health issues, and drug and alcohol abuse.

The National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) was convened in 2002 to conduct a synthesis of the scientific research on the development of early literacy skills in children ages zero to five. NELP met on 12 occasions between April 2002- February 2006. NELP's primary goal was to identify interventions, parenting activities, and instructional practices that promote the development of children's early literacy skills. Toward that end, the panel posed the following four questions:

1. What are the skills and abilities of young children (age birth through five years or kindergarten) that predict later reading, writing, or spelling outcome?
2. Which programs, interventions, and other instructional approaches or procedures have contributed to or inhibited gains in children's skills and abilities that are linked to later outcomes in reading, writing, or spelling?
3. What environments and settings have contributed to or inhibited gains in children's skills and abilities that are linked to later outcomes in reading, writing, or spelling?
4. What child characteristics have contributed to or inhibited gains in children's skills and abilities that are linked to later outcomes in reading, writing, or spelling?

NELP adopted a methodology that allowed for the identification and selection of published studies relevant to the panel's questions, a coding system that allowed for the combination and comparison of studies, and an appropriate method of statistical analysis. Approximately 500 research articles were used in the meta-analyses conducted by the panel. The meta-analyses summarized both correlational data showing the relationships between children's early abilities and skills and later literacy development and experimental data that showed the impact of instructional interventions on children's learning.