There is little doubt that educators and the general public alike believe that students should be taught rigorous academic content beginning in first grade and continuing through high school. The same cannot be said, however, about kindergarten. How kindergarteners’ classroom time should be spent has been the subject of much debate, around which little to no consensus has been reached (e.g., Moyer, 2013)[1]. Resolute calls on the part of some advocacy groups argue that the primary emphasis of kindergarten should be child-initiated play (e.g., Miller & Almon, 2009),while others maintain that rigorous content should be taught to young children, noting that preschool and kindergarten curricula should be geared toward exposing young children to varied mathematics content (e.g., National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008). Recent research documents a striking move toward an increased academicization of kindergarten. Comparing samples of kindergarten teachers drawn in 1998-1999 and 2006-2007, Bassok and Rorem (2013) find that kindergarten teachers reported increasing time spent on reading and language arts by 25 percent.

Despite a lack of consensus regarding the purpose of kindergarten, evidence underscores the importance of children’s early skills and knowledge for their later academic progress. Achievement gains made in kindergarten in math and reading predict student outcomes through eighth grade (Claessens, Duncan, and Engel, 2009). The proposed paper will help to inform this debate regarding the purpose of kindergarten through an analysis of the relationship between teacher time use, instructional content exposure, and students’ socioemotional and behavioral outcomes using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Program’s (ECLS) studies of kindergarten; the Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K) and the Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011). Research finds that kindergarten teachers have important effects on students’ social and behavioral skills (Jennings & DePrete, 2010). Thus, understanding kindergarten teachers’ time use and content coverage affect student attention and behavioral outcomes will directly inform the debate around how kindergarteners’ time should be spent.

Results from the proposed study will help us understand whether the academicization of kindergarten (Bassok & Rorem, 2013) has resulted in an emphasis on more advanced content or whether, within the increasingly academic context of kindergarten classrooms, teachers have continued to emphasize “the basics”, potentially with negative consequences for the vast majority of students (Engel, Claessens, & Finch, 2013). It will inform this issue by examining the association between teacher reports of time use and content coverage and students’ academic and socioemotional outcomes (e.g., externalizing behaviors, approaches to learning) in kindergarten.

Thus, the proposed study will inform the debate around kindergarten – whether its primary emphasis should be child-initiated play (e.g., Miller & Almon, 2009), or whether kindergartners might in fact benefit most from a range of activities, including exposure to new and challenging academic content, given the importance of kindergarten learning gains for later school outcomes (Claessens, Duncan, & Engel, 2009).