LAUSR

Abstract We examine the relations between several indicators of classroom and program quality, and their associations with children's early vocabulary skills, within 128 classrooms in 64 public early childhood education centers in Lima, Peru. Specifically, we consider the widely-used Classroom Assessment Scoring System™ (CLASS) in relation to traditional indicators of structural quality, including teacher experience, teacher education, and child-to-teacher ratios, and a locally-derived measure of quality, vitrina (or “model” center) status. We found evidence that the indicators represented distinct aspects of quality. Moreover, we found that vitrina status and teacher education were associated with children's vocabulary. Although there was no evidence that the CLASS was linearly related to children's vocabulary, the instructional support domain of the CLASS had a significant association with children's vocabulary at lower levels of the CLASS scale. Additionally, CLASS scores were more strongly related to children's vocabulary in non-vitrina centers than in vitrina centers.