Preschool Program Focused on Executive-Function Skills Provokes Scholarly Debate

An early-childhood curriculum that aims to help youngsters control their impulses, recall and use what they’ve learned, and adjust when circumstances change—skills known as executive function—has been getting attention in the research world of late.

But researchers aren’t coming to the same conclusions about the effectiveness of the program, called Tools of the Mind , at preparing children for school.

An evaluation that appears in the current issue of Early Childhood Research Quarterly found that when compared with a more traditional literacy-based curriculum, Tools of the Mind was better at reducing negative behavior among 3- and 4-year-olds, and was at least as effective as the other program at teaching...