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1.
ABSTRACT

Investments in preschool programs for children from disadvantaged backgrounds have historically been supported by research showing that these programs help children build school readiness skills and narrow the income-achievement gap. However, results from recent studies of the links between preschool participation and increases in school readiness skills are more mixed. Significant variation in regular preschool attendance and the availability of high-quality early learning environments could help explain mixed findings on preschool effectiveness. Using data from a preschool expansion demonstration project, we explored associations between children's attendance rates, classroom quality, and neighborhood poverty and children's fall to spring gains in a set of important school readiness skills in executive functioning. Children (N = 197) lived in neighborhoods where 26% of households (range = 0 – 92%) lived below the poverty line and attended 48 classrooms in public and private settings. Attendance rates, including chronic absenteeism, were significantly associated with children's gains in executive functioning skills, but only when children attended high-quality classrooms. Results suggest that efforts to increase attendance rates may benefit children's executive functioning skills among children living in higher poverty neighborhoods the most when communities also invest in increasing preschool classroom quality.  相似文献   

2.
In contrast to a burgeoning literature examining the experience and management of children's start to school, much less is known about school readiness in rural Ireland. On this premise, a questionnaire survey was designed to explore the views of parents (n=145) on their child's preschool experiences and readiness for school. Due to a paucity of preschool provision in rural areas, attendance was mainly on a sessional basis with a small number having full weekly attendance and others no preschool experience. In consequence, a considerable number of children start school at four years of age, two years below the compulsory starting age. On reflection, almost one-third of the parents in this study believe their child was too young for school. An important feature of this research is the inclusion of young children (n=22) between four and six years of age in their first year at school. Although the children anticipated differences between preschool and school, the majority found it difficult to adapt to having fewer toys and play opportunities and to the formal curriculum which characterises teaching and learning in infant classes. Zeitgeist and global and national economic factors inform the interpretation of the results.  相似文献   

3.
ABSTRACT

Preschool attendance problems negatively impact children's school readiness skills and future school attendance. Parents are critical to preschoolers’ attendance. This study explored parental barriers and solutions to preschool attendance in low-income families. School-district administrative data from a racially/ethnically diverse sample of parents with children attending the district's half-day preschool program were obtained (N = 111). Subsamples of parents participated in a phone interview and follow-up, in-person interview. Parents valued early learning and preschool. Children missed school due to illness, problems with child care, transportation, and family life. Differences in attendance rates appeared by school, family demographics, and race/ethnicity. African-Americans and Hispanics experienced more barriers than Whites and Asians, and were more likely to miss school because of illness and medical appointments. Hispanics were more likely to miss for vacation. Parents noted a lack of social connection with other parents in the school/neighborhood, making seeking help to resolve attendance barriers difficult.  相似文献   

4.
The first national education goal, school readiness, recognizes a need for young children to be better prepared for entry into elementary school. Many low-income children exhibit a pattern of underachievement in school mathematics. Research has revealed a developmental gap between low-income preschool children and their middle-class peers with respect to the extent of their numerical knowledge. Research has also found that many low-income children do not receive a broad base of support for mathematical development at home or in preschool. In each of two studies, we conducted a bi-generation (parent and child) mathematics intervention with Head Start families. The intervention was designed to enhance parental support for pre-kindergarten children's mathematical development. It was found that low-income parents were willing and able to support this area of their children's development once they were provided with the training to do so. The support that parents provided to their children through the intervention was clearly effective in enhancing the development of children's informal mathematical knowledge. Intervention children developed more extensive mathematical knowledge than a comparison group of low-income children. Thus, an important step toward achieving the school readiness goal can be taken by fostering low- income parents' support for young children's mathematical development.  相似文献   

5.
Despite policy and theoretical support for mixed-age classrooms in early childhood, research examining associations between age-mixing and children's outcomes is inconclusive and warrants further investigation, particularly in preschools serving children who are at risk for poor adjustment to formal schooling. One recent study conducted in preschool classrooms serving low-income children found negative associations between age-mixing and children's social and cognitive development. The current study extended this research by examining associations between classroom age composition (variability in ages of children in the classroom) and low-income preschool children's rates of change in school readiness. The sample consisted of 4417 preschool children enrolled in 207 classrooms in a large, diverse urban Head Start program. Multilevel modeling was employed to examine the main effect of classroom age composition, as well as the interaction between classroom age composition and children's age, as predictors of children's rates of change in emergent literacy, emergent numeracy, social and emotional skills, and approaches to learning. In contrast to previous research, classroom age composition was not associated with school readiness outcomes. This study contributes to the conflicting literature examining the associations between age mixing and children's school readiness and calls for a future research agenda to examine age mixing in context that is focused on sorting out these conflicting results. In the meantime, policymakers should consider other relevant factors when making decisions regarding mixed-age classrooms, such as family preference or the capability for teachers to individualize instruction to children based on their individual needs.  相似文献   

6.
The position advocated within this article is that the construct of "school readiness" has a social component, and that attempts to evaluate children's interpersonal readiness for kindergarten should be judged in relation to their likely success at mastering specific social school entry tasks. Social school entry tasks, which most likely stem from diverse sociocultural sources, are conceptualized here as interpersonal challenges that children confront as they enter formal schooling—challenges that are inherent within kindergarten classrooms and predictive of children's future school adjustment. A related contention is that attempts to enhance children's readiness for kindergarten should be guided by research on the prerequisites of social task mastery—that is, evidence gathered during the preschool years that forecasts children's later success at social school entry tasks. Evidence bearing on these premises is reviewed as a means of considering the validity and heuristic utility of these propositions for future research on school readiness.  相似文献   

7.
At-risk families’ control style (autonomy support and coercive control) was examined in relation to children's school readiness; children's social skills and mastery motivation were hypothesized mediating variables. In two different, low-income samples from diverse ethnic backgrounds, one preschool sample recruited from Head Start (N = 199) and a school transition sample composed of children entering elementary school (N = 344), parental control styles were related to children's academic readiness modestly but significantly in the preschool sample and weakly in the school transition sample. Children's social skills and mastery motivation skills (persistence and goal orientation) were significantly related to the academic measures of school readiness, and fully mediated the association between parents’ use of coercive behavioral control and academic readiness. Such mediation could not be tested for parental support of children's autonomy. The results indicate that a developmental cascade exists between parental control strategies and academic indices of school readiness, emphasizing the importance of family context models of school readiness. Furthermore, strong correlations between the domains of school readiness were found in both samples, reinforcing calls for a multidimensional approach to supporting school readiness in early childhood education programs.  相似文献   

8.
While there has been a number of studies examining the effects of preschool as intervention for children of economic poverty and special needs children, there has not been research examining the effects of preschool education for the general population of children. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of years of preschool, gender, and at-risk status on children's readiness for first grade. 4539 children participated in the study. 104 children started public school at three-years-old (K3), 1234started school at age four (K4) and 3201 started at age five. At-risk status was determined using the Cooperative Preschool Inventory (Caldwell, 1974) and first grade readiness was determined using the Metropolitan Readiness Test (MRT; Nurss & McGauvran, 1974). Results of the analyses indicated that children who entered the public school preschool program at K3 or K4 scored significantly higher on the MRT than children who entered at K5. Additionally, the findings indicated that if children started at K3, by the end of kindergarten there was no difference between the at-risk and not-at-risk children's scores on the MRT. This was not true for the K4 or K5 groups. The discussion focuses on two issues. First, the relationship between the benefits of preschool and continuity of programs, and second, that "regular" preschool education may serve as intervention for those children who require it, if attended long enough.  相似文献   

9.
This paper uses a large nationally representative survey data to examine the impact of China's rural–urban migration on high school attendance of left-behind children by disentangling the effect of remittances from that of migration. The results show that the absence of adult household members has a negative impact on the high school attendance of left-behind children in rural areas, while the remittances can partially compensate for this loss. The effects are especially prominent for girls and those children from poor households since girls are usually disadvantaged in rural China and poor households are more likely to be liquidity-constrained.  相似文献   

10.
This paper estimates the causal impacts of delayed primary school enrollment on children's educational outcomes in rural China. Instrumental variable estimates exploiting the discontinuity in children's enrollment age around the enrollment cut-off date indicate that a one-year delay in school enrollment increases the incidence of first-grade retention by approximately 10 percentage points for boys and reduces the probabilities of middle school enrollment by 6 percentage points for both boys and girls. These results suggest that delayed enrollment, even if it may be an optimal choice made by poor parents in response to financial constraints, is likely to be harmful to children's educational development in rural China.  相似文献   

11.
This study examined whether children's observed individual engagement with teachers, peers, and tasks related to their school readiness after controlling for observed preschool classroom quality and children's baseline skills. The sample included 211 predominately low‐income, racially/ethnically diverse 4‐year‐old children in 49 preschool classrooms in one medium‐sized U.S. city. Results indicated that children's positive engagement with (a) teachers related to improved literacy skills; (b) peers related to improved language and self‐regulatory skills; and (c) tasks related to closer relationships with teachers. Children's negative engagement was associated with lower language, literacy, and self‐regulatory skills, and more conflict and closeness with teachers. Effect sizes were small to medium in magnitude, and some expected relations between positive engagement and school readiness were not found.  相似文献   

12.
Using data from the National Early Head Start (EHS) Research and Evaluation Project (N = 1851), the current study examined relations among cumulative family and social risk, assessed during infancy and the preschool years, and children's prekindergarten achievement, self-regulatory skills, and problematic social behavior, testing if these associations were mediated through two sets of family processes–responsive parenting practices and the provision of language stimulation and literacy practices. Structural equation modeling results highlight the significance of the timing of children's experience of risk in predicting school readiness competencies. Risk exposure during infancy was observed to be most detrimental for children's school readiness skills and was partially mediated by risk exposure during the preschool years and family processes, assessed during toddlerhood and the preschool years. Moderation analyses revealed no difference in the strength of relationships among the study variables by EHS assignment or by race/ethnicity.  相似文献   

13.
Among a nationally representative sample of 2336 Head Start children, patterns of school readiness were compared at the beginning and end of children's first preschool year, and predictors of stability and change across readiness profiles were examined. The present study documented that although the majority of children remain in a qualitatively similar school readiness profile across their first year in Head Start, 20% of children move to a qualitatively different profile over the school year, reflecting both improvements and declines in functioning. Child and family attributes (e.g., child age, ELL status, maternal education, and family structure), as well as contextual factors (e.g., teacher education and experience, parenting style, and parent involvement) were significant predictors of both profile stability and change. Given that we have little understanding about what factors practice or policy can manipulate to improve school readiness, these findings shed light on what we might do to promote school readiness and prevent declines in functioning over time. Thus, findings from this study provide a population- and pattern-based perspective of Head Start children's strengths and needs, relevant for informing both individual and systems level change in Head Start programs across the nation.  相似文献   

14.
OP-ED     
There is a general consensus that too many US children are entering school without essential readiness skills. However, there is a lack of consensus as to what constitutes readiness and a corresponding lack of consensus as to the type of early childhood experience that is most likely to prepare children for academic success. This paper offers a perspective, grounded in theory and practice, on issues of readiness and education during the preschool and kindergarten years. This perspective involves a view of human development that stresses the role of adult involvement in young children's learning and emphasizes the preschool years as atime for building cognitive skills that will serve as essential foundations for later academic learning. Images drawn from practice in Korean early childhood classrooms illustrate how teacherdirected activities may foster preschool children's development of these essential cognitive foundations in a developmentally appropriate manner.  相似文献   

15.
Improving children's attendance is a high priority for Head Start and other early childhood education programs serving low-income children. We conducted a randomized control trial in a major northern city to evaluate the impact of a low-cost intervention designed to promote parents' social capital as a potential influence on children's attendance in Head Start centers. The intervention assigned children to treatment group classrooms based on (a) neighborhood of residence (geography condition) or (b) the geography condition plus the opportunity for parents to form partnerships in support of their children's attendance, or to control group classrooms according to Head Start guidelines only. We did not find impacts on average attendance throughout the year. However, the intervention did lead to increased attendance during the winter when average center attendance was lowest. There were no impacts on fall or spring attendance. Follow-up exploratory analyses of focus groups with parents and staff suggested that parents' level of connection and trust, self-generated partnership strategies, and commitment to their children's education may be factors by which parents' social capital expands and children's attendance improves.  相似文献   

16.
Research on the effects of preschool dosage on children's early academic functioning has been limited despite the substantial policy implications of such work. The present study adds to a growing literature on this topic by examining how the number of years enrolled in an enhanced preschool program impacts the school readiness of primarily low-income children at kindergarten. Multi-level modeling was used to account for nesting of children within classrooms. To control for potential selection bias since children were not randomly assigned to receive one or two years of preschool, propensity score one-to-one matching was used to create the two participant groups. Receiving a second year of preschool led to significant improvements in children's early literacy and numeracy skills. Implications of these results for preschool interventions are discussed.  相似文献   

17.
Research Findings: This study investigated the joint influence of maternal cognitive readiness to parent and children's self-esteem on children's academic achievement and behavioral adjustment in the classroom at age 10. Participants were 153 adolescent mothers and their firstborn children. Findings indicated that low levels of prenatal maternal cognitive readiness to parent were associated with impairments in children's achievement and adjustment at age 10, regardless of the children's level of self-esteem. Among dyads in which mothers were more cognitively prepared for the parenting role, however, children with higher self-esteem showed notably better achievement and adjustment compared to those with lower self-esteem. These results illustrate the joint influence of mothers' preparedness for parenting and children's self-esteem on the school performance of children who are generally considered to be at high risk for impairments in achievement and adjustment. Practice or Policy: Findings are discussed in terms of the enduring impact of cognitive readiness to parent and self-esteem on the academic achievement and behavioral adjustment of at-risk children, with a focus on implications for intervention and prevention based on the specific findings from this study.  相似文献   

18.
Children's prior attitudes toward school may be an important entry factor to consider in their initial adjustment to kindergarten. This short‐term longitudinal study examined children's affective orientations and other school‐related perceptions and approaches to learning in late preschool and then 1 to 2 months after entry into kindergarten. Child, parent, and teacher reports were obtained, and classroom practices were observed. Findings showed that children who anticipated liking school demonstrated more positive approaches and adjustment in kindergarten than did less enthusiastic children. Children's approaches to learning in the classroom, reported by teachers and parents, were similar across the transition from preschool to kindergarten, despite notable differences in practices. Recommendations for practice include attending to children's affective orientations, involving multiple informants in school readiness assessments, and fostering communication among teachers in school transition activities.  相似文献   

19.
Research Findings: Parental engagement with children has been linked to a number of adaptive characteristics in preschool children, and relationships between families and professionals are an important contributor to school readiness. Furthermore, social–emotional competence is a key component of young children's school readiness. This study reports the results of a randomized trial of a parent engagement intervention (Getting Ready) designed to facilitate school readiness among disadvantaged preschool children, with a particular focus on social–emotional outcomes. Two hundred and twenty children were involved over the 4-year study period. Statistically significant differences were observed between treatment and control participants in the rate of change over a 2-year period on teacher reports for certain interpersonal competencies (i.e., attachment, initiative, and anxiety/withdrawal). In contrast, no statistically significant differences between groups over a 2-year period were noted for behavioral concerns (anger/aggression, self-control, or behavioral problems) as a function of the Getting Ready intervention. Practice or Policy: The intervention appears to be particularly effective at building social–emotional competencies beyond the effects experienced as a function of participation in Head Start programming alone. Limitations and implications for future research are reviewed.  相似文献   

20.
This study explores children's early academic and self-regulatory skills as potential pathways through which a preschool enrichment program—the Chicago School Readiness Project (CSRP)—may contribute to low-income children's long-term outcomes (N = 466; Mage at baseline = 4.10 years). We find that CSRP's impact on high school grades may be partially explained by early gains in vocabulary and math skills. Although impacts on high school executive function (EF) were more equivocal, our results suggest that early improvements in math skills attributable to the intervention may, in turn, predict long-term gains in EF skills. These results complement the existing literature on preschool fade out, while also shedding light on the cross-domain relations between academic and self-regulatory skills.  相似文献   

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