This study investigates the influence of aspects of home and preschool environments upon literacy and numeracy achievement at school entry and at the end of the 3rd year of school. Individuals with unexpected performance pathways (by forming demographically adjusted groups: overachieving, average, and underachieving) were identified in order to explore the effects of the home learning environment and preschool variables on child development. Multilevel models applied to hierarchical data allow the groups that differ with regard to expected performance to be created at the child and preschool center levels. These multilevel analyses indicate powerful effects for the home learning environment and important effects of specific preschool centers at school entry. Although reduced, such effects remain several years later.Many research studies document the relationship of socioeconomic status (SES) to cognitive development and academic achievement (e.g.,

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This article explores the impact of pre‐school experience on young children's cognitive attainments at entry to primary school and analyses data collected as part of a wider longitudinal study, the Effective Provision of Pre‐school Education (EPPE) project, which followed a large sample of young children attending 141 pre‐school centres drawn from six types of provider in five English regions. The article compares the characteristics and attainments of the pre‐school sample with those of an additional ‘home’ sample (children who had not attended pre‐school) recruited at entry to reception. Multilevel analyses of relationships between child, parent and home environment characteristics and children's attainments in pre‐reading, early number concepts and language skills are presented. Duration of time in pre‐school is found to have a significant and positive impact on attainment over and above important influences such as family socio‐economic status, income, mother's qualification level, ethnic and language background. The research also points to the separate and significant influence of the home learning environment. It is concluded that pre‐school can play an important part in combating social exclusion by offering disadvantaged children, in particular, a better start to primary school.

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