Patterns of school readiness among head start children: Meaningful within-group variability during the transition to kindergarten.

Abstract

This study is a population-based investigation of children's school readiness with a national sample of low-income children, utilizing data from the Family and Children's Experiences Survey (FACES;-2003. Guided by a developmental ecological framework, we posed 3 research questions: (a) How do children's early school readiness skills in the social and cognitive domains overlap (as they enter preschool)? (b) Do these configurations of school readiness skills meaningfully predict children's school adjustment by the end of kindergarten? (c) In addition to the pattems of children's school readiness identified at the beginning of their first Head Start year, do relevant family and classroom context factors help to predict and/or moderate end-of-kindergarten outcomes? Results revealed 5 distinct pattems of school readiness for this national sample of low-income children. These profiles related in meaningful ways to end-of-kindergarten outcomes, such that children in more competent preschool profiles did better over time. Moreover, these pattems of school readiness identified at the beginning of the Head Start year were the most consistent predictors of end-of-kindergarten performance, controlling for demographic and context factors. However, results revealed that proximal contextual influences in the family (i.e., maternal education and parenting style) and classroom (i.e., teacher experience, teacher education, and adult-child ratio) further predicted end of kindergarten performance across preacademic and social domains. Findings illuminated significant within-group pattems and variability among an at-risk population, relevant for informing early childhood education and early intervention.During the transition from preschool to kindergarten, young children are confronted with new and diverse developmental challenges. These developmental challenges include learning how to engage successfully with children and adults outside of one's family and close networks, leaming how to negotiate the physical and psychological space of the early childhood classroom, and leaming to manage performance expectations in a school setting. These new demands require children's social-emotional and cogtiitive competence as they develop across home and school environments. Because of the dynamic development characteristic of

Patterns of Early Reading and Social Skills Associated With Academic Success in Elementary School

“…Although previous investigations with representative and more high-risk samples have reported that social competence is associated with academic functioning at first grade, the current findings with a large, national sample extend this work through fifth grade (Hair et al, 2006; PATTERNS OF EARLY READING AND SOCIAL SKILLS Konold & Pianta, 2005;McWayne et al, 2012). Taken together, these findings provide strong descriptive evidence of how children with similar academic abilities (in reading, in our case) who vary in early social competence differ in mean levels of later academic success.…”

“…They found that preschoolers who had average cognitive abilities but high social competence and few behavior problems performed well in first grade, whereas preschoolers who had poor social skills and behavioral skills in preschool did poorly. Other studies have found similar results, suggesting that early social skills may serve as a protective factor for later outcomes when children have moderate or low academic=cognitive abilities in early childhood but may be less important for more academically ready children (Bierman, Torres, Domitrovich, Welsh, & Gest, 2009;Hair et al, 2006;Konold & Pianta, 2005;McWayne et al, 2012;Sabol & Pianta, 2012). Variable-centered approaches, even including interactions, may not detect these patterns.…”

“…These approaches are aimed at identifying particular constellations of characteristics that describe subgroups of children (Bergman & Magnusson, 1997;Lewin, 1931) and thus account for the complex, interactional nature of the multiple factors that contribute to children's development (Laursen & Hoff, 2006). Several recent studies suggest that the associations between preschool and kindergarten academic, cognitive, social, and behavioral skills and later academic and social competence are more complex than originally thought (Bierman et al, 2008;Hair, Halle, Terry-Humen, Lavelle, & Calkins, 2006;Konold & Pianta, 2005;McWayne, Cheung, Wright, & Hahs-Vaughn, 2012;Sabol & Pianta, 2012). One example is Konold and Pianta (2005), who identified six profiles of preschoolers with varying levels of cognitive and social=behavioral skills in a large national sample.…”

Developing preschoolers' social skills through cross-cultural physical education intervention

“…The enhancement of children's social skills is one of the most important outcomes of early childhood education (Gregoriadis, Grammatikopoulos, & Zachopoulou, 2013;Serpell & Mashburn, 2012) because preschoolers' social skills are related to school readiness and adjustment (Denham, 2006;Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, & Cox, 2000), in order to later succeed in academic achievement (McWayne, Cheung, Green Wright, & Hahs-Vaughn, 2012;Oades-Sese, Esquivel, Kaliski, & Maniatis, 2011) and to peer acceptance (Lindsey, 2002).…”

Playing with others: Head Start children's peer play and relations with kindergarten school competence

“…This is particularly true for children who come from low-income households and are thought to be at risk for difficulties in adjusting to formal schooling (McWayne, Cheung, Green Wright, & Hahs-Vaughn, 2012). Engagement with peers can be influential in several domains (emotional, cognitive, social) that are important for school competence (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006).…”