School Readiness Research
The National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education has two new fact sheets available.
Readiness for School Involves an Array of Skills: Let’s Not Forget Fine Motor Development
“Interest in children’s success as readers has existed for a long time. With growing attention to our nation’s global competitiveness, school success with math and science is joining reading as important topic areas for children’s early learning. As a result, new research is exploring predictors of school success with math and science as well as for reading.
Towards this end, researchers from the National Center for Research in Early Childhood Education (NCRECE) re-examined longitudinal data from a ground-breaking study that identified kindergarten readiness factors. Their findings, which are presented in two related studies, confirm the value of a broad-based, early childhood education (ECE) curricula that incorporate multiple content areas and facilitates children’s overall development.”
Expanding School Readiness Gains in Prekindergarten
“This study focused on individual children and the type of activities with which they engage during their prekindergarten day – what the researchers call “pattern of classroom engagement.” Looking beyond the environment provided for learning and delving more deeply into activities occupying children’s time, this study sought to examine the relationship between four different patterns of classroom engagement and children’s later success on language, literacy, and mathematics school readiness indicators.
The study had two overarching purposes: (1) To assess the relationship between children’s pattern of classroom engagement and their school readiness gains during the prekindergarten year and (2) To learn if some patterns of classroom engagement promoted greater school readiness gains for low-income children.”
