1 School Readiness: What We Know and What We Need to Know Barbara Dillon Goodson A Presentation at the 4 th Annual IES Research Conference June 7, 2009 Washington, DC

2 Talking about school readiness… again Discussion has been going on since the 1990s – At that time, focus was on broadening the definition of readiness to more domains – Definition based more on theory about what skills children need to have at kindergarten entry so as to be successful in school – No specification of levels of skills needed – No specified system of measurement

3 What’s changed in last 20 years Heightened concern about differential in school readiness between children from higher vs lower resource families: “the school readiness gap” Evidence of substantial proportion of children who fail to become skilled readers by 3 rd grade

4 What’s changed in last 20 years Pressure on early care and education to demonstrate capacity to enhance children’s development and make them ready for school In the late 1990’s, the federal government began to fund a substantial body of research to expand knowledge about interventions programs/curricula that are effective at improving school readiness Special focus on at-risk children from low- income families Is a growing body of research testing effectiveness of early childhood interventions

5 Examples of federally-funded research Congressionally-mandated evaluations of Federal early childhood programs using rigorous designs-- Head Start, Early Head Start, Early Reading First, Even Start IES-funded Preschool Curriculum Evaluation and Research (PCER) with 13 randomized studies of selected off-the-shelf curricula IES grants on early childhood intervention strategies—development of interventions, followed by efficacy and effectiveness studies

6 Examples of federally-funded research Interagency School Readiness Consortium (ISRC) (NICHD, ACF, ASPE, OSERS with 8 randomized studies of newly developed school readiness interventions that have integrated focus on cognitive, literacy, and socioemotional aspects of development The Head Start Classroom-based Approaches and Resources for Emotion and Social Skill Promotion (CARES) Project tests 4 evidence-based strategies to improve children’s social and emotional development

7 Examples of federally-funded research 3 national studies of interventions for children in home-based care tested effectiveness of different provider training models in enhancing the quality of family child care and promoting positive child outcomes – Quality Interventions for Early Care and Education (QUINCE) (ACF & ASPE) tested 2 strategies for increasing quality based on coaching – Evaluation of Child Care Subsidy Strategies (ACF) tested effectiveness of LearningGames curriculum

8 Overall results Curriculum interventions to promote outcomes for language/early literacy, math, emotion knowledge and behavioral regulation For completed research, impacts range widely-- none to small to moderate Findings don’t tell us much about “active ingredients” – which specific instructional methods are responsible Influence of design elements

9 Other funded research on curricula, approaches Studies of curricula to promote language and literacy outcomes – National Early Literacy Panel provides summary of rigorous studies – Small to moderate impacts on oral language outcomes – Mostly non-significant effects on phonological awareness although a few moderate-large effects – Moderate to large effects on print knowledge

10 Other funded research on curricula, approaches Studies of curricula to promote social- emotional development – Small to moderate impacts on attention, engagement, focused effort assessed directly – Small to moderate impacts on social problem solving, emotion knowledge

11 Other funded research on curricula, approaches Studies of curricula to promote math learning – Moderate to large impacts on math outcomes – Curricula approach early math as a broad array of topics, including number, measurement, space, shape and pattern

12 Critical issues remain Definitional issues – What do we really mean by school readiness? – How can we measure it? School readiness gap

13 Understanding the school readiness gap What is the school readiness gap? Is it different for different domains? Is closing the gap necessary to prepare children for school success? Have we designed interventions that close the gap? How long does it take? Is there a critical period for closing the gap? Is closing the gap sufficient--if we reduce or even close the gap, will we fix the achievement problem?

14 Defining and measuring school readiness Need to build an “infrastructure” to guide and link research and policy – Identifying the skills/outcomes for children that are most important to academic success – Identifying indicators for these outcomes at the end of preschool (“indicators of school readiness”) – Selecting measures of these indicators

15 Skills leading to academic success Focus on academic success – Goal is for students to attain proficiency in academic areas – Assumption that it is not enough to decrease involvement with crime, increase employment Type of employment makes a difference Meaning of outcomes changes over time

16 Indicators that “stand for” school rea diness Indicators may need to focus on a few measureable, agreed-on skills Indicators will not include everything we think is important for children – Some things that we think are important for children aren’t criteria for “school readiness” – Some things that appear to interest and engage young children haven’t been shown to predict later achievement

17 Indicators that “stand for” school readiness Three indicators appear to be critical – Language development (large vocabulary with understanding of the meaning of words, semantic network of concepts) – Cognitive self-regulation (control over attention, focus, self-evaluation) – Early literacy (print knowledge, phonological sensitivity)

18 Measuring these indicators Language development – Standardized measure of expressive vocabulary – Both language for dual language learners Early literacy – Knowledge of shape and sound of letters of alphabet – Ability to manipulate sounds—elision/blending

19 Measuring these indicators Cognitive self-regulation – Most difficult to measure – Tasks assessing ability to act/hold back (Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders) – Computerized tests of persistence (continuous performance) – Computerized tests of responding/not responding when visual prompts appear

20 Crucial role of an infrastructure Infrastructure will help us make sense of research on research on impacts of preschool interventions – To understand which instructional strategies are more/most effective, need to compare effects of different intervention strategies on same outcomes – Allows us to address questions about whether focusing on one indicator (e.g., self- regulation) has generalized impacts across other indicators

21 Crucial role of an infrastructure Need to build a systematic knowledge base on effective practices-- a ‘science of practice’-- for promoting school readiness – What are the potent factors in promoting school readiness--sometimes called “active ingredients

22 Why Do We Need These Studies of the effects of early childhood interventions are not connected by a consistent definition of what constitutes school readiness Studies tend to use measures that align with the intervention and do not attempt to assess a more comprehensive set of outcomes across other domains.

23 The School Readiness Gap The reality of a school readiness gap for at- risk children There are significant differences in children’s skills when they enter kindergarten This is important when gap occurs in skill areas considered to be crucial foundational skills for school success.

24 The School Readiness Gap Discussion and analysis of gap have focused on precursors to reading proficiency Why focus on language and reading? – Limited measurement and intervention in other areas – Reading can be measured by standardized tests that support variety of analyses – Reading widely-accepted as foundation skill crucial to school success across content areas – Children who enter school without these skills may not catch up.

25 The School Readiness Gap Recognition that gap is multi-faceted – Physical (more asthma, dental disease) – Socio-emotional (more behavioral problems).

26 The School Readiness Gap Gap associated with socioeconomic status – In ECLS-K data, cognitive scores among children in the highest SES group are 60% higher than those of children in the lowest SES group (Lee & Burkam, 2002) – FACES study of children in Head Start documents school readiness gap between children at the end of Head Start and national norms (ACF, 2006).

27 Evidence of language achievement gap CCDP – Children more than.5 s.d. behind on receptive vocabulary at 3 years – Gap increases to 1 s.d. by 5 years of age Even Start – Children more than.5 s.d. behind on receptive vocabulary at 3 years – Gap increases to.8 s.d. by 5 years of age.

28 Growth Trajectories of Two Groups of Children Mean at Each Measurement Point for Full Sample (top black) and Children in Repeat Poverty (bottom orange) *Children whose families are in repeated poverty (poverty at the time of the Fall K test and poverty at one or more subsequent measurement points).

29 Investigating the Gap with ECLS-K Analyses of ECLS-K longitudinal data on pre- reading/reading test (Layzer & Price, 2008) Fall kindergarten IRT scaled scores used to sort children into deciles IRT scaled scores at four subsequent time points used to construct growth models for each decile

30 Growth Trajectories for Fall Kindergarten Reading Score

31 Growth Trajectories for Letter Recognition

32 Growth Trajectories for Phonological Awareness

33 Growth Trajectories for Extrapolation

34 Conclusions from ECLS-K graphs Children catch up on letters (spring of 1 st grade) and sounds (spring of 3 rd grade) Children do not catch up on comprehension of text There is no point short of closing the gap that prepares children adequately for reading (and, as a corollary, for school success)

35 Have the interventions closed the gap Recent summary papers suggest an increasing variety of types of early childhood education interventions and curricula are effective at improving children’s outcomes across domains. Size of impacts suggest that our interventions can close some but not all of the gap Possible it takes more than one year to close gap.

36 What We Learn from Research on Intervention Effects On one hand, ECLS-K data suggest that children who start out with large gaps in language skills may not catch up Conversely, data on effective middle/high schools suggests that even with students with history of poor academic performance, possible to change student outcomes..

37 Will closing the gap solve the problem If we could actually close the gap, will we fix the achievement problem? – Possible that readiness skills are only part of what makes students succeed: we don’t know what is involved in school achievement – Will not know this until we have successfully closed the gap for a large number of at-risk preschoolers and see how they do in school – For now, assume closing the gap is necessary if not sufficient

38 Increasing pressure to measure school readiness State education departments want to be able to track progress of children state-wide – For program planning – To help them understand/demonstrate effects of policies Responsibility of researchers to the field to take on task of proposing a small set of school readiness indicators and how they are to be measured