Transcript School Readiness: What We Know and What We Need to Know
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 1
Talking about school readiness… again
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Discussion has been going on since the 1990s
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At that time, focus was on broadening the definition of readiness to more domains
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Definition based more on theory about what skills children need to have at kindergarten entry so as to be successful in school
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No specification of levels of skills needed
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No specified system of measurement 2
What’s changed in last 20 years
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Heightened concern about differential in school readiness between children from higher vs lower resource families: “the school readiness gap”
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Evidence of substantial proportion of children who fail to become skilled readers by 3 rd grade 3
What’s changed in last 20 years
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Pressure on early care and education to demonstrate capacity to enhance children’s development and make them ready for school
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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
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Special focus on at-risk children from low income families 4
Examples of federally-funded research
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Congressionally-mandated evaluations of Federal early childhood programs using rigorous designs- Head Start, Early Head Start, Early Reading First, Even Start
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IES-funded Preschool Curriculum Evaluation and Research (PCER) with 13 randomized studies of selected off-the-shelf curricula
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IES grants on early childhood intervention strategies —development of interventions, followed by efficacy and effectiveness studies 5
Examples of federally-funded research
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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
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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 6
Examples of federally-funded research
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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
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Quality Interventions for Early Care and Education (QUINCE) (ACF & ASPE) tested 2 strategies for increasing quality based on coaching
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Evaluation of Child Care Subsidy Strategies (ACF) tested effectiveness of LearningGames curriculum 7
Overall results
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Curriculum interventions to promote outcomes for language/early literacy, math, emotion knowledge and behavioral regulation
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For completed research, impacts range widely- none to small to moderate
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Findings don’t tell us much about “active ingredients” – which specific instructional methods are responsible
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Influence of design elements 8
Other funded research on curricula, approaches
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Studies of curricula to promote language and literacy outcomes
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National Early Literacy Panel provides summary of rigorous studies
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Small to moderate impacts on oral language outcomes
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Mostly non-significant effects on phonological awareness although a few moderate-large effects
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Moderate to large effects on print knowledge 9
Other funded research on curricula, approaches
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Studies of curricula to promote social emotional development
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Small to moderate impacts on attention, engagement, focused effort assessed directly
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Small to moderate impacts on social problem solving, emotion knowledge 10
Other funded research on curricula, approaches
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Studies of curricula to promote math learning
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Moderate to large impacts on math outcomes
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Curricula approach early math as a broad array of topics, including number, measurement, space, shape and pattern 11
Critical issues remain
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Definitional issues
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What do we really mean by school readiness?
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How can we measure it?
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School readiness gap 12
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Understanding the school readiness gap What is the school readiness gap? Is it different for different domains?
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Is closing the gap necessary to prepare children for school success?
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Have we designed interventions that close the gap? How long does it take?
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Is there a critical period for closing the gap?
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Is closing the gap sufficient--if we reduce or even close the gap, will we fix the achievement problem?
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Defining and measuring school readiness
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Need to build an “infrastructure” to guide and link research and policy
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Identifying the skills/outcomes for children that are most important to academic success
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Identifying indicators for these outcomes at the end of preschool (“indicators of school readiness”)
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Selecting measures of these indicators 14
Skills leading to academic success
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Focus on academic success
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Goal is for students to attain proficiency in academic areas
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Assumption that it is not enough to decrease involvement with crime, increase employment
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Type of employment makes a difference
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Meaning of outcomes changes over time 15
Indicators that “stand for” school rea diness
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Indicators may need to focus on a few measureable, agreed-on skills
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Indicators will not include everything we think is important for children
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Some things that we think are important for children aren’t criteria for “school readiness”
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Some things that appear to interest and engage young children haven’t been shown to predict later achievement 16
Indicators that “stand for” school readiness
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Three indicators appear to be critical
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Language development (large vocabulary with understanding of the meaning of words, semantic network of concepts)
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Cognitive self-regulation (control over attention, focus, self-evaluation)
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Early literacy (print knowledge, phonological sensitivity) 17
Measuring these indicators
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Language development
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Standardized measure of expressive vocabulary
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Both language for dual language learners
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Early literacy
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Knowledge of shape and sound of letters of alphabet
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Ability to manipulate sounds —elision/blending 18
Measuring these indicators
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Cognitive self-regulation
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Most difficult to measure
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Tasks assessing ability to act/hold back (Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders)
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Computerized tests of persistence (continuous performance)
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Computerized tests of responding/not responding when visual prompts appear 19
Crucial role of an infrastructure
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Infrastructure will help us make sense of research on research on impacts of preschool interventions
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To understand which instructional strategies are more/most effective, need to compare effects of different intervention strategies on same outcomes
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Allows us to address questions about whether focusing on one indicator (e.g., self regulation) has generalized impacts across other indicators 20
Crucial role of an infrastructure
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Need to build a systematic knowledge base on effective practices- a ‘science of practice’- for promoting school readiness
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What are the potent factors in promoting school readiness--sometimes called “active ingredients 21
Why Do We Need These
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Studies of the effects of early childhood interventions are not connected by a consistent definition of what constitutes school readiness
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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 22
The School Readiness Gap
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The reality of a school readiness gap for at risk children
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There are significant differences in children’s skills when they enter kindergarten
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This is important when gap occurs in skill areas considered to be crucial foundational skills for school success 23
The School Readiness Gap
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Discussion and analysis of gap have focused on precursors to reading proficiency
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Why focus on language and reading?
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Limited measurement and intervention in other areas
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Reading can be measured by standardized tests that support variety of analyses
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Reading widely-accepted as foundation skill crucial to school success across content areas
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Children who enter school without these skills may not catch up 24
The School Readiness Gap
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Recognition that gap is multi-faceted
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Physical (more asthma, dental disease)
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Socio-emotional (more behavioral problems) 25
The School Readiness Gap
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Gap associated with socioeconomic status
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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)
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FACES study of children in Head Start documents school readiness gap between children at the end of Head Start and national norms (ACF, 2006) 26
Evidence of language achievement gap
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CCDP
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Children more than .5 s.d. behind on receptive vocabulary at 3 years
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Gap increases to 1 s.d. by 5 years of age
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Even Start
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Children more than .5 s.d. behind on receptive vocabulary at 3 years
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Gap increases to .8 s.d. by 5 years of age 27
Growth Trajectories of Two Groups of Children
Mean at Each Measurement Point f or Full Sample (top black) & Kids in Repeat Poverty (bottom orange) Fall K 0 Mos Spr K 9 Mos Spr 1st 21 Mos Spr 3rd 45 Mos Grade/TimeMos point Spr 5th 69 Mos *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).
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Investigating the Gap with ECLS-K
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Analyses of ECLS-K longitudinal data on pre reading/reading test (Layzer & Price, 2008)
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Fall kindergarten IRT scaled scores used to sort children into deciles
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IRT scaled scores at four subsequent time points used to construct growth models for each decile 29
Growth Trajectories for Fall Kindergarten Reading Score
Mean at Each Measurement Point f or Deciles Determined by Fall Kindergarten Score Fall K 0 Mos Spr K 9 Mos Spr 1st 21 Mos Spr 3rd 45 Mos Grade/TimeMos point Spr 5th 69 Mos
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Growth Trajectories for Letter Recognition
Mean at Each Measurement Point f or Deciles Determined by Fall Kindergarten Score Fall K 0 Mos Spr K 9 Mos Spr 1st 21 Mos Spr 3rd 45 Mos Grade/TimeMos point Spr 5th 69 Mos
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Growth Trajectories for Phonological Awareness
Mean at Each Measurement Point f or Deciles Determined by Fall Kindergarten Score Fall K 0 Mos Spr K 9 Mos Spr 1st 21 Mos Spr 3rd 45 Mos Grade/TimeMos point Spr 5th 69 Mos
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Growth Trajectories for Extrapolation
Mean at Each Measurement Point f or Deciles Determined by Fall Kindergarten Score Fall K 0 Mos Spr K 9 Mos Spr 1st 21 Mos Spr 3rd 45 Mos Grade/TimeMos point Spr 5th 69 Mos
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Conclusions from ECLS-K graphs
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Children catch up on letters (spring of 1 st grade) and sounds (spring of 3 rd grade)
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Children do not catch up on comprehension of text
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There is no point short of closing the gap that prepares children adequately for reading (and, as a corollary, for school success) 34
Have the interventions closed the gap
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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
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Size of impacts suggest that our interventions can close some but not all of the gap
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Possible it takes more than one year to close gap 35
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What We Learn from Research on Intervention Effects
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On one hand, ECLS-K data suggest that children who start out with large gaps in language skills may not catch up
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Conversely, data on effective middle/high schools suggests that even with students with history of poor academic performance, possible to change student outcomes
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Will closing the gap solve the problem
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If we could actually close the gap, will we fix the achievement problem?
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Possible that readiness skills are only part of what makes students succeed: we don’t know what is involved in school achievement
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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
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For now, assume closing the gap is necessary if not sufficient 37
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Increasing pressure to measure school readiness State education departments want to be able to track progress of children state-wide
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For program planning To help them understand/demonstrate effects of policies
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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 38