School readiness and growth in academic abilities from school entry to 5th grade within a disadvantaged sample
Open Access
- Author:
- Moore, Julia Elizabeth
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- December 12, 2011
- Committee Members:
- Mark T Greenberg, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Mark T Greenberg, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Celene E Domitrovich, Committee Member
Scott David Gest, Committee Member
Eric Loken, Committee Member
Daphne Hernandez, Committee Member
Alysia Blandon, Special Member - Keywords:
- school readiness
social-emotional competence
academic achievement - Abstract:
- School readiness is a continuous, malleable, multi-faceted process that develops during early childhood and results in how ready a child is to learn as they enter school. Components of school readiness include children’s academic readiness, cognitive readiness, and social, emotional, and behavioral readiness. Based on studies assessing the relation between school readiness and academic achievement, specific aspects of children’s academic readiness, including vocabulary, reading, and math abilities and components of cognitive readiness, such as attention, are consistent predictors of later academic success. The findings for the social, emotional, and behavioral aspects of school readiness have been mixed, with some studies finding a relation to later academic outcomes, while others do not. The current study uses multiple analytical approaches to examine the relation between demographic characteristics, academic readiness, and school readiness, and children’s vocabulary, reading, and math achievement in elementary school within a predominantly Black, urban, low-income sample. The sample consisted of 306 children who attended an enhanced preschool program and were followed from preschool to 5th grade. Children experienced a considerable amount of growth in reading and math skills relative to national norms from Kindergarten to 5th grade. Results revealed that predictors of children’s vocabulary skills in Kindergarten and 5th grade included preschool vocabulary and reading abilities, and emotion knowledge; emotion knowledge also predicted growth in elementary vocabulary skills. Preschool reading and math were significantly related to Kindergarten and 5th grade reading; emotion recognition was related to 5th grade reading ability. Preschool pre-reading skills were associated with growth in elementary reading, with a narrowing of the gap by 5th grade between those with lower and higher abilities in preschool. Kindergarten and 5th grade math skills were predicted by preschool math and reading; sustained attention predicted Kindergarten math. Preschool pre-math abilities predicted growth in math, with the gap between lower and higher achieving students narrowing during elementary school. Even within a disadvantaged population, variations in maternal education predicted Kindergarten academic abilities. After accounting for preschool academic abilities, demographic factors did not predict growth in academic achievement during elementary school. Despite previous studies which have not found a relation between the social, emotional, and behavioral aspects of school readiness on children’s later academic achievement, the current study found that children’s with higher emotion knowledge in preschool had higher scores in vocabulary and math in elementary school. Significant associations were found with direct child assessments of emotion knowledge, but not with teacher-rated measures of social competence or behavior problems.