School Readiness Research Paper

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All children should enter school ready to learn. In order for children to be ready for school at Kindergarten, the critical building blocks of Healthy Development, Strong Families, and Early Learning need be put in place during early childhood.

The following maps and fact sheets are a snapshot of level of risk in Kansas and research on risk and protective factors for school readiness.

A number of risk factors can delay school readiness, while protective factors help support children to be ready for school.

MAPS

The following maps depict the level of risk for each county based on census data for these risk factors:

percent of families with children under 18 living in poverty (Poverty)

percent of adults with less than a high school

education (Less than HS)
percent of households where no one age 14 or over speaks English (Language).2

POVERTY RATE
The Poverty map shows the percentage of families in poverty divided into four groups. Lower numbers indicate a county has low levels of poverty, denoted by the lighter colors and high numbers indicate higher levels of poverty, denoted by darker colors on the map.

About Poverty
Poverty poses a significant barrier to school readiness. Perhaps the most significant impact is in the area of non-cognitive skills including social-emotional development. Furthermore, the difficulties of poverty are often exacerbated by and inextricably linked to characteristics associated with poverty: lower parental education; single and teen parents; poor health; stress, depression, and anxiety; harsh parenting; and lack of cognitive stimulation.

Fourth Grade Reading
The 4th Grade Reading map displays the percentage of children in each school district who are categorized as meeting College and Career Readiness (CCR) standards as defined by the Kansas Department of Education. The CCR standards define skills that all students must demonstrate, such as the ability to determine and summarize central ideas of a text.3

Cumulative Risk
Cumulative risk scores were calculated based on ranking within each risk factor from the previous maps. Poverty, education and 4th grade reading were assigned a score from 1 to 4 (4 being the highest risk) based on the level of risk. Scores for households where no one over 14 speaks English were split due to the distribution of scores. Counties with more than 5% of households with no one over 14 that speaks English were given a 4 for risk in the area of language. Cumulative scores ranged from 4 indicating no risk to 16 indicating high levels of risk in all four areas.
Hovering over a county allows you to see the level of each of the risk factors and if they have ECBG services in the county.
Research: Risk and Protective Factors for School Readiness
An abundance of research exists on the risk factors that contribute to the disparities in children’s school readiness. While the presence of risk does not inevitably determine that a child will fall behind, the existence of risk can be powerful enough to create barriers. An increase in the likelihood of delays has been found to be proportionate to the number of risk factors a child experiences. The cumulative risk model demonstrates that the more risk factors experienced in early childhood, the less likely a child is to be ready for kindergarten.3
School readiness can be conceptualized as a many stranded rope woven together of a combination of factors that differ for each child. Although there are individual differences, each rope contains certain key strands from the individual child, their family and the financial resources available to them. Separately each key strand is important but in combination they weave together to create a resilient ready child.
Research provides a consistent picture of the key strands which impact a child’s ability to begin school on the best possible footing. By targeting the most predominant risk and protective factors and promoting evidence-based interventions we can promote school readiness in Kansas. The long term prosperity of not just individual families but communities and the state depend on the optimal development during this critical period of development. The following represents a brief compilation of the most relevant research on the risk factors impacting school readiness and the interventions that can reduce the consequences of risk.

Risk & Protective Factors: Child
Investing in early childhood education for at-risk children is an effective strategy for reducing social costs and promoting economic growth, Heckman, 2012 (James Heckman is a Distinguished Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Chicago. Among his many honors and recognitions, he won a Nobel Prize in Economics in 2000 for his work in microeconomics. He is known for his work in labor economics, in particular regarding the efficacy and return on investment of early childhood education programs).

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL REGULATION
Executive functions are the brain’s air traffic control system, managing cognitive processes such as attention, inhibition and planning. Research has indicated that problems with executive functions have a cascading effect leading to poor social and educational outcomes for children.1
A lack of behavioral regulation, social-emotional skills and executive functions can result in disrupted classrooms and place a child at-risk for poor academic and social outcomes.
A survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics of kindergarten teachers’ ranking of the qualities most important for school readiness indicated the primacy of social-emotional skills and executive functions. Teachers rated non-cognitive skills two to ten times higher than pre-literacy and numeracy for academic readiness.3
Poor executive functions such as impulsiveness/inattention have also been associated with peer rejection, depressive behavior, development of conduct problems, and poor school adjustment.5
Executive functions and behavioral regulation (e.g. inhibitory control, effortful control, attention shifting) were significantly predictive of both concurrent and future academic outcomes (including literacy and math scores) even when intelligence was included in the model.6
EARLY EDUCATION
Although studies have found variation in outcomes, high quality early educational experiences serve as a protective factor for children at-risk.
PreK participation has been associated with higher scores on language, literacy, and math assessments through the fifth grade, as well as lower grade retention and special education placement.7
Teacher-reported behavior problems were lower for children who participated in Head Start compared to peers with no PreK participation. Positive effects on executive functions and emotional development were also found.8
Well-funded PreK programs and participation in PreK for two years have more persistent effects than poorly funded programs and participation for only one year.7
Long-term follow-up of Perry Preschool Program participants indicated lower levels of dependence on public assistance, lower levels of criminal activity, and that female participants attained higher levels of education. Positive effects on executive functions and emotional development were also found.9
Early childhood development drives success in school and life. Investing in early childhood education for at-risk children is a cost-effective strategy for promoting economic growth.10
FAMILY
The capacity and interest of parents to stimulate and guide their children impacts the child’s ability to develop both socially and academically.
Language
Maternal speech abilities and exposure to reading during early childhood were found to mediate the effect of socioeconomic status on school readiness.3
In a study of low socioeconomic status (SES) Spanish speaking families, language directed toward interaction with the child in the home was found to promote the child’s vocabulary and predict school readiness. The study reveals nearly as much variability in child-directed speech among low SES families as between economically diverse families indicating that child-directed speech is not solely a function of SES.4
Although bilingualism has been shown to be a strength later in life, the challenges of acquiring proficiency in language in multi-language households also places a child at-risk during his/her early years. Research has found that children who live in homes where the primary language is other than English tend to enter school with lower language skills in each language than monolingual students.3
Latino dual language learners often continue to lag behind peers throughout school because of the relationship between English proficiency, educational attainment and prosperity after schooling, students who experience difficulty with English literacy may exhibit delays well past pre-school and kindergarten.4
Parenting

Parenting style has been associated with school readiness outcomes for children, with harsh parenting linked to developmental risks and supportive parenting linked to more advanced language and literacy knowledge.7

Maternal supportiveness, in particular, has been linked to children’s short- and long-term cognitive development and emotional regulation.8

The capacity and interest of parents to cognitively stimulate their children and guide them through failure impacts the child’s ability to develop both socially and academically.

Skilled parenting has been found to reduce cognitive problems, inattention, oppositional behaviors, improve social skills and emotional regulation, and have an overall positive impact on readiness.9

Parent Education
Low maternal education has been found to be a significant risk factor for child development.10

When parents suffer from difficulties with reading, their ability to engage their children in reading activities becomes a challenge. These setbacks can cause children to enter school behind peers whose parents have higher levels of education.

Economically disadvantaged children with college-educated mothers were found to be as ready for school as their more affluent peers with college-educated mothers.11

Home Visiting

Home visiting is an approach to parent education, frequently delivered in the home environment by a home visitor. Topics covered vary by program but may include maternal and child health, child development, play, provision of a stimulating environment, nutrition, and supports for parents. Frequency of visits range from 1 visit total to sustained visits 4 or more times a month.

An analysis of 51 studies by Filene and colleagues (2013) found that "parents and children participating in home visiting programs achieved more positive outcomes overall than parents and children in control/comparison groups." Home visiting results improve when paired with other services, and with more intensive (e.g., more home visits) programs.12

Children in home visiting programs show fewer behavioral problems, favorable developmental outcomes, and scored higher on tests of academic achievement.13

FINANCIAL RESOURCES
Income has been found to be the single highest correlate of academic achievement.3
Poverty poses a significant barrier to school readiness. Perhaps the most significant impact is in the area of non-cognitive skills including socio-emotional development. Furthermore, the difficulties of poverty are often exacerbated by and inextricably linked to characteristics associated with poverty: lower parental education; single and teen parents; poor health; stress, depression, and anxiety; harsh parenting; and lack of cognitive stimulation.4

Social Emotional Impacts

Children growing up with low income-to-needs ratios displayed less self-regulation, a key component in social-emotional development, than children with high income-to-needs ratios.5

Income has also been found to be associated with lower levels of approaches to learning (e.g., participation, engagement and motivation), interpersonal skills, and self-control than their peers from more affluent homes.6

The gap in social-emotional skills associated with socioeconomic status was observed to widen dramatically from kindergarten to fifth grade.5

Hamad and Rehkopf (2016) observed that both higher Earned Income Tax Credit payments and higher income were associated with better short-term behavior and self-regulation in children, implying that when families have more resources, their children experience fewer difficulties during development.

Cognitive Impacts

As a predictor of child IQ, income/poverty is more influential than even maternal education.7

Income has been found to be the single highest correlate of academic achievement.3

Linver, Brookes-Gunn, and Kohen (2002)8 found a significant relationship between income and child cognitive ability after following a group of nearly 500 children from birth to age 5.

“A typical middle-class child enters 1st grade with 1,000 to 1,700 hours of one-on-one picture book reading, compared with an average of just 25 hours for a child from a low-income family”.7

SCHOOL READINESS
Impact of Income on School Readiness
Poverty poses a significant barrier to school readiness.

One study of birth to age 5 found a significant relationship between income and child cognitive ability.

(Linver, Brookes-Gunn, & Kohen, 2002)

Children from typical middle-class homes entered elementary school with between 1,000 and 1,700 hours of parental reading, compared to the average of only 25 hours for children from a typical low-income home.

Blue Sheet

Kindergarten teachers rank social-emotional skills and executive functions as the qualities most important for school readiness.

Executive functions and behavioral regulation have been found to remain important in predicting of academic outcomes even when intelligence is included.

No differences were found in school readiness between economically disadvantaged and affluent children if their mothers were college-educated.

Income has been found to be the single highest correlate of academic achievement.

ECBG At-Risk Factors

Currently, the goal of the Early Childhood Block Grant is to serve children and families who are "at-risk" with services that fall under the three areas identified by the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund of Healthy Development, Strong Families and Early Learning. In the last request for grant proposals at-risk was defined by the following

factors.