Formative Evaluation of the Early Development Instrument: Progress and Prospects

This article is a commentary for the special issue on the Early Development Instrument (EDI), a community tool to assess children's school readiness and developmental outcomes at a group level. The EDI is administered by kindergarten teachers, who assess their kindergarten students on 5 developmental domains: physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, and communication skills and general knowledge. In this commentary, the author critically integrates research findings from projects that used the EDI to assess children's development at a community or population level, as presented in the research articles of this special issue. In addition, the EDI is situated in the school readiness literature, and forthcoming research directions and challenges that will largely determine the risk-benefit ratio of the EDI are discussed in regard to the following 3 topics: the advantages and limitations of using teacher judgment for the EDI, the establishment of the EDI's reliability and validity at a group (community, population) level, the EDI's effectiveness for intervention and program evaluation and measurement.     

The School Entry Gap: Socioeconomic, Family, and Health Factors Associated With Children's School Readiness to Learn

Notwithstanding the constant debate in the scientific and policy literature on the precise meaning of school readiness, research consistently demonstrates a wide variation between groups of children resulting in a gap at school entry. Recently, the teacher-completed Early Development Instrument (EDI), a new measure of children's school readiness in 5 developmental areas, was developed, tested, and implemented in Canada. EDI results confirmed the existence of a school entry gap. In this article, we explore factors in 5 areas of risk: socioeconomic status, family structure, child health, parent health, and parent involvement in literacy development. In a series of logistic regressions, we demonstrate that variables in all 5 areas, as well as age and gender, contribute to the gap. Child's suboptimal health, male gender, and coming from a family with low income contribute most strongly to the vulnerability at school entry. As the purpose of a tool like the EDI is primarily to assist in population-level reporting on children's school readiness, the results of our study provide additional and much-needed evidence on the instrument's sensitivity at the individual level, thus paving the way for its use in interpreting children's school readiness in the context of their lives and the communities in which they live.     

Examining the Relationship Between Neighborhood Environment and School Readiness for Kindergarten Children

In the current research project, the relationship between neighborhood environment and school readiness was investigated. To measure neighbourhood environment, data from the 2001 Canadian Census were used, while school readiness was measured using the Early Development Instrument (EDI). EDI data were collected for kindergarten children across British Columbia, Canada, in the school years 2000/2001 through 2004/2005 by the Human Early Learning Partnership. A hierarchical linear modeling approach to data analysis was taken given the complex structure of the data (children nested within neighborhoods). Results from this study suggest that neighborhood environment is related to children's school readiness outcomes as measured by the EDI. Specifically, all 5 EDI domains were significantly predicted by between 2 and 8 of 13 neighborhood variables that were conceptually grouped into 8 categories accounting for family structure, income, education, Aboriginal status, language, labor force occupations, employment rates, and domestic work. Overall, 3 themes emerged from this study that suggest neighborhood-level sources of social wealth: the importance of neighborhood culture, stability, and heterogeneity in promoting better school readiness outcomes for children. Formulations regarding areas for future research are presented.     

School Readiness: Are There Social Prerequisites?

The position advocated within this article is that the construct of “school readiness” has a social component, and that attempts to evaluate children's interpersonal readiness for kindergarten should be judged in relation to their likely success at mastering specific social school entry tasks. Social school entry tasks, which most likely stem from diverse sociocultural sources, are conceptualized here as interpersonal challenges that children confront as they enter formal schooling—challenges that are inherent within kindergarten classrooms and predictive of children's future school adjustment. A related contention is that attempts to enhance children's readiness for kindergarten should be guided by research on the prerequisites of social task mastery—that is, evidence gathered during the preschool years that forecasts children's later success at social school entry tasks. Evidence bearing on these premises is reviewed as a means of considering the validity and heuristic utility of these propositions for future research on school readiness.     

The Early Development Index and children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

The Early Development Index (EDI) is a teacher‐completed checklist, intended to be a population‐level tool to measure children's readiness for school and to alert communities to potential developmental problems in children. In response to the increasing popularity of the EDI, this paper provides a critical and timely evaluation and identifies the areas for improvement and modifications. The paper aims: (1) to identify the limitations of the EDI as a universal screening tool, particularly with regard to children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (CALD); (2) to alert readers to the potential negative implications of the current EDI for communities and society, and (3) to recommend ways for improvement so that the EDI will become a valid and culturally appropriate screening tool for monitoring early development in CALD children. The ultimate aim is to help build an education system and a society that can respect cultural and individual differences.     

Kindergarten school readiness and fourth‐grade literacy and numeracy outcomes of children with special needs: a population‐based study

In British Columbia, Canada, two population‐based databases have been linked at the level of the individual child: the Early Development Instrument, a Kindergarten school readiness measure; and the Foundation Skills Assessment, a Grade Four academic assessment. Utilising these linked data, we explored the early school readiness, literacy, and numeracy outcomes of a province‐wide study population of children with special needs (N = 3677) followed longitudinally from Kindergarten to Grade Four. In particular, we explored the categories of special needs among our study population. In addition, we investigated the Kindergarten school readiness and Grade Four literacy and numeracy outcomes of children with special needs. We also explored the Grade Four literacy and numeracy outcomes of children with special needs who were ‘not school ready’ at Kindergarten. Finally, we identified the categories of special needs of children who participated in the Kindergarten data collection, but were missing literacy and numeracy scores at Grade Four. Future directions are discussed.     

The Effects of Gender, at-Risk Status, and Number of Years in Preschool on Children's Academic Readiness

While there has been a number of studies examining the effects of preschool as intervention for children of economic poverty and special needs children, there has not been research examining the effects of preschool education for the general population of children. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of years of preschool, gender, and at-risk status on children's readiness for first grade. 4539 children participated in the study. 104 children started public school at three-years-old (K3), 1234started school at age four (K4) and 3201 started at age five. At-risk status was determined using the Cooperative Preschool Inventory (Caldwell, 1974) and first grade readiness was determined using the Metropolitan Readiness Test (MRT; Nurss & McGauvran, 1974). Results of the analyses indicated that children who entered the public school preschool program at K3 or K4 scored significantly higher on the MRT than children who entered at K5. Additionally, the findings indicated that if children started at K3, by the end of kindergarten there was no difference between the at-risk and not-at-risk children's scores on the MRT. This was not true for the K4 or K5 groups. The discussion focuses on two issues. First, the relationship between the benefits of preschool and continuity of programs, and second, that “regular” preschool education may serve as intervention for those children who require it, if attended long enough.     

Assessing School Readiness: Validity and Bias in Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers' Ratings

As a part of efforts to evaluate and monitor the increasing public investment in early childhood education, teachers are being asked to assess children's school readiness. In this study, preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers rated children's skills in three areas (kindergarten readiness, academic skills, and communication skills), and these ratings were compared with direct assessments of the children's skills. Ratings by both groups of teachers tended to be more highly related to basic skills, such as counting and number naming, than to abilities such as solving applied problems and using expressive and receptive vocabulary. Preschool teachers' ratings had a lower association with children's observed skills and abilities than kindergarten teachers' ratings. Ratings of children attending Head Start were systematically inflated, but this relationship was mediated to a significant extent by the teachers' levels of education. More educated teachers rated children in a manner consistent with the children's directly assessed skills. Implications of these findings for informing future efforts to assess school readiness by using teacher ratings are discussed.     

The Case for a Middle School College Readiness Index: Rejoinder to Lazowski,Barron, Kosovich,and Hulleman and Mattern,Allen, and Camara

This rejoinder provides a reply to comments on a middle school college readiness index, which was devised to generate earlier and more nuanced readiness diagnoses to K‐12 students. Issues of reliability and validity (including construct underrepresentation and construct‐irrelevant variance) are discussed in detail. In addition, comments from Lazowski et al. and Mattern et al. provide a useful summary of areas where more college readiness research is needed. This rejoinder elaborates on those essential next steps, including deploying readiness indicators in school settings. Advances in the measurement of noncognitive skills will require more validity research using more contemporary data from authentic school settings. Still, the middle school college readiness index is a promising proof of concept, demonstrating the utility of diverse, early measures to support targeted, timely interventions.     

广西壮族农村儿童家庭环境和入学准备的研究

为了考察广西壮族农村儿童家庭环境及其对儿童入学准备的影响,我们对广西某县4个乡镇的409名壮族农村儿童(平均年龄为77个月,标准差为3.63)和他们的父母进行了研究。研究工具根据美国研究院的儿童入学准备测验和父母问卷改编而成。结果表明,父母是否在家对儿童入学准备成绩有一定影响。根据父母受教育水平、家庭收入、父母对孩子的教育期望等分组的儿童在入学准备成绩上有显著差异。回归统计分析表明,家庭学习环境、母亲受教育水平和家庭收入是预测儿童入学准备成绩的重要指标。     

Development and validation of the Preschool Temperament Classification System for use with teachers

The purpose of the current study is to describe the development and validation of a new measure of temperament, the Preschool Temperament Classification System (PTCS). The PTCS was developed as a typological measure that identifies children's temperament styles as undercontrolled, resilient, or overcontrolled. The PTCS is a time efficient structured interview assessing children's temperament as it is observed in the classroom environment. During the 20 min interview, teachers classify all of the children in their class into one of the three temperament styles, rank order children within each temperament group, and assign an intensity rating to each child, indicating how well the child matches his/her assigned temperament group. Data were collected on 196 preschool-age children from 25 Head Start classrooms in an urban area. Teachers assessed children's temperament and peer play behaviors, and trained research assistants assessed children's school readiness. The PTCS classified children into temperament groups that showed expected relations to peer play competence and school readiness after controlling for age and gender, indicating good validity. Test–retest reliability was moderate to high. Overall the PTCS shows promise as a valid and reliable teacher measure of preschool children's temperament.     

School Readiness: Are There Social Prerequisites?

The position advocated within this article is that the construct of "school readiness" has a social component, and that attempts to evaluate children's interpersonal readiness for kindergarten should be judged in relation to their likely success at mastering specific social school entry tasks. Social school entry tasks, which most likely stem from diverse sociocultural sources, are conceptualized here as interpersonal challenges that children confront as they enter formal schooling—challenges that are inherent within kindergarten classrooms and predictive of children's future school adjustment. A related contention is that attempts to enhance children's readiness for kindergarten should be guided by research on the prerequisites of social task mastery—that is, evidence gathered during the preschool years that forecasts children's later success at social school entry tasks. Evidence bearing on these premises is reviewed as a means of considering the validity and heuristic utility of these propositions for future research on school readiness.     

Developmental Disabilities and the Concept of School Readiness

This paper reviews the concept of school readiness as it applies to children with disabilities. It is argued that children with disabilities are of two primary types: normative and non-normative. The majority of children in special education are in the non-normative category, whose definition is based on failures in children's early encounters with the educational system. Classification of such children as "not-ready for school" is a function of bureaucratic definition, teacher variability, and the child's ethnicity and social class. The authors have taken the position that children in both disability categories should be considered appropriate for regular general education and that the readiness concept which appears to be most appropriate for children with labeled special needs is actually not appropriate for any child.     

Skills, capabilities and inequalities at school entry in a disadvantaged community

Socioeconomic inequalities in children’s skills and capabilities begin early in life and can have detrimental effects on future success in school. The present study examined the relationships between school readiness and socioeconomic (SES) inequalities using teacher reports of the Short Early Development Instrument (Janus et al. 2005) in a disadvantaged urban community of Ireland. It specifically examined differences in skills within a low SES community in order to investigate the role of relative disadvantage on children’s development. SES differences across multiple domains of school readiness were examined using Monte Carlo permutation tests and seemingly unrelated regression models. The false discovery rate (Benjamini and Hochberg 1995) was used to control for multiple hypothesis testing. The results indicated that being from a relatively higher SES background does not act as a protective factor for children residing in a disadvantaged community for the majority of school readiness domains. This implies that the neighbourhood may play a role in children’s school readiness skills. These results suggest that school readiness interventions should target all children living in disadvantaged communities as each child may be at risk of poor school readiness.     

Fostering Parental Support for Children's Mathematical Development: An Intervention with Head Start Families

The first national education goal, school readiness, recognizes a need for young children to be better prepared for entry into elementary school. Many low-income children exhibit a pattern of underachievement in school mathematics. Research has revealed a developmental gap between low-income preschool children and their middle-class peers with respect to the extent of their numerical knowledge. Research has also found that many low-income children do not receive a broad base of support for mathematical development at home or in preschool. In each of two studies, we conducted a bi-generation (parent and child) mathematics intervention with Head Start families. The intervention was designed to enhance parental support for pre-kindergarten children's mathematical development. It was found that low-income parents were willing and able to support this area of their children's development once they were provided with the training to do so. The support that parents provided to their children through the intervention was clearly effective in enhancing the development of children's informal mathematical knowledge. Intervention children developed more extensive mathematical knowledge than a comparison group of low-income children. Thus, an important step toward achieving the school readiness goal can be taken by fostering low- income parents' support for young children's mathematical development.     

Can holistic school readiness evaluations predict academic achievement and special educational needs status? Evidence from the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile

This study examined the predictive validity of holistic school readiness evaluations using the ‘good level of development’ outcome from the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP). The EYFSP assesses a range of abilities at school entry including academic, language, socio-emotional, and motor skills. In particular, we examined whether the assessment predicted reading, writing, maths, and science ability two years later and future special educational needs (SEN) status (N = 3739–5768). Children who reached a good level of development had higher odds of performing at expected (vs. below expected) levels on later academic assessments. This was particularly true for children with SEN. Reaching a good level of development also increased the odds of performing at above expected (vs. expected) levels on the academic assessments and lowered the odds of requiring SEN support. This demonstrates that holistic school readiness evaluations are powerful tools that can identify ‘at risk’ children.     

CSRP's Impact on low-income preschoolers' preacademic skills: self-regulation as a mediating mechanism

Based on theoretically driven models, the Chicago School Readiness Project (CSRP) targeted low-income children's school readiness through the mediating mechanism of self-regulation. The CSRP is a multicomponent, cluster-randomized efficacy trial implemented in 35 Head Start-funded classrooms (N = 602 children). The analyses confirm that the CSRP improved low-income children's self-regulation skills (as indexed by attention/impulse control and executive function) from fall to spring of the Head Start year. Analyses also suggest significant benefits of CSRP for children's preacademic skills, as measured by vocabulary, letter-naming, and math skills. Partial support was found for improvement in children's self-regulation as a hypothesized mediator for children's gains in academic readiness. Implications for programs and policies that support young children's behavioral health and academic success are discussed.     

教师对儿童入学准备状况的团体评定

研究采用教师团体评定的方法,发现在入学准备的5个领域中,“学习方式”“情绪和社会性发展”领域存在问题的儿童最多,“身体和运动发展”领域存在问题的儿童较少。“言语发展”和“认知与一般知识”领域存在问题的儿童最少;儿童在“学习方式”领域存在的入学准备问题主要体现在“注意力”“学习主动性”“自省能力”方面;“情绪和社会性发展”领域的入学准备问题主要体现在“与教师交流”和“自拉能力”方面;儿童在“注意力”和“自我反省”两方面的入学准备存在性别差异。     

Is more child-initiated always better? Exploring relations between child-initiated instruction and preschoolers’ school readiness

Although research suggests that the use of child-initiated vs. teacher-directed instructional practices in early childhood education has implications for learning and development, the precise nature of these effects remains unclear. Using data from the Midwest Child-Parent Center (CPC) Expansion Project, the present study examined the possibility that a blend of child- and teacher-directed practices best promotes school readiness among preschoolers experiencing high levels of sociodemographic risk and explored whether the optimal blend varies based on child characteristics. Sixty-two CPC preschool teachers reported their instructional practices throughout the year, using a newly developed questionnaire—the Classroom Activity Report (CAR). The average reported proportion of child-initiated instruction was examined in relation to students’ end-of-year performance on a routine school readiness assessment (N = 1289). Although there was no main effect of child-initiated instruction on school readiness, there was a significant interaction between instruction and student age. Four-year-olds’ school readiness generally improved as the proportion of child-initiated time increased, while 3-year-olds showed a U-shaped pattern. The present findings add to the evidence that child-initiated instruction might support preschoolers’ school readiness, although they also suggest this relation may not always be linear. They also point to the importance of examining instructional strategies in relation to student characteristics, in order to tailor strategies to the student population. The CAR has potential as a brief, practical measurement tool that can support program monitoring and professional development.