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School Readiness in Children Attending Public Preschool: Implications for Public Policy, School Programming and Clinical Practice

Roberts, Yvonne H.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1307322019

Abstract Details

2011, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Psychology.
The term school readiness refers to the idea that most children, upon entry into kindergarten, have achieved a developmental level that enables them to adapt to formal schooling and achieve later academic success (Ackerman & Barnett, 2005). While research has found that preschool children vary considerably in their pre-education experiences as well as their readiness upon entry into formal education, the literature also notes that children’s skills at school entry are highly correlated with later abilities and educational outcomes (e.g., Duncan et al., 2007). Therefore, assuring early competence is important. Beginning in early elementary school, those children identified as at-risk for school failure experience a significant gap in their academic achievement compared to their peers (Magnuson, Meyers, Ruhm, & Waldfogel, 2004). Head Start was designed to remediate said gaps by enhancing school readiness during early childhood. The early childhood literature points to the need for additional research in order to estimate the prevalence of at-risk preschool children in order to better serve them. Moreover, although social/emotional functioning and physical health have been implicated as important dimensions of school readiness (e.g., Castelli, Hillman, Buck & Erwin, 2007; Ladd, Herald, & Kochel, 2006), there are few studies that have integrated these variables to provide a multidimensional understanding of school readiness in children attending Head Start programming. Utilizing a diverse sample of 555 children who attended Head Start programming prior to kindergarten, this study examined how cognitive, social/emotional, and physical health in prekindergarten were related to direct assessments of child readiness at the start of the kindergarten year. The results suggest several characteristics affect kindergarten readiness in this group, including demographic variables, residential mobility, and cognitive and social/emotional performance in pre-kindergarten. Further, the total number of characteristics in preschool may be related to decreased school readiness in kindergarten. Children fared better when attending multiple years of quality preschool programming. These findings have implications for a range of state and local policy and program development efforts, as well as clinical practice and school guidelines.
Monica Mitchell, PhD (Committee Chair)
Farrah Jacquez, PhD (Committee Member)
Paula Shear, PhD (Committee Member)
57 p.
Psychology
kindergarten readiness; early education; preschool; children

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Roberts, Y. H. (2011). School Readiness in Children Attending Public Preschool: Implications for Public Policy, School Programming and Clinical Practice [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1307322019

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Roberts, Yvonne. School Readiness in Children Attending Public Preschool: Implications for Public Policy, School Programming and Clinical Practice. 2011. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1307322019.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Roberts, Yvonne. "School Readiness in Children Attending Public Preschool: Implications for Public Policy, School Programming and Clinical Practice." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1307322019

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1307322019
739
© 2011, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License School Readiness in Children Attending Public Preschool: Implications for Public Policy, School Programming and Clinical Practice by Yvonne H. Roberts is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.