Research Findings: Temperament, which can be assessed as early as 3 months, is associated with school readiness and later academic achievement in children born full term. Although children born preterm demonstrate a dysregulated temperament and are at significant risk for lower school readiness, we found no studies investigating whether early…

Research Findings: For early prevention of academic difficulties, it is crucial to identify developmental trajectories of preterm children with focus on the efficiency of basic cognitive processes. Thus, the aim of this study was to characterize school readiness of children born before 32 weeks of gestation and to investigate its potential…

Research Findings: The study examined the latent profiles of approaches to learning (ATL) in Chinese preschoolers and the association of profile membership with their academic school readiness. A total of 235 preschoolers (M[subscript age] = 58.07 months, SD = 10.09 months) were sampled and evaluated with the School Readiness Composite (SRC) of…

Research Findings: Kindergarten is the gateway to education and a point of great variability in children's knowledge and skills. As a result, there is keen interest in kindergarten entry assessments (KEAs) to understand and address gaps in early skills. This study rigorously investigated the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Kindergarten Entry…

This study investigated the direct relationship between home play opportunity and prospective school readiness, and the indirect relationships as mediated through object and social mastery motivation among Hong Kong Chinese kindergarten children. Participants were 106 local children (44.4% girls, mean age = 60.0 months) and their parents and…

Research Findings: In this study, a combination of variable-oriented and person-oriented statistical analyses was used to examine the links between three temperament factors (negative affectivity, surgency/extraversion, effortful control) evaluated before entry into kindergarten and the cognitive and socioemotional dimensions of school readiness…

Research Findings: The ability to manage emotions is thought to be important for regulating stress at a physiological level, yet no prior published studies have examined young children's emotion understanding or knowledge in relation to the stress hormone cortisol. The present study investigated the statistical relation between emotion knowledge…

Research Findings: This study explores the inter-rater reliability of WaKIDS, Washington State's kindergarten entry assessment (KEA). Specifically, we analyze (1) the extent to which teachers' assessments are in agreement with a master code, (2) how often inaccurate assessment decisions lead to misidentification of school readiness, and (3)…

Using data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey 2009 Cohort, this study investigated the school readiness trajectories of 2,908 Head Start children from Head Start to kindergarten. Multilevel growth curve models examined differences by immigrant-origin status and the moderating role of enriching experiences. Research Findings:…

This study utilized data from the Family Life Project (FLP) to examine Head Start children's school readiness skills at the end of preschool in comparison to two other care groups: home-based care and other center-based care. The FLP study enrolled a birth-cohort of 1,292 children born in two historically low-wealth, rural regions of the U.S.,…

Research Findings: Parents' academic socialization of their young children is a critical yet understudied area, especially in the context of vulnerable parent-child dyads. The current longitudinal study examined factors that informed mothers' beliefs and practices concerning children's kindergarten readiness in a sample of 204 Mexican-origin…

This research tested a mediation model, examining whether individual differences in mothers' school readiness beliefs influenced home literacy practices and children's later academic achievement among African American (n = 114) and primarily Mexican origin Latina mothers (n = 164) and their children. Mothers of children ages 3-4 years reported…

Parents are children's first teachers, and it is critical that they understand what children need to be successful in school. This study examined the school readiness beliefs of 43 Latinx immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic and El Salvador. Parents participated in semi-structured interviews regarding which skills their children should…

Research Findings: The global COVID-19 pandemic prevented the implementation of in-person summer learning programs designed to improve school readiness for entering kindergartners. Thus, we conducted the current study examining the feasibility, social validity, and preliminary impacts of a virtual summer learning program. Ninety-one preschoolers…

This sequential mixed methods study evaluated the impact of the Chicago Parent Program (CPP) in 12 Baltimore Title I PreK programs on parent engagement and student outcomes from kindergarten through 2nd grade. Phase 1 (quasi-experiment; N = 11,996) compared PreK students whose parents enrolled in CPP with those whose parents did not enroll in CPP…