A Congressional Briefing on

"Early Childhood Care and Education: What policy-makers need to know"

May 16, 2001

Comments on "Social, Emotional, and Cognitive School Readiness"

Robert C. Pianta, Ph.D.

William Clay Parrish Jr. Professor, Curry School of Education, University of Virginia

Good afternoon. In my brief presentation today I will comment on factors related to how early education experience prepares children to succeed in school. In so doing it is important to emphasize that preparing young children to succeed in school requires attention to three issues 1) the competencies that children bring with them to school, 2) the early educational environments, or pre-kindergarten settings, that shape these competencies, and 3) the ways in which kindergartens and first grades respond to and build upon these competencies in classroom settings. It is essential for a complete understanding of school readiness issues that our focus in this discussion must be on both children’s competencies and the ways early education and school settings provide opportunities and resources to enhance those competencies.

First let me make comments concerning the competencies that children demonstrate as they come to school that reflect their readiness to benefit from the opportunities there. The conclusions I am drawing concerning child competencies are drawn primarily from two sources – First are studies that assess children’s competencies as they come to school and then predict how they will do later in their school careers. Second are extensive national surveys of kindergarten teachers, who describe the skills they believe are essential to success in their classrooms.

There is a clear consensus from both of these sources of data that children are well-prepared to come to school when they display skills in social and emotional areas as well as basic pre-academic skills. School readiness is not just knowing your ABCs. Children who communicate effectively, follow directions and cooperate, who are attentive, enthusiastic, and actively involved in classroom activities, and who can ask for and receive help when needed demonstrate a cluster of skills we could call "teachability" that indicates that regardless of whatever academic skills they may have, they are likely to benefit from the resources provided to them in a kindergarten or first grade classroom. With regard to pre-academic skills, when children display early forms of literacy skills like rhyming or telling a short story, can carry on short turn-taking conversations, have been exposed to a range of general knowledge facts, and can do things like count to ten or draw simple pictures, their chances of success in school are also likely to be higher than those who do not perform these skills.

Large scale national surveys of children’s skills, such as the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, indicate there is very wide variation in both the socioemotional and the pre-academic competencies that children bring to school. Some children read short books and perform simple computations, while others have great difficulty identifying letters or sounds. Poverty appears to be among the single biggest indicators of concern, with children of poor families demonstrating far fewer competencies in these areas at school entry. However, it is critical to point out that this study also demonstrates quite convincingly that nearly all children, regardless of their initial skill levels, make progress during the kindergarten year.

Equally important is the pattern of research results demonstrating that kindergarten teachers clearly place as much or even more value on social and emotional competencies like communication and attentiveness than on academic skills, and that even children with solid early academic skills can struggle in school because of problems in social areas. Thus it is both socioemotional competencies and pre-academic skills that should be the target of readiness definitions and early education efforts.

Given what we know about child competencies important for success in school, what kind of experiences and opportunities in early education, or pre-kindergarten settings, facilitate growth in these areas of preparedness for school? My statements in this area are based upon a generation of research studies on relations between experiences in early education settings and child competencies – some studies are experimental evaluations of intervention projects, others are naturalistic studies of children in a range of typical settings.

Across all this work five themes stand out:

• Attendance in early education and pre-kindergarten programs that emphasize and support stimulating, child-focused interactions – the kind that occur when a child and teacher converse about the child’s experience, read together, or work on a puzzle or project of interest to the child – attendance in programs with these qualities is associated with higher scores on a variety of assessments of the social, emotional, and pre-academic competencies that we just discussed.
• To the extent that the child comes from a risky background – for example defined in terms of poverty --, then attendance in a high quality program is likely to have even more benefit than, for example if they were not poor or attended a low quality program.
• To the extent that the early education program is intentionally organized to provide children with high quality experiences and opportunities-– for example by having well-trained staff, or by using well-validated approaches for enhancing social or academic competencies, children will benefit more. For example, evidence suggests that intentional, appropriate, child-focused teaching and learning opportunities in socioemotional skills or early literacy skills, relate to increased skill in those areas.
• The vast majority of opportunities for learning social or academic skills in early education and pre-kindergarten settings occur in the context of interactions with the teachers in those settings. This is the crux of early education and what makes it different from most of the educational programming offered to children in elementary schools. Thus the social quality of interactions between child and teacher in the pre-kindergarten years help build the capacities to follow directions, attend to and enjoy learning activities, and communicate effectively that are valued by kindergarten teachers.
• Although there is agreement on the value of enhancing the social and emotional quality of early education settings, there is less consensus on whether and how to infuse these settings with instructional opportunities that directly translate into academic skills. This is an area in which a great deal of attention is currently being directed, including basic research on aspects of pre-kindergarten settings that contribute differentially to academic and social skills as well as attention to staff and curriculum development. For example, states that are implementing pre-kindergarten programs for 3 and 4 year olds are heavily involved in staff and program development efforts that should be closely studied.

Now let me turn to the classroom settings into which children move as they come to school—the other side of school readiness—and address the question: How ready are the nation’s schools? These comments are based upon a range of longitudinal studies examining children’s attendance in various forms of elementary schools as well as a fewer number of experimental studies of intervention or school reform efforts. It is important to note that, although we know quite a bit about organizational and structural aspects of elementary classrooms (things like class or school size), we know much less about the actual experiences that children have in those classrooms and the opportunities afforded them there.

First, as I noted before, it is clear that children benefit from attendance in kindergarten. The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study data are clear on this—even though variation in children’s skills ranges from having no exposure to literacy all the way to reading books, all children show gains across the year. There are also indications that with more exposure to educational programming, such as through attendance in summer programs or year-round schools, children, particularly those from less advantaged backgrounds, do better; or at least don’t show a drop off in skills while school is out. Research on school reform efforts also indicates the benefits that accrue to students as a function of attendance in early elementary school classrooms that have clear goals and well-trained staff.

However, we also know, particularly from recent large-scale observational studies, that actual experiences in kindergarten and first grade classrooms are highly variable. For example, although most classrooms engage children in a lot of literacy-related activities, whether a child will be exposed to systematic instruction in literacy that is based upon scientific consensus, for example instruction in phonological processes, is highly variable and not assured. Similarly, the degree to which the classroom makes productive use of time or is well-managed, is also highly variable.

Importantly, like in early education and pre-kindergarten settings, children appear more engaged in academic work when they are in kindergarten and first grade classrooms that are characterized as socially and emotionally supportive, where teachers are sensitive to children’s social and emotional needs, in addition to being providers of instruction. Thus, like in pre-school settings, children’s skills in early elementary classroom develop as a function of both the social and instructional quality of interactions with adults.

Let me repeat I point I made a minute ago - that available data suggest that experiences in early elementary classrooms vary almost as much as children do when they enter these classrooms. The degree to which the variation in classrooms is tailored to children’s needs or is simply a function of a lack of a consensus on how and what to teach young children, is an open question in need of serious attention. We simply need more systematic inquiry in this area if we are to address the question of schools’ readiness to build children’s skills. Importantly, most research on early elementary classrooms has not been sufficiently wide in scope or large scale in sample size, to provide reliable estimates of the quality of experiences offered to children, and thus we do not have enough information to make conclusive statements about the ways in which the social and instructional dimensions of classroom settings are related systematically to either child competencies or to variation in staffing or curriculum.

Let me close by calling your attention to two movements that serve as a context for interpreting my remarks. These are first, the proliferation of state and locally-funded pre-kindergarten early education programs for 4 year olds, and increasingly three year olds; and second, the current emphasis on accountability in education.

With regard to publicly-funded early education programs for young children (ages 3 and 4), currently well more than one million four year olds are now served under the auspices of the public schools--the trend is that this number will continue to increase. The public very clearly supports these programs, and has willingly invested in their growth and development in more than half the states. Some form of formal pre-kindergarten program for 3 or 4 year olds either is, or soon will be, the norm, and the age for entering school as we know it will be earlier for nearly all American children. The elementary school of the future is likely to run from age 3 through third grade. Given what I said earlier about the potential benefits of attendance in early education programs, the pre-kindergarten movement holds great potential to contribute to the preparedness of the nations’ schoolchildren. However, careful attention must be paid to the other issues I noted, that is, ensuring that these and other early childhood and preschool programs offer children the best possible quality of experience and opportunity, based on the available scientific evidence and ensuring that children’s competencies are further built upon by their experiences in kindergarten and beyond. Consequently, as will be noted by other panelists, issues of training and staff development are important.

Finally this briefing takes place at a time in our approach to educating children when we place a value on accountability. Presently we enact this value largely through standardized assessments of children’s academic skills, often starting in third grade. If we continue to place such a high priority on this form of accountability assessment we must also attend to increasing the likelihood of children’s exposure to high quality learning and educational settings for several years before third grade--for several years before they come to school. Relatedly, we have to understand that during these early years, our efforts to enhance social and emotional competencies of children (that are not the focus of these accountability assessments) are of equal value for success in school as are efforts to provide high quality instruction. For young children socioemotional and academic functioning are not separate realms of experience; thus we need to be very cautious in allowing accountability outcomes to drive instructional experiences for young children.

In sum, we know that preparedness for school involves attention to the child’s developing competencies both in social and academic skills, and to the ways in which these competencies are enhanced as a function of experiences in early education and pre-kindergarten settings and responded to by elementary classrooms. There is little question that great disparities exist in our nation in terms of children’s competencies as they start school as well as the opportunities to which they are exposed, or not, that could enhance those competencies. In order to make progress toward the goal of ensuring all children come to school ready to learn, progress that I think was hoped for by the framers of this goal, a concerted effort is needed to broaden our ideas about children’s competencies beyond academic skills, enhance the likelihood of exposure to high quality early educational environments, and to better understand how to build upon those competencies in kindergarten and thereafter.

Thank you.

Back to Top^