03 January 2011
School Readiness, Full-Day Kindergarten, and Student Achievement: An Empirical Investigation
By, Vi-Nhuan Le, Sheila Nataraj Kirby, Heather Barney, Claude Messan Setodji, and Daniel Gershwin
RAND Corporation
PREFACE
Recent research has shown that the skills and knowledge that children have upon entering school is predictive of later achievement. As a result, there has been increased focus on school readiness of children entering kindergarten, where school readiness is broadly defined to include literacy and cognitive skills, and social, emotional, and physical development. Recognizing that children from disadvantaged backgrounds often lag behind their more advantaged peers with respect to cognitive and social‐emotional skills, some policymakers advocate the provision of full‐day kindergarten. Proponents of full‐day kindergarten argue that the extended time in these programs can be used to increase students’ readiness at kindergarten and beyond. However, critics point to the costs of implementing full‐day kindergartens, and the uncertainty about the long‐term benefits of full‐day kindergarten.
This study uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998‐1999 (ECLS‐K) to examine how children’s skills and knowledge at kindergarten entry predict their achievement in later grades. It extends previous research by examining longer‐term achievement outcomes, namely test scores at the end of fifth grade, and gives an indication of how other the nonacademic areas of school readiness (i.e., physical and socioemotional development) may be related to test performance. The findings should help inform the debate about the merits of full‐day kindergarten and should be of interest to educational researchers, and education policymakers at the national, state, and local levels who are struggling with issues of school readiness and how to give all students an opportunity to learn to high standards.
This research was conducted within RAND Education, and was sponsored by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. The study reflects RAND Education’s mission to bring accurate data and careful, objective analysis to the national debate on education policy.
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