Children enter kindergarten with disparate abilities
in reading and mathematics, capabilities
for sitting still and making friends, mental health, and inclinations
for aggressive behavior.
The relative power of these characteristics to predict later school
achievement is the subject
of this paper. Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten
Cohort are
used to relate school-entry test scores on math, reading, and
general knowledge as well as
both teacher and parent reports of self-control, sociability,
mental health, and aggressive
behavior to reading and mathematics achievement scores at the
end of first grade. We also
model the power of increments in these skills and behaviors across
kindergarten to predict
test scores at the end of first grade. We find much more predictive
power for the “hard” skills than for the collection
of “soft” skills both for the overall sample and for
subgroups defined by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and
gender. By far the most powerful avenue for boosting first-grade
test scores appears to be improving the basic skills of low-achieving
children upon entry into kindergarten.
Greg J. Duncan, Edwina S. Tarry
Professor of Education and Social Policy; Faculty Fellow, Institute
for Policy Research, Northwestern University Amy Claessens, Graduate Student, Human Development
and Social Policy, Graduate Research Assistant; Institute for
Policy Research, Northwestern University Mimi Engel, Graduate Student, Human Development
and Social Policy; Graduate Research Assistant, Institute for
Policy Research, Northwestern University
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