PDF《An Uneven Start:》

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY While school readiness has been a concern of educators and policymakers for more than four decades, little data have been available to assess that readiness across the national population of children. The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergar- ten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K) is addressing this need by following a nationally representative sample of children from kindergarten through fifth grade. The study began in the Fall of

1998 with an assess- ment of the nation'

s kindergartners'

readiness for school. Specifically, the study addressed kindergart- ners'

performance on a variety of reading and mathematics tasks and gathered valuable contextual information on their home reading experiences. The first results from ECLS-K revealed a picture of inequality in reading and mathematics readiness for school. This report builds on that work by providing indicators of the types of children who may be educa- tionally at-risk when they begin school. It also consid- ers disparities in children'

s home reading experiences. The focus is on race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and on the interaction of race/ethnicity and SES. Interactions among children'

s age, gender, and race/ethnicity are also examined. These analyses revealed differences in the school readiness of the nation'

s beginning kindergartners which are briefly summarized below. All differences discussed are statistically significant. Reading Ⅲ Asian and White children were more likely than children in other racial/ethnic groups to be profi- cient across all reading tasks. In some areas of reading, the differences among groups were sub- stantial, exceeding one-half of a standard deviation. Ⅲ Overall, girls were more likely than boys to be proficient in letter recognition and in recognizing the beginning and ending sounds of words, although these differences were not large. Gender differences were also evident among White kindergartners, but not within the other racial/ ethnic groups. There was no gender difference in recognizing words by sight and in recognizing words in context. Ⅲ SES was related to proficiency across all reading tasks. Children in higher SES groups were more likely to be proficient than children in lower SES groups. Ⅲ Nearly all racial/ethnic differences in reading disappeared when children were grouped into similar levels of SES. Ⅲ Age was related to reading proficiency for all kinder- gartners. Older students were more likely to demon- strate various skills than younger students. Within the same age groups, Asian and White children continued to outperform other children in letter recognition and in understanding the beginning and ending sounds of words. Racial/ethnic differ- ences disappeared in recognizing words by sight and in understanding words in context, however, when age was taken into account. Mathematics Ⅲ Asian and White children were more likely than children in other racial/ethnic groups to be profi- cient across most mathematics tasks. Most of these differences were small. Ⅲ Overall, females were more likely than males to be proficient in recognizing numbers and shapes, while males were more likely than females to be proficient in addition and subtraction and multipli- cation and division. All of these differences were small. Within specific racial/ethnic groups, however, there were no gender differences in performance on the mathematics tasks. Ⅲ SES was related to proficiency across all mathemat- ics tasks. Children in higher SES groups were more