The first national goal for education, that "by the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn," reflects a belief that achievements in the earliest years of life are fundamental to later school-based learning and academic success. Although the definition and assessment of school readiness has been interpreted in many different ways (Kagan, 1990), there is widespread concern that increasing numbers of children begin formal schooling without the requisite skills or abilities to succeed. According to a Carnegie survey of over 7,000 kindergarten teachers, 35 percent of this country's children are not ready for academic work when they begin school. When asked what most restricted school readiness, the teachers cited deficiencies in language and emotional maturity (Boyer, 1991).
This study is an assessment of the hazards and fueling stations on the road toward school readiness as viewed by parents and child development professionals in two socio-economically disadvantaged communities. Taken singly and in combination, socio-economic factors such as poverty, lack of parental education, teen- and single-parenthood are well-recognized risk factors for school difficulty (Center for the Study of Social Policy, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1993). However, this study was not designed to define the socio-economic status or service utilization of the participating sites, nor are the samples necessarily representative of the broader geographic communities. Rather, the goal was to identify potential precursors to later kindergarten difficulties that would suggest specific areas needing further study and support. The framework and methodology were guided by several assumptions of experts in the field of infant and toddler development (see for example Boyer, 1991; Kagan, 1990; and ZERO-TO-THREE/NCCIP, 1993).
Extraordinary first lessons result from ordinary everyday events between adults and young children. In a caring environment, children's relationships with adults teach them to feel effective, important, and safe. Because early experiences affect the various developmental domains separately and in combination, seemingly simple activities -- such as play with a warm and responsive caregiver -- can promote a wide range of abilities, including problem-solving skills, language development, and emotion regulation. In contrast, inconsistent and insensitive parenting inhibits natural curiosity and ambition; as a consequence, children can grow to feel helpless and wary of new opportunities for learning. The first years of life are also fundamental to children's ability to behave in socially acceptable ways. Parents' behaviors and beliefs about appropriate ways to express emotion, resolve conflict, persuade, and cooperate with others have a profound influence on toddlers' abilities to get along with peers, follow rules, cooperate with adults, and ultimately, to become useful and caring citizens.
By age three, competent children are those who are: self- confident and trusting, intellectually inquisitive, able to use language to communicate, physically and mentally healthy, able to relate well toward others, and empathic toward others (Carnegie Task Force on Meeting the Needs of Young Children, 1994). These accomplishments, impressive in their own right, continue to be important because they determine how well a child will navigate subsequent developmental tasks -- including the transition to formal schooling.
Readiness depends on multiple prior experiences and achievements. One source of individual variation in readiness reflects the outcome of stage-salient tasks of earlier developmental periods. For example, longitudinal studies begun in infancy find that secure infant-parent attachment at one year of age is associated with greater self-confidence and self-motivated learning in the toddler years (e.g., Sroufe, 1979). Given the continuity in developmental competence over the first years of life, there are strong theoretical and empirical reasons to believe that precursors to some later school difficulties can be identified and ameliorated well before school entry.
Such influences include families' personal and economic resources, parents' knowledge and beliefs regarding children's development, formal and informal support systems, and public policies and practices that impinge on work and family life. For example, as a result of changes in the American economy and family structure, more parents are struggling to balance home and work responsibilities, often with fewer financial, community, and familial supports than those of previous generations. Housing, transportation, health care, and child care all cost proportionately more than in the past, and the value of minimum wage has declined. In addition to these financial burdens, today's parents move more often to keep pace with housing and job opportunities. As a result, families seem more isolated. They are less likely to live near older, trusted family members who traditionally helped young people prepare for parenthood and shared the responsibility for childrearing. Fear of neighborhood crime and violence increases social isolation further by limiting the number of safe places for children to play and limiting opportunities for parents to build new supportive friendships.
There are many ways in which communities, including neighbors, educators, law enforcement agents, social service, and health service providers, can help families raise competent and caring children. However, successful strategies -- including those that promote school readiness and school success -- depend on the needs and priorities that families identify for their children.
Given that the earliest years of life can have a profound and long-lasting effect on children's ability to learn, on their health, social and emotional well-being, our investment in the future must begin by supporting children right from the start. However, social, education, and health services for families with children under three years of age are few and fragmented. In the U.S., unlike in many other industrialized nations, the family has sole responsibility for caring for infants and toddlers. But changes in the economy and in American demographics make it increasingly difficult for parents to do so. Today, parents of young children are more likely to be separated from extended family; are working more and earning less; are spending more time worrying about safe housing, affordable health care, and adequate child care, and are spending less time with their children. As a result, more young children are at-risk due to hurried, harried, and inconsistent lifestyles. By toddlerhood, many children have not developed the skills of the "competent" three-year-old, and by early school age as many as 35 percent are unprepared for the demands and opportunities of kindergarten (Boyer, 1991).
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