Keith Crnic
Pennsylvania State University

Gontran Lamberty
Maternal and Child Health Bureau

Despite the best intentions of those concerned with the educational process, young children's readiness for school remains a critical yet controversial, complex, and perhaps misunderstood construct. Certainly, early childhood is a wondrous time, characterized by rapidly growing abilities and burgeoning curiosities. Yet, these qualities characterize many of the early childhood years, and attempting to identify any optimal readiness criterion has proven problematic. It is curious, then, that age five has become a rather common standard against which readiness for school has been judged. There is, however, little empirical evidence to suggest that age five is necessarily the optimal age for school readiness.

While there is little to suggest that age five is optimal for readiness, there is less to suggest that some other age might be better. In fact, it has been proposed that arbitrary restrictions on readiness as a function of age are misdirected efforts at imposing a rigid schedule on widely varying child development (NAEYC, 1990). Despite the wealth of literature that has addressed school readiness over the past two decades (cf. Kagan, 1990), the lack of a clear conceptual definition of the qualities that comprise school readiness or the rich complex interrelationships among developmental processes that facilitate success in traditional classroom environments has impeded efforts to clarify the concerns regarding what it means to be "ready for school." Kagan(1990)notes that readiness has been poorly defined and subjected to various interpretations, thereby creating confusion and conflicts among practitioners and policy makers with interests in the issue. In fact, she further suggests that school readiness, as currently understood, is a "narrow and artificial construct of questionable merit" (p. 272).

It’s difficult to argue against Kagan's premise given the state of the theory and science of readiness. Nevertheless, school readiness has become a national priority as Goal One of the five national goals for education by the year 2000. This particular goal states that "By the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn". Such a goal is more than meritorious; but it also presents the need to reconceptualize a field, promote a scientific inquiry into its multifaceted components, and influence the policies and services that bring the goal closer to reality.

In order to begin such a reconceptualization, it is necessary to review some of the relevant history of school readiness as an area of inquiry, and detail the issues that have led to the current level of confusion in the readiness controversy. Among them are contrasts between readiness for school vs. readiness for learning, the conflict between chronological age of entry and maturational approaches to readiness, the limited definition of the skills thought to comprise readiness, the absence of an applied developmental framework, and the ability of school readiness assessments to accurately predict success.

School readiness, as historically understood, implies rather fixed standards of physical, intellectual, and social development sufficient to enable children to meet school requirements and to assimilate the curriculum content (Okon & Wilgocka-Okon, 1973). In a recent review, Kagan (1990) noted that the history of theoretical and empirical work in the area has been devoted to three major issues: (1) distinguishing between readiness to learn and readiness for school, (2) discerning the various differences between chronological and maturational approaches to readiness, and (3) differentiating correlates of readiness (predominantly specific child abilities). These concerns have led to various controversies among those who have addressed readiness in the literature, but specific concerns involving assessment or measurement of school readiness should be added to the list.

The original rationale for the current emphasis on age five as a criterion for school entry is difficult to determine, and there seems to be no clear empirical base that has been established to indicate the merit of this choice from either a psychological, developmental, or educational perspective. Nevertheless, the utility of arbitrarily choosing age five has been much debated. Historically, age five has not always been considered as the prime age for school entry. For example, kindergarten was originally developed in the early 19th century Massachusetts public schools, with entry ages ranging from as young as age three to as old as age seven.

The crux of the current entry age debate centers on the concept of readiness, and the idea that many 5-year-old children seem "overplaced" (Ilg, Ames, Haines, & Gillespie, 1978), or have a good deal of difficulty with the kindergarten curriculum (Bigelow, 1934; Carroll, 1963; Davis, Trimble, & Vincent, 1980; King, 1955; Uphoff & Gilmore, 1986) and therefore appear to be not ready to enter school at that young age. Without specific attention to those factors that might comprise readiness, many of the studies that have been conducted suggest that 5-year-olds, especially younger 5-year-olds, do more poorly on standardized tests than do older 5-year-olds or 6-year-olds, and are more likely to eventually be referred for retention or assessment for learning disabilities (Uphoff & Smith, 1986; Shepard & Smith, 1986; Smith & Shepard, 1988).

In perhaps the most extreme position, Moore (1985) has suggested that there is no evidence that children are ready for school until age 8 to 12 years. Moore suggests that whether one considers achievement, behavior, sociability or additional developmental factors involving biology, sensory ability, cognition, coordination, or socialization, "available evidence overwhelmingly suggests ... [the child] should be allowed to develop physically and to explore personal fantasies and intuitions until somewhere between ages 8 and 12" (p. 63). In support of this position, Elkind's (1970) finding of a negative correlation between mental growth and formal instruction was noted. Indeed, Elkind likewise argued that formal schooling should be delayed rather than introduced early.

Support for the notion that age five may well be too early to begin school for many children comes from other sources as well. Uphoff & Gilmore (1986) reported findings that suggest that older children (greater than 5.3 years of age at entry) entering kindergarten fail less often, obtain higher grades, and fare better on standardized testing than do those younger 5-year-olds (5.3 years and less). Likewise, they noted that the younger 5- year-olds were off-task up to three times as often. To further strengthen their position, Uphoff & Gilmore (1986) also noted that less bright (as judged by IQ) but older children produced higher standardized test results than did brighter but younger children. Interestingly, Smith and Shepard (1988) reported that many teachers, in fact, have readiness beliefs that generally fall within a nativist domain. In their study of kindergarten readiness and retention, a strong negative correlation was found between teachers readiness beliefs and eventual retention, suggesting that many kindergarten teachers believe that readiness is essential to success but reflects skills or abilities the child brings to the kindergarten setting as a function of their age rather than something that children acquire with exposure to the kindergarten curriculum or context.

On the basis of such findings, Parsons (1985) suggested that educators not focus on arbitrary birthday or age cutoffs for kindergarten entrance. Instead, the focus should be on children's "academic readiness" as defined by consensual agreement of parents, the child, and school officials. Unfortunately, Parsons did not specify the bases upon which such decisions should be made, nor what would occur should these three parties disagree.

Shepard & Smith (1986) conclude that the general research evidence suggests that the age of entry into kindergarten represents more a relative problem than an absolute one. Despite the recent trend to raise the age of entry into kindergarten in many states, and the fact that many parents are making independent decisions to hold their young 5-year-olds back one year before entry, it is not likely that such solutions will well address the readiness problem. There will always be a "younger" age group at time of entry, regardless of where the cutoff age boundary is set, that is likely to do worse on standardized testing than the older entrants. Norms eventually readjust to accommodate the change. Further, kindergarten curricula are not so developmentally specific or absolute that it is the case that only children at specific ages can perform adequately.

Given that parents are more often now making choices to hold their young 5-year-olds back, and these decisions are being supported by school personnel because of the research findings reported above, there seems to be a danger of further increasing the developmental and academic heterogeneity of kindergarten students. This is so because middle class parents are most likely to take the advice to hold their children back, whereas lower class parents tend to resist such suggestions (Shepard & Smith, 1985). This increases the possibility that those children who may be at greater risk for school difficulties are the ones more likely to enter, while those more advantaged students wait another year to further ensure their success thereby creating an artificially greater bimodal distribution of competence within the kindergarten population.

Obviously, the age of entry controversy in the readiness debate has not been resolved. Yet, there is a clear implication in the research that there are certain fixed skills or abilities that children must bring to the school setting for success, and there must be some developmental specificity to such skill acquisition. It is, however, rather unsatisfying that little attention is given to identifying those specific developmental abilities and contextual factors that help ensure success and some notion of when such factors are likely to emerge within developmental frameworks.

As it became clear that not all children entering school were equally adept at performing in kindergarten, and some clearly struggled with the curricula, the concept of maturational approaches to school readiness developed. In large part, this notion grew out of the work of Gesell (1940), and the conclusion from some that a major cause of school failure was a simple unreadiness for the work of the grade in which the child was placed (Ilg et al., 1978). To better understand the development of maturational approaches to school readiness, it is necessary to disentangle concepts of readiness to learn and readiness for school. Kagan (1990) presents an excellent discussion of the important conceptual differences between these two constructs related to readiness. Readiness for learning is considered to be the level of development at which the individual has the capacity to undertake learning specific subject matter, and recognizes the fluidity of the multiple developmental processes that influence such readiness. In contrast, readiness for school is a more rigid construct, dictating the belief that a specific set of cognitive, linguistic, social, and motor skills must be attained to indicate readiness.

While readiness for learning and readiness for school appear in some senses to be constructs at odds with another, maturational approaches attempt to offer a synthesis of the two. The basic concept behind the maturational approach is one in which there is a clear belief that a specific set of discrete developmental abilities should be met prior to school entrance with the acknowledgment that not all children will have attained these abilities by the same age. Those that have not attained the necessary skills, regardless of their chronological eligibility for school or their intellectual ability, should not be placed in the academic setting.

As noted above, the major proponent of this maturational approach was Arnold Gesell and his colleagues at the Gesell Institute (Ilg et al., 1978). A series of readiness tests, considered to be a developmental assessment, was developed by this group, and has been widely used to assess readiness for school in both research and applied settings. The basic skills addressed by these tests involve cognitive abilities, perceptual-visual skills, linguistic abilities (both comprehension and expression), and fine motor skills.

In review of the research that supports the maturational approach, Ilg et al. (1978) report findings across several studies with varying populations of kindergarten, first, and second graders. They noted that less than 50% of all students in each grade were judged to reach the readiness criterion on initial assessment. Approximately 12% to 25% were judged clearly unready, while the remaining students were considered questionable candidates. When considered against teacher ratings, readiness score results agreed with kindergarten teacher ratings at 83%, although these authors disappointedly did not specify percent agreements by category. The specificity and sensitivity of these assessments were not provided. Nevertheless, these findings, and the publication of the tests, have led to many screening programs for "school readiness", and an ability metric for entrance into school.

There are, however, a number of substantive problems with the maturational approach. First, this approach assumes the primacy of biological maturation for learning and development, a view that has not been well supported in the recent developmental literature. A preponderance of evidence suggests that developmental process is multiply determined, with learning and skill acquisition less a function of biological maturation than environmental transaction over time. The maturationist view that development precedes learning has not been well established, and indeed, Vygotsky's (1978) opposing notions of learning preceding developmental progress are critical to consider in relation to the school readiness controversy (Kagan, 1990).

Another issue in regard to this maturational perspective is the false notion that we have a basic knowledge regarding the critical skills for school success. While there have been attempts to identify individual developmental or skill correlates of readiness, we currently have no theory or credible empirical base from which to judge what the most critical skills for readiness may be. In this respect, assessing a number of preacademic cognitive, linguistic, and motor skills may be of interest but of limited assistance in determining the critical readiness issues. Further, such maturational approaches place the burden of proof on the child for readiness, entirely ignoring more contextual and ecological influences. In essence, maturational approaches suggest that schools and families have no explicit role or responsibility for children's readiness.

In some respects, it is difficult to fathom why assessment instruments for school readiness exist in the absence of a substantive empirical base for understanding the multiplicity of requisite skills and contextual influences likely to be involved in school readiness. Nonetheless, a number of assessment instruments exist and are in substantial use by schools around the country in an attempt to make informed decisions about placing children in schools. Indeed, one national study has indicated that between 10% and 50% of children who are eligible to enter kindergarten on the basis of their chronological age do not in fact enter because of readiness test scores (Gnezda & Bolig, 1989). Given the impact of such testing on placement decisions, ensuring adequate assessment is critical.

Reviews of school readiness assessment instruments, however, suggest that there are multiple problems inherent in the measures. In fact, Shepard & Smith (1986) suggest that the scientific knowledge underlying readiness assessment is such that none of the existing tests is sufficiently accurate to justify placement decision making. This appears to be so for a variety of reasons. First, the frequent failure to find high correlations between school readiness assessments and later academic success is related to the instability of the developmental traits being measured at these young ages. In the main, the predominantly cognitive domains that are sampled in many of the readiness measures for young children are only moderately associated with the later cognitive demands of reading and other academic tasks (Shepard & Smith, 1986). It is also the case that young children's development is characterized by individualized rapid periods of growth as well as apparent plateaus. The result of such developmental processes is that assessment at any one point in time may be a valid indicator of current ability, but a poor predictor of subsequent ability or success (Kagan, 1990).

Another important concern regarding school readiness assessments involves the tests themselves. Few have withstood rigorous reliability and validity assessments, and many have not been subjected to basic psychometric analyses (Meisels, 1988). For example, the Gesell School Readiness Tests have been criticized specifically for not meeting the standards for norming, reliability, or validity set by the American Psychological Association (Kaufman, 1985). In the single study reporting reliability data on the Gesell (Kaufman & Kaufman, 1982), the error of measurement was sufficiently great that four and a half year-olds could not be reliably distinguished from 5-year-olds. Although Ilg et al. (1978) reported data suggesting adequate agreement between teacher judgements of readiness and Gesell test scores, a subsequent study indicated that teacher-test agreement approximated only 50% when questionable or borderline performers were examined (Wood, Powell, & Knight, 1984). Shepard & Smith (1986) note that predictive validity is a common problem among school readiness assessments, again suggesting issues with specificity and sensitivity resulting in the likelihood of misplacing children into ready and unready groups. In a related study, Shepard & Smith (1985) also reported a lack of discriminant validity between the Gesell and IQ tests.

The other issue raised in the debate over readiness assessment involves the misuse of test results; an issue common to all forms of standardized assessment. Kagan (1990) reports that results from a number of studies suggest that test results are not being applied equitably across groups (e.g. boys are more frequently retained than girls as were children for whom English was a second language), and that the use of single readiness assessments to determine important placement decisions contradicts important assessment ethics.

It is apparent that the issue of school readiness is one of critical national importance, but also one for which there is little substantive empirical knowledge to guide our present efforts. There is little definitional agreement about the readiness concept, the skills that are critical for determining readiness, how such skills might be facilitated for readiness to occur, and how we might accurately assess the various dimensions involved.

The apparent working definition of readiness as the expectation of specific skills and abilities that children should possess prior to school entry in fact defeats the national goal that has been set for readiness by the year 2000. By placing the onus on the child to have certain abilities before we allow educational efforts to begin, we fail to recognize the systemic nature of the readiness issue and instead have instituted a purely gatekeeping function allowing already solid performers into the school and keeping out exactly those young children that might benefit the most from exposure to academic opportunity.

Willer and Bredekamp (1990), in considering the state of our knowledge base in school readiness, suggest that there are six fundamental misconceptions that have developed as a function of the work to date: (1) learning occurs only in school, (2) readiness is a specific inherent condition within every child, (3) readiness is a condition that can be easily measured, (4) readiness is predominantly a function of time, and some children need more time than others, (5) children are ready to learn when they can sit quietly at a desk and listen to a teacher, and (6) children who are not ready do not belong in school. Willer and Bredekamp systematically take issue with each assumption, noting that these misconceptions serve mostly to keep children out of school rather than assuring that children will be ready and capable.

With the national priority on ensuring school readiness, or more correctly on ensuring that children enter school ready to learn, a unique opportunity exists for reconsidering the direction of readiness research, policy, and application. To a substantial degree, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has already begun this process with the publication of several policy reports (e.g. Willer & Bredekamp, 1990) and position statements (NAEYC, 1990) that begin to identify such new directions.

NAEYC (1990) has proposed that, if school readiness is based on the assumption that there is a predetermined set of capabilities that all children must have before entering school, then the commitment to promoting universal school readiness must consider (1) addressing the inequities in early life experience so that all children have access to the opportunities that promote educational success, (2) recognizing and supporting individual differences in development among children, and (3) establishing reasonable and appropriate expectations of children's capabilities upon school entry. They contend that the current readiness zeitgeist places the burden of proof of readiness on the child, an unfair situation given the experiential, economic, and cultural inequities inherent in our society.

The issue of inequity in children's experience suggests that greater attention must be given to the ways in which families support readiness processes and the transition to school (Kagan, 1990; NAEYC, 1990). Families are children's primary developmental context (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and strongly influence early developmental trajectories. Families, however, are also embedded in larger social and cultural contexts, resulting in both indirect and direct influences on children's developmental trajectories in general and readiness to learn in particular. It is likewise clear that schools must assume some of the burden for readiness, structuring environments and curricula that are developmentally sensitive and facilitative of success. The question of whether schools are ready for children is perhaps overworked, yet the message within this inverse readiness notion is critical to ensuring that children's readiness to learn is not inhibited by anachronistic educational policies, ignorance of developmental processes, or inappropriate curricula.

The tremendous variability in individual child development must be recognized and accepted as normal, suggesting that it is inappropriate to determine school readiness on the basis of the acquisition of specific skills and abilities. The predominant conclusion of recent scholars addressing the issue of school readiness is that the only fair and ethical criterion for school readiness is a legal chronological age. Although arbitrary, it applies to everyone equally and removes the sole burden for readiness from the child. Kagan (1990) discusses the issue eloquently, promoting the construct of equity of access to school. She notes that current policy individualizes access to school (through readiness assessments) and then homogenizes services to students, a process that ignores individual developmental differences. Kagan argues convincingly that the reverse should be true in the promotion of equity. Access should be homogenized by setting a chronological age criterion, and educational services should be individualized thereby creating a developmentally sensitive curriculum that places the responsibility for readiness on the school.

Despite these recent attempts to clarify the issues and redefine the nature of the readiness construct, there remains a good deal of ambiguity and a lack of specification of the factors likely to promote readiness to learn, or readiness for school that will allow the national goal to be accomplished. As noted earlier in this paper, we lack a coherent theory of readiness that not only addresses individual child characteristics, but attends to the multiplicity of factors that facilitate children's success in academic environments. If we are to move ahead in understanding readiness, we must attempt to reconceptualize the readiness construct to consider the multiple factors likely to promote the ultimate goal of readiness, and how these factors might interact to facilitate a successful transition to school and a readiness to learn. While there are myriad possibilities for inclusion, there is also some consensus that reconceptualizing readiness depends upon considering the interrelations among a number of relatively unexplored influences, including: (1) biological and health foundations for readiness to learn, (2) developmental characteristics of children (beyond preacademic abilities), (3) contextual factors, predominantly involving family and school influences, (4) the role of culture and diversity in readiness, (5) the nature of atypical or exceptional child characteristics in relation to readiness, and (6) lessons from early intervention and measurement efforts that inform the readiness construct.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to present a detailed and integrated discussion of the factors considered above. These areas can be discussed individually, although it is imperative to note that they are interdependent and interacting, and function multiply to promote or inhibit readiness.

Within the readiness literature, there is scant attention given to the biological processes inherent in readiness. Other than Gesell's notion of maturation, which assumes a certain biological progression, there is little specificity to the kinds of neurological, sensory, motor, and health considerations of primary importance to eventual readiness to learn and success in school. Nevertheless, there would appear to be a number of important biological considerations to address.

In particular, research on brain functioning across the developmental period germane to school readiness has not been previously considered as critical to understanding the processes involved in readiness to learn. Yet, it hardly seems possible that such considerations can be ignored as neuroscience continues to make remarkable gains in mapping relations between brain functioning and learning or various forms of cognitive activity. Brain plasticity, or its capacity for change in some details of its structure and function during early developmental periods, may also be related to learning process and underlie some of the individual differences apparent in development (Aoki & Siekevitz, 1988).

Another potentially critical area of study is children's general health concerns. Health as a determinant of readiness for learning includes not only the physical but the mental health domain as well. Deviations from the state of health can either be prenatal or postnatal in origin, permanent or temporary, and be manifested markedly or subtly with varying degrees of consequences for the child's readiness to learn. In addition, the state of the child's health is more than an individual property with resultant organism-specific effects. A child's state of health can affect the various contexts in which the child operates and, these contexts in turn can impact the child's readiness to learn separate from the organism-specific effects.

Perhaps no area has received the attention in the readiness literature that child characteristics and development have received. Nevertheless, the focus of much of this work has addressed issues of global individual difference notions that have been used to support gatekeeping functions (Moore, 1985), or specific cognitive and linguistic characteristics traditionally thought to be most germane to school success. This approach, however, has done little to promote a better understanding of the range of developmental abilities that children bring to learning within the schools.

At this point, it seems critical to begin to move beyond static notions of cognitive abilities and language or motor skills associated with task specific performance, and consider developmental processes from a more integrated perspective. School success will, in part, be related to a much broader range of developmental qualities, many of which have not yet been explored in relation to the readiness phenomenon. For example, growing understanding of processes involved in the development of self-regulatory behaviors (Kopp, 1982) seem especially important, as do issues related to self-understanding (Cicchetti & Beeghly, in press), and social relationships within the peer group (Ladd & Price, 1987). Little attention has also been given to issues of affective behavior, and how children's emotionality may be related to various indices of competence and school performance. The above list is certainly not exhaustive, nor is it meant to be. Rather, these are several areas in which "readiness" for school and learning might be better understood with greater attention to such constructs. If we are to take seriously calls for accepting individual developmental process in promoting readiness, then we should indeed attempt to identify the range of factors relevant to such considerations. It should be noted that developmental characteristics are obviously not discrete entities that can be easily separated, and indeed organizational models of development (Cicchetti, Toth, & Bush, 1988) clearly promote the hierarchical integration of differing domains as development emerges. Therefore, continuing to address individual developmental correlates of readiness is not likely to meaningfully contribute to our goal of ensuring readiness to learn.

Two major contextual concerns are apparent, neither of which has been well studied in relation to the readiness phenomenon or the transition to school. These are the role of the family, and the role of the school in promoting readiness. It has been suggested that supporting families' child rearing efforts is critically important to ensuring success in school readiness (NAEYC, 1990), yet it is not entirely clear what form these efforts might take, or what child rearing efforts and experiences will be most salient to readiness.

It is also the case the various scholars have suggested that school environments, curricula, and teachers need to take greater responsibility in the readiness function (Kagan, 1990; Shepard & Smith, 1986; Willer & Bredekamp, 1990). Yet, the state of knowledge about classroom structure, developmentally sensitive curricula, teacher-child interactions, and basic educational or teaching philosophy somewhat limits the degree to which decisions could be currently made in regard to facilitating the schools' readiness to ensure children's success. Not only do early family experience and school or classroom factors appear important for further understanding readiness, but so does the child's early child care and/or preschool experience. Attempts to reconceptualize the readiness phenomenon must also account for the multiple interrelationships among such factors, similar to the ecological notions of mesosystem function proposed by Bronfenbrenner (1979).

Readiness issues, and the relations among various developmental processes and achievement have typically been studied without reference to intracultural, cross-cultural, or cross-national considerations (Slaughter-Defoe, Nakagawa, Takanishi, & Johnson, 1990). However, given the changing American demographics, the increasingly pluralistic character of the nation's schools, and increasing sensitivity to the importance of diversity and its contextual influence on developmental processes, much greater attention has begun to focus on the influences of culture on achievement. However, Slaughter-Defoe et al. (1990) also note that for Black Americans in particular, the focus of much of this attention has been on achievement failures rather than achievement successes. In contrast, they note that reverse has been true for Asian Americans.

There are multiple issues to be addressed still within a cultural or diversity perspective in respect to readiness. Racism is one, poverty or economic hardship another (McLoyd, 1990), and sensitivity to different learning and communication styles of minority children yet another (Shade, 1982). Further, with growing numbers of immigrant families and their children beginning to attend schools, the impact of English as a second language is yet to be determined as a readiness issue.

Certainly, contextual approaches (as earlier defined) include aspects of culture and social structure. More specific focus, however, needs to be placed on issues related to social class, ethnicity and race. These macro system elements have significance in the quest to unravel the factors that shape and drive children's developmental processes and ultimate competencies. For example, the segregating nature of social class, ethnicity and race may well reduce the variety of enriching experiences thought to be prerequisite for creating readiness to learn among children. Social class, ethnicity, and race entail a set of "contextual givens" that dictate neighborhood, housing, and access to resources that affect enrichment or deprivation as well as the acquisition of specific value systems. These consequences, both positive and negative, that derive from these macro system elements must be made an integral part of cause and effect interpretations about readiness.

Early intervention programs provide a valuable context for furthering the readiness knowledge base. Such programs, whose traditional aims are to promote later school success, have attempted to initiate interventions across a wide spectrum of developmental abilities and processes. Lessons from Head Start, the Infant Health and Development Program, the Abecedarian project, or the PREP program in Hawaii (to mention but a brief few), each of which involved promoting later academic success, could be used to examine our current notions of the complexities of readiness. Given the national goal to promote readiness to learn, the factors associated with interventions that have in fact promoted such success seem critical to consider in any attempt to address the readiness process.

Measurement presents another problem, as it is clear that the current state of the art falls far short of the need for adequate assessments that can be used with confidence and are not simply performing a gatekeeping function. It may well be premature, however, to attempt to address the measurement need before we have a clear sense of the critical parameters of readiness per se. Regardless, it is imperative that sound measurement technology be incorporated into the study of readiness concerns.

Perhaps even beginning to address some of the important issues within the areas described above is an impossible task, as any attempt to define some of the major issues will leave out many of the others that equally merit attention. Too, it seems critical that our theoretical models and subsequent research on readiness attempt to bridge the areas discussed above. Isolated studies of discrete readiness factors are not likely to promote the level of understanding necessary to inform our models, policies, or the applied educational needs of young children as they approach school. There is a clear need for an integrated, comprehensive, developmental model of readiness that draws from various disciplines engaged in the readiness concern.

One of the themes that will no doubt emerge in the papers that follow is the scarcity of scientific knowledge regarding readiness to learn and school readiness constructs. The current knowledge base is not well codified, nor is it well integrated into higher order abstractions or theories. Given the generally accepted premise that readiness to learn and readiness for school are multiply determined, it remains critical to integrate the current knowledge, and identify the gaps that exist within current conceptualizations of the readiness phenomenon. By so doing, we can begin the task of reconceptualizing readiness processes such that every child has the opportunity for success.

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