Gontran Lamberty
Maternal and Child Health Bureau

Keith Crnic
Pennsylvania State University

This paper attempts to summarize and later list the specific recommendations that evolved from the Conference--School Readiness: Scientific Perspectives--conducted on January 24-26, 1992, at Columbia, Maryland, under the support of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau. The recommendations were generated in six workshops, each of which had a topical focus corresponding to that of a symposium. Further, despite the conferences' explicit focus on the empirical knowledge bases in each area, conference participants were encouraged to broadly consider recommendations along issues relevant to research, policy, and service.

Many diverse ideas evolved from the process of generating recommendations. Predominantly, the diversity reflected the disciplinary mix of the Conference participants, which included federal administrators, biomedical, behavioral and social scientists, as well as educators and physicians responsible for educating and caring for children. The disciplinary mix was purposive to assure the varied points of view necessary to inform reconceptualizations of readiness to learn and readiness for school. Collectively, the recommendations express the view that the determinants of readiness to learn in children are many and complexly interwoven. Acknowledging this underlying complexity from the beginning is conducive to the development of more informed research, policy, and service.

While many diverse ideas were reflected in the Conference recommendations, several consistent underlying themes emerged. These were: (1) the need to redefine the concept of school readiness; (2) the need to acknowledge the biological foundations of learning; (3) the significance of contexts and contextual transitions in learning; (4) the need to expand the role of schools and teachers; (5) the need to more fully integrate the growing cultural diversity of our population into the learning equation; (6) the need to develop new assessment instruments; and (7) the need to provide advice to funding agencies regarding areas of strategic importance. More explicit discussion of these themes follows, with the specific recommendations presented in the Appendix to this paper.

It was recommended that "school readiness" as a concept be abandoned and replaced by the notion of "continuing readiness to learn." This serves several purposes. Readiness to learn implies a continuing process of contextually-mediated cognitive and social challenges and adaptations. Included here are the notions that: (1) there are multiple component states to "readiness" (i.e. cognitive, social, psychological) that are differentially achieved by children at specific ages; and (2) the overall state of readiness for a formal educational experience in children depends upon the extent to which children's health and development has been nurtured long before the time of school entry. Readiness to learn then implies developmental diversity in children beginning formal schooling that continues throughout the school years. Such diversity suggests that the responsibility for readiness be shared by schools as well as children and families. Such shared responsibility is likely to be more responsive to a diverse population of children who arrive at school with a variety of capacities and needs.

Throughout the life span, development, health, and readiness to learn are dependent upon the interaction of biological and environmental factors. A more explicit focus on biological foundations of learning, and health related processes were viewed as critical elements in furthering our understanding of the readiness phenomenon. Recent research in the cognitive and neural sciences provides accumulating evidence that distinct cognitive systems require the operation of relatively independent neural systems. The neural systems and their associated cognitive systems appear to follow specific developmental timetables. As such, there is a need to chart the changes in brain organization and cognitive functioning from early childhood through adolescence, as well as identify "critical periods" during which a possible biological priming might predispose the brain to optimal learning. In addition, there is a need to characterize the developmental nature of children's neuropsychological functioning (e.g. attention, language, memory, visual-spatial ordering, temporal sequential ordering, etc.) as well as the emergence of neurodevelopmental dysfunctions. Research should determine which dysfunctions are stable and detectable early and which are not.

An explicit focus of many of the conference recommendations is the notion of context, and the important influences that various environments and settings can have on children's readiness to learn. The family is considered the primary developmental context in which readiness to learn evolves and is shaped. Yet, the ecologies that influence readiness extend well beyond the family setting, to include early day care environments, preschools and elementary schools, playgrounds, neighborhoods, as well as the societal and cultural values that dictate policies affecting children and families. Readiness to learn, within contextual frameworks, implies a transactional process in which the child-environment interactions occur and produce reciprocal effects across time.

From this contextual developmental framework, learning may be viewed as a continuing process of contextual-cognitive challenges to which children must adapt. It is critical to begin to accept that successful adaptations may take many forms; and a standard readiness criterion is not feasible to account for the diversity of children's developmental adaptations. Therefore, one major recommendation involved the need to support children's efforts to successfully navigate transitions from one contextual challenge to another, particularly through efforts that seek to bridge relations between family systems and the other settings of relevance to the challenge (e.g. schools). For schools, such relational efforts may support the learning promoting practices of the family, as well as encourage parents to support school activities because they fit more easily into the family's culture and the routine of their daily life.

A number of recommendations for research are offered with the contextual theme. Most involve extending the understanding of the basic processes underlying contextual influences on readiness to learn. However, they also seek to identify effective ways of promoting continuity across relevant contexts to promote children's successful transitions to school. Likewise, the major focus of policy and service recommendations involves efforts to promote, both in philosophy and practice, the developmental/contextual view of readiness to learn and the need for schools and other relevant contexts to support families' on behalf of their children.

The need to consider the growing racial and ethnic diversity of the U.S. population appears frequently in the Conference recommendations. One important theme that emerges is the need to recognize that diversity is apparent both within and between racial and ethnic groups. Consequently, labels such as Asians, Native-Americans, Hispanics, and African Americans do little to differentiate our understanding of the issues germane to individual children of color. Instead, somewhat greater specificity is needed that includes dimensions of country of origin, generation, social class, gender, and culture. Further, the recommendations with regard to diversity frequently detail problems of language, particularly in regard to assessment issues, minority children's general adaptation to structured school environments, and families participation in the educational enterprise.

The clear need to conduct general developmental studies of minority children was recommended. Not only will such research generate more appropriate group specific norms, but it could also dispel stereotypic notions about culturally diverse learners that are often translated into ineffective educational interventions.

Of interest was the frequently noted contention that stimulating and enriching environments for learning can be found in many forms within the diversity of racial and ethnic groups that constitute the U.S. population. Such diverse environments are intricately interwoven with cultural practices and represent some of the many unique ways that human populations have developed over the years for defining and addressing the concerns of daily living, including educating the young. It was persuasively argued that many benefits could be derived by identifying and studying these culturally diverse environments for the information they can provide about the range of effective family adaptations that lead to school competence.

A major emphasis within the recommendations was the need to reconsider the role of current educational philosophy, school environments, and teachers in the readiness process. Of the many recommendations offered regarding schools, three were emphasized: (1) the educational system should embrace the constructive skepticism of scientific inquiry regarding current practices; (2) the role of schools in our society should be expanded beyond the traditional one of classroom education; and (3) schools should act as the focal point for a cooperative, tripartite (i.e. family-school-community) approach to learning and readiness. These recommendations are clearly interrelated, and derive from those similar recommendations associated with the biological and developmental/contextual approaches to readiness to learn.

In regard to scientific skepticism, the recommendations advocate three specific positions: (1) educational systems must adopt a perspective that embraces open questioning of current practices; (2) educational systems should carefully design and conduct evaluations of current practices; and (3) the educational system should be open to novel and/or "radical" approaches to education, particularly as it involves notions of readiness and the transition to school. In regard to the last of these three, it is apparent that tinkering at the edges of the educational system has not produced solutions to the current problems, nor has it generated sufficient change.

In all, what evolves from these recommendations is the view that the educational establishment should adopt a more scientific or empirical approach to its mission. Further, individual schools should be encouraged to become community hubs for child and family services. In some instances, schools might also more commonly provide applied research laboratories for the advancement of knowledge on how to improve teaching and enhance learning.

The recommendations regarding the expansion of the schools' role imply that it should be more effective and economical to integrate a variety of health, social and educational services within one setting that serves all children. Several justifications support such reasoning. First, and perhaps most important, is accessibility. Children, as a rule, come to school regularly and therefore travel to other sites for services would be avoided or significantly curtailed. Second, most schools are neighborhood-based, and integrating services in the schools would promote a greater sense of community. This, in turn, would not only enhance the delivery of services but might encourage greater participation and compliance as well (e.g. well child care, immunizations, etc.). Finally, placing services together would be conducive to cross fertilization between the different professions now charged with delivering these separate services to children and their families. Such cross fertilization would likely lessen the insular atmosphere of most schools and would promote active participation of nonteaching professionals and parents in the schools. Research, however, needs to be undertaken to ascertain whether integrated service delivery is more effective and economical, whether it actually results in the hypothesized cross fertilization, and to define the conditions under which these benefits might be forthcoming.

Although related to the expansion of the schools' role, the development and execution of a tripartite cooperative approach to education seems to require much more. The specific requirements, however, are not discussed at length in the recommendations. One can speculate that it would require a comprehensive and well considered plan in which development and execution must evolve over a considerable period of time through consultation between the three parties. Additionally, it is likely to require a high degree of personal involvement and commitment, as well as the necessary resources to identify and apply the current state of knowledge regarding teaching, school environments, and learning.

Conference recommendations acknowledge the complexity of this tripartite approach, particularly as it pertains to schools and teachers. This acknowledgment is reflected in the many suggestions offered to enhance the teaching profession. These suggestions range from advocating higher status and salaries for teachers to recommending that undergraduate and graduate training be given in multidisciplinary models that focus on the developmental needs of children and families. Many recommendations involve identifying efforts that increase parental involvement in the school process and enable parents to cooperatively engage the educational system.

It was not surprising to find numerous references in the recommendations about the need to develop new assessment instruments that incorporate the key assumptions that underlie the concept of readiness to learn as opposed to the old assumptions regarding readiness for school. Clearly, the current focus on measuring children’s attainment of specific, narrowly defined skills has not been adequate to address readiness to learn. Instead, recommendations suggest development of new measures that reflect competence as an adaptive process in development. Further, assessment strategies are needed that involve "diagnostic" issues, as well as information helpful to ongoing educational planning. For example, mastery motivation, self-efficacy, and aspirations for the future may be particularly salient for special needs children.

Also recommended was the development of more sensitive and clinically/educationally relevant indicators of neurodevelopmental dysfunction that could be used in the assessment of readiness to enter formal schooling. Currently existing measures are not sufficiently sensitive to neurodevelopmental dysfunctions of low severity that may influence the day to day success of children in school. Likewise, with respect to diversity, it is advised that cultural and ethnic considerations need to be incorporated in the construction and administration of meaningful instruments for developmental assessment.

Conference participants recognized that there is a long-standing need for a refined system of describing individual variability among children and for communicating its significance in the educational setting. The differential advantage of non-categorical descriptions of children's strengths and weaknesses as opposed to the assignment of specific diagnostic levels must, be examined critically. The benefits and dangers of labeling, as well as the inherent trade-offs involved, demand closer scrutiny by the field. If specific diagnostic categories are found to be helpful, a refined taxonomy of childhood function must be constructed. If diagnostic labels prove to be uniformly destructive, an alternative mechanism for communicating important information about the abilities and performance of children must be developed. With respect to early intervention, it was recommended that assessments should be iterative and involve multiple points of contact so that assessment is integrated into the intervention process.

Suggestions on how policy makers should approach the support of research and demonstration activities were numerous, and were a major focus of the recommendations. Some involved the mechanisms by which priorities are selected. It was suggested that research priorities pertaining to continued readiness to learn should be derived from joint planning between the research, policy, consumer and practice communities. Separate and independent funding streams do not contribute maximally to such joint planning efforts. Scientific research funding priorities must explicitly value attempts to look more broadly at development from a biological, contextual and interdisciplinary perspective. The traditional narrowly focused studies have had a useful but limited yield, relative to the extant potential for advancing understanding of complex human developmental processes. By conducting large-scale longitudinal studies of representative and diverse populations, along with more in-depth selected studies of special populations (including case histories of children, families, programs, and communities), it would be possible to have a greater and more meaningful yield from research.

It is also recommended that research funding should be organized around consortium/network arrangements. Few of the issues raised can be addressed comprehensively by a single research project, if only because there are so many variations in the ways in which studies can be done and in the children and ecological niches in which they operate. The most effective way to cover these multiple bases may be to fund networks of researchers working on conceptually similar problems in somewhat different ways who can pool their ideas, methods and findings to reach the most valid conclusions. A word of caution offered was that past experience illustrates that advances in knowledge are severely hindered by a separate funding strategies (service and demonstration versus research and training). Our knowledge base could be enhanced substantially if service, research, and training were combined programmatically.

Despite the variety of professional disciplines represented in the Conference, there were many areas of agreement in the recommendations that were generated. One important agreement was that school readiness as a concept is far too restrictive in its implications to meet the broad educational needs of children. Instead, it was recommended that it be supplanted by a more developmentally oriented concept involving "continuing readiness to learn." This notion assumes that there are a variety of capacities and needs in children at point of entry into school and thereafter, and that schools must be ready to respond to such variety in a sensitive and developmentally appropriate way. Participants also recommended that the educational system should embrace the constructive skepticism of scientific inquiry in regard to their current practices, and engage in strongly evaluated, more radical approaches to education on a voluntary basis. In addition, it was advised that the role of schools in our society should be expanded beyond the traditional one of classroom education, and operate as the hub for a cooperative family-school-community effort that seeks to continually support, nurture, and enhance the capacities for development of families and children. The issue of the growing cultural diversity of our population was acknowledged in the recommendations and was raised as an important consideration in the assessment of children’s abilities as well as the understanding of children's learning styles. It was also suggested that priorities to guide federal and state support of research and demonstration activities should derive from joint planning between the research, policy, consumer and practice communities, and that research funding should be organized around consortium/network arrangements.

It is evident from the recommendations that the Conference participants have a complex and process-oriented view of "continuing readiness to learn." This view derives from both theory and empirically derived knowledge about. human development, as well as from notions about cultural diversity and its effects on social, affective, and cognitive domains. Since much of the process and its complexities are yet to be defined, disentangling them through multidisciplinary research is the principal task that lies ahead. Given the multiple suggestions for action that include applied and policy issues in the recommendations, conference participants were not of the opinion that further action should await empirical verification of the processes and complexities involved. This was so despite the explicit focus on empirical bases of the current readiness zeitgeist. The recommendations instead urge educators and other professionals to act cooperatively on what is already known, and to experiment with intuitive hunches about solutions to current problems in the relations between readiness issues and educational processes.

Below is the complete list of recommendations that were generated during the conference proceedings. These are not prioritized; rather they have been divided into three major sections that address the basic concerns to which each symposium was requested to respond: research issues, policy issues, and service issues.

1. Understanding the biological basis for children's readiness to learn in school is needed to broaden concerns for children's social-emotional development and the impact of cultural and other environmental influences upon the readiness for learning.
   
   
2. There is a pressing need to establish vigorous research programs that aim to conduct closely coordinated studies of human cognitive and neural development and to pursue the applications of research findings in educating both normally developing and special children.
   
   
3. Research is needed to characterize the nature of neurodevelopmental readiness within the context of normal variations in neurodevelopmental functioning found among children and adolescents, particularly in response to normal instructional demands throughout the school experience.
   
   
4. Research programs concerned with the development of technology for localizing brain activity and the mapping of neuro-cognitive functions should go beyond the search for one-to-one correspondence between brain activity and behavior, seeking to understand the relationships of learning to mental health and the consequences of schooling on mental health.
   
   
5. Scientific research funding priorities must explicitly value more broad approaches to development from a contextual and interdisciplinary perspective.
   
   
6. It is essential to study the variety of factors that predate school entry (so-called input variables), and this should be done in a variety of distinctive ecologies (e.g., urban impoverished neighborhoods, suburban mainstream communities, rural communities) in order to determine whether processes of influence operate similarly or differently in contrasting settings.
   
   
7. Identification of features of teachers (attitude, expectations, etc.) and the teaching process that are most important as influences for school success? Same issues regarding principals.
   
   
8. Identify the kinds of linkages between child care programs and schools are effective in fostering educational success and what processes occur to make them effective?
   
   
9. Identify the features of continuity and discontinuity between child care and school promote success in school?
   
   
10. Identify the benefits and drawbacks of continuity and discontinuity in terms of early childhood versus prototypical academic orientation in contrasting ecologies?
    
    
11. Identify the implications of transition to school for subsequent school transitions?
    
    
12. There is a critical need for the educational system to embrace the constructive skepticism of scientific inquiry and to view rigorous evaluation of its own performance as a vehicle for positive growth.
    
    
13. The roles of schools in our society must be expanded beyond the traditional role of classroom education. This will require use of schools as a base for providing vitally needed health and social services for children and families in a continuous, safe, and supportive environment.
    
    
14. Determine under what conditions and program auspices do health, education, and mental health services function synergistically and effectively?
    
    
15. Research should be conducted that addresses the ability of a school system to maximize the contributions of parents and community resources in the mutual attainment of educational goals.
    
    
16. Identify those efforts that enable parents to cooperatively engage the educational establishment and other service systems to facilitate child development (broadly conceived; i.e., what do schools do to promote or undermine such partnerships--at what levels of schools or classrooms?).
    
    
17. Families and schools need more information regarding the effective family adaptations which assist school competence and the resources that maximize a family's ability to provide experiences that insure that children are "school ready."
    
    
18. Support research that includes cultural diversity from both inter- and intracultural perspectives.
    
    
19. Support research that recognizes language as a school readiness issue.
    
    
20. Determine the influence of school-home language consonance and dissonance on school success and family participation?
    
    
21. Cultural and ethnic considerations need to be incorporated in the construction and administration of developmental assessment instruments.
    
    
22. There is a need to increase the cultural diversity of longitudinal studies by including those groups not generally focused on (i.e., Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Native American, and Asian subgroups such as Vietnamese and Cambodians).
    
    
23. Families and schools need more information regarding the effective family adaptations that assist development of school competence and the resources that maximize a family's ability to provide experiences which insure that children are "school ready."
    
    
24. Research funding should be organized around consortium/ network arrangements.
    
    
25. Research priorities involving interventions with children, families and schools should be derived from joint planning between research, policy, consumer and practice communities.
    
    
26. Scientific research funding priorities must explicitly value looking more broadly at development from a contextual and interdisciplinary perspective.
    
    
27. For socially recognized issues, such as school and learning readiness, we need to ensure that service and demonstration dollars are not separated from research and training.
    
    
28. A variety of research methodologies, including standardized measures and ethnographic descriptions of family and child adaptation, are needed to assess the effects of intervention programs.
    
    
29. Documentation of the effects of health status on readiness for learning will depend on our ability to develop better measures of physical, nutritional and functional health, as well as perceptions of health.
    
    
30. Research on the interface between health and readiness for learning needs to include the behavioral aspects of health.
    
    
31. Research is needed that focuses on mental health of children and families as a factor affecting school readiness.
    
    
32. Research on the association between health status and school readiness needs to recognize differences in access to health care.
    
    
33. There is a long-standing need for a refined system of describing individual variability among students and for communicating its significance in the educational setting.
    
    
34. There is a long overdue need for new measures of competence that focus on the processes of adaptation in developing children rather than on the attainment of specific and narrowly defined "skills."
    
    
35. There is a need to develop more sensitive and clinically/educationally relevant indicators of neurodevelopmental dysfunction for use in the assessment of educational readiness.
    

36. The concept of "school readiness" needs to be abandoned, adopting a commitment to supporting "continued readiness to learn" throughout the school years.
    
    
37. The concept of school readiness must be redefined, with greater emphasis placed on the readiness of the school rather than that of the child.
    
    
38. School readiness should be conceived as existing along a continuum representing readiness for increased cognitive demands and transitions throughout the school years.
    
    
39. Individuals responsible for the design and implementation of educational programs and for the assessment of children's readiness for academic programs should give equal consideration to the biological bases for children's readiness for learning as well as to their cultural and sociological readiness.
    
    
40. Support radical experimentation with schools, schooling, and education (identifying goals and purposes, clients and providers) on a voluntary basis.
    
    
41. Make schools more permeable to health providers, parents, and counselors.
    
    
42. Provide greater status, money incentives and other rewards for teachers.
    
    
43. Encourage kindergarten through third grade teachers to visit the home of every child in their classes before the start of school care.
    
    
44. If there is to be a national effort to assess children for readiness there must be continuity to assessments, i.e., measurement over time.
    
    
45. The role of schools and early education programs must be expanded so that resources are available throughout the early school years for the provision of comprehensive services that include the domains of health and personal/social development.
    
    
46. Early intervention works in direct relationship to quality, intensity, duration, and breadth of treatment. There is no evidence that weak, short-term programs provide sustained benefits to society.
    
    
47. Increase inter- and multidisciplinary perspectives in school readiness research and services, including those of anthropologists, sociologists, historians, pediatricians, and others who can enrich the developmental psychological perspective.
    
    
48. Increase training opportunities in school readiness research and service for culturally diverse students. Promote professionals' development and growth through predoctoral and postdoctoral training fellowships.

49. All teachers must be prepared and willing to meet the educational and social needs of a broad diversity of children.
    
    
50. Special needs require specialized resources for those at both extremes of the range of child abilities.
    
    
51. Support intervention that incorporates family and community participation in a meaningful way, not simply to meet some federal or local guideline.
    
    
52. Intervene with teachers who often are not ready for cultural diversity in the classroom.
    
    
53. Assistance to families and children in early educational programs before and during the early school years should be sustainable and meaningful in the context of families' everyday lives.
    
    
54. Training at the pre-service and continuing recertification levels for professionals who focus on young children (teachers, principals, physical and mental health care personnel) should ensure that such training fosters multidisciplinary models that focus on the developmental needs of young children and families.
    
    
55. Readiness assessments now in use should focus more on the family/cultural/social contexts and should be tied to interventions not so much in order to fix or normalize the child but to help the school adapt to (be ready for) the child's needs.
    
    
56. Support multicultural teacher training so that diversity considerations are integrated throughout schooling activities.
    
    
57. Support minority recruitment into the teaching profession.
    
    
58. Prepare teachers to deal with disabled children and technology.
    
    
59. Integrate medical and mental health services education at school sites.
    
    
60. Emphasize developmental sciences in teacher training.

This article was originally published in Early Education and Development, volume 5 number 2, April 1994, pp. 165-76. The article is reproduced with the permission of Wide Range, Inc., the publisher of Early Education and Development.

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