Kindergarten Components of Executive Functions and First-Grade Achievement: A National Study

• In Event: Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: Young Children's Self-Regulation and Executive Function

Abstract

This study replicates and extends past research on the relationship between school-entry readiness skills and achievement using nationally representative data from the ECLS-K 1998-1999 and 2010-2011. This study replicates with new data that early academic skills and approaches to learning behaviors are predictive of first grade reading and math outcomes. New evidence is provided that in addition to these skills, components of executive functions are also predictive of outcomes. In the absence of controls for children’s approaches to learning behaviors, executive functions contributed significantly to predicting later reading and math outcomes. One factor conceptualized as executive functions indicated that these skills are substantial developmental predictors of later achievement, although associations are still less than those found for school-entry achievement skills.

Author

• Tutrang Chung Nguyen, University of California - Irvine