Relationships Among Kindergartners' Approaches to Learning Behaviors, Family Socioeconomic Status, and Later Academic Outcomes

• In Event: Pre-Kindergarten Practice, Policy, and Child Outcomes

Abstract

Using new data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11, this paper examines relationships between children’s approaches to learning behaviors in the fall of kindergarten and their academic gains in reading, mathematics, and science from kindergarten through the spring of second grade for children from different family socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds. Results from the preliminary analyses indicate that students who demonstrated positive approaches to learning behaviors more frequently in the fall of kindergarten tended to make greater progress in all three subjects in their first two years of school. Also, the positive relationship between initial approaches to learning and academic gains in reading and mathematics are larger for children from lower-SES households than for those from high-SES households.

Authors

• Amy H. Rathbun, American Institutes for Research

• Grace Kena, U.S. Department of Education