A Model of School Readiness Based on the Priorities of Children from a Disadvantaged Community

• In Event: 1-104 - Disentangling the Impact of Home Visiting Programs on Children’s Behaviour, Cognition, and Health

Integrative Statement

Introduction. Children in communities facing socioeconomic disadvantage are more likely to struggle with the skills needed for school success, and thus are increasingly targeted by school readiness interventions (Shonkoff, 2015). Although these initiatives are stronger if they address stakeholders’ priorities, children’s priorities are rarely accounted for in their design and the selection of outcome measures.
Hypothesis. The Children’s Thoughts about School Study sought to identify young children’s school readiness priorities based on accounts of their early school experiences. It further aimed to assess the validity, from children’s perspectives, of outcome measures employed in a state-of-the art school readiness parenting trial (Preparing for Life; PFL).
Study population. Forty-two children, stratified by treatment exposure (14 = high treatment; 13 = low treatment; 15 = comparison group; 17 boys) and aged on average 61.82 months (SD = 3.62; range = 55.36-70.54), were recruited from a designated disadvantaged school in the PFL catchment community.
Methods. Children completed mixed-method interviews including: the School Liking and Avoidance Questionnaire (SLAQ; Ladd, 1990); semi-structured questions about an anthropomorphised character starting school for the first time, the Pictorial Measure of School Stress and Well-being (Murray & Harrison, 2014); and a draw and talk activity. Inductive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used to identify salient aspects of their early school experiences. Children’s priorities were distilled from themes and subthemes to extract essential components of school readiness, which were then compared against the trial outcome measures.
Results. Children held strong positive global feelings towards school, with only a minority of children (7.2%) reporting highly negative views. However, children’s affect was differentiated across school scenarios, with the most negative views reported for toileting and ambiguous peer scenarios. Four overarching themes were identified from the inductive analysis (see Table 1): feeling able and enthusiastic for school; navigating friendships and victimization; supportive environments with opportunities to play; and bridging school and family life. Twenty-five school readiness priorities were distilled from the framework. Priorities for academic competencies and aspects of self-regulation were well captured by outcome measures. Children’s priorities of self-efficacy, social skills for friendship formation and avoiding victimization, as well as creative thinking and play were partially captured, while concerns regarding school liking, the school environment, and family-school involvement were not included in the measures’ scope. Overall children depicted school readiness as a multi-faceted construct; a motivational drive underpinning a range of capacities and skills (literacy and numeracy, social skills, self-regulation, physical independence, and creativity and play), that is deeply social, and influences and is shaped by its surrounding contexts (see Figure 1). These findings suggest that children’s priorities and concerns lend face validity to the existing assessment of core academic skills and aspects of self-regulation. They also highlight scope for assessments to be augmented in the areas of motivation (school liking, self-efficacy) and the social skills needed for friendship formation and to avoid victimization. Children’s accounts endorse the value of skill gains yielded by parenting interventions such as PFL and the need for social and emotional learning programs and play pedagogies in early years settings.

Authors

• Christine O'Farrelly, Imperial College London
  Presenting Author

• Ailbhe Booth, University College Dublin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mimi Tatlow-Golden, The Open University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Beth Barker, Imperial College London
  Non-Presenting Author