Abstract
A promising approach for studying school readiness involves a person-centered approach, aimed at exploring how functioning in diverse developmental domains conjointly affects children’s school outcomes. Currently, however, a systematic understanding lacks of how motor skills, in conjunction with other school readiness skills, affect a child’s school outcomes. Additionally, little is known about longitudinal associations of school readiness with non-academic (e.g., socioemotional) school outcomes. Therefore, we examined the school readiness skills of a sample of Dutch children (N = 91) with a mean age of 3 years and 4 months (46% girls). We used a multi-informant test battery to assess children’s school readiness in terms of executive functions (EFs), language and emergent literacy, motor skills, and socioemotional behavior. During the spring term of a child’s first grade year, we collected academic and non-academic (i.e., EFs, motor skills, socioemotional- and classroom behavior, and creative thinking) school outcomes. A latent profile analysis revealed four distinct profiles. Children in the “Parent Positive” (29%) profile were rated positively by their parents, and performed variably on motor and language/emergent literacy skills tests. The second profile–“Multiple Strengths” (13%)–consisted of children showing strengths in multiple domains, especially with respect to motor skills. Children from the third profile–“Average Performers” (50%)–did not show any distinct strengths or weaknesses, rather displayed school readiness skill levels close to, or just below the sample mean. Finally, the “Parental Concern” (8%) profile was characterized by high levels of parental concerns, while displaying slightly above average performance on specific motor and language skills. Motor skills clearly distinguished between profiles, next to parent-rated EFs and socioemotional behavior, and to a lesser extent emergent literacy skills. School readiness profiles were found to differ in mean scores on first grade academic achievement, parent- and teacher-rated EFs, motor skills, parent-rated socioemotional functioning, and pre-requisite learning skills. The pattern of mean differences was complex, suggesting that profiles could not be ranked from low to high in terms of school outcomes. Longitudinal studies are needed to disentangle the interaction between emerging school readiness of the child and the surrounding context.
Highlights
Ample evidence supports the notion that a child’s skills at school entry set the stage for a successful and adaptive school career (Snow, 2006; Duncan et al, 2007; Valiente et al, 2021)
The main finding of our study was the identification of four distinct school readiness profiles
Being one of the first to consider motor skills as part of school readiness, we showed that motor skills clearly distinguished between children in the four school readiness profiles
Summary
Ample evidence supports the notion that a child’s skills at school entry (i.e., their school readiness) set the stage for a successful and adaptive school career (Snow, 2006; Duncan et al, 2007; Valiente et al, 2021). According to the Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action, ensuring that each and every child is prepared to thrive in school is a goal that early childhood policy makers should view with the utmost urgency and importance (UNESCO, 2015) Meeting this goal calls for a thorough assessment and understanding of variation in early childhood school readiness (Hirsh-Pasek et al, 2005). An up-and-coming school readiness research strand that focusses on the individual child as a whole, is the personcentered (PC) approach It explores how functioning in diverse developmental domains conjointly affects children’s school career and outcomes (Bergman and Magnusson, 1997; Marsh et al, 2009). While many previous studies applied a narrow focus on only “core” academic skills, we implemented a broad assessment comprising of cognitive (e.g., literacy) and non-cognitive (e.g., motor or socioemotional) skills that have been linked to, and deemed necessary for school success and functioning in later life and society (Pagani et al, 2010; Kim et al, 2016)
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