Beginning Of Formal Schooling Research Articles

Blood lead levels and math learning in first year of school: An association for concern

Lead is a well-known neurotoxicant that continues to affect children's cognition and behavior. With the aim to examine the associations of lead exposure with math performance in children at the beginning of formal schooling, we conducted a cross-sectional study of first-grade students from 11 schools in Montevideo, Uruguay. Math abilities were assessed with tests from the Batería III Woodcock-Muñoz (Calculation, Math Facts Fluency, Applied Problems, Math Calculation Skills and Broad Maths). Separate generalized linear models (GLM) tested the association of blood lead level (BLL) and each math ability, adjusting for key covariates including age and sex, maternal education, household assets and Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment Inventory score. In a complete-case of 252 first-grade students (age 67–105 months, 45% girls), mean ± SD blood lead level was 4.0 ± 2.2 μg/dL. Covariate-adjusted logistic models were used to examine the association between childhood BLLs and the odds of low math performance. BLL was negatively associated with scores on the Calculation test (β (95% CI): −0.18 (−0.33, −0.03)), Math Calculation Skills (−1.26 (−2.26, −0.25)), and Broad Maths cluster scores (−0.88 (−1.55, −0.21)). Similarly, performance on the Calculation test, as well as cluster scores for Broad Maths and Math Calculation Skills differed between children with BLLs <5 and ≥ 5 μg/dL (p < 0.01), being lower in children with higher BLLs. Finally, considering the likelihood of low test performance, each 1 μg/dL higher B–Pb was related to 27% higher likelihood for Maths Facts Fluency, 30% for Broad Math and Math Calculation Skills, and 31% for Calculation (p < 0.05). These results suggest that lead exposure is negatively associated with several basic skills that are key to math learning. These findings further suggest that the cognitive deficits related to lead exposure impact student achievement at very early stages of formal education.

Predictive Analysis of Academic Performance in Peruvian Children: The Role of Effortful Control and School Liking

Introduction. In Peru, there are few studies that include individual differences between students to explain their academic performance at the beginning of formal schooling. For that reason, the aim of the present study was to predict the perceived academic performance of a group of students based on the following variables: effortful control (EC) and school liking (SL). Method. A sample of 423 students, between 5 and 8 years old (M = 6.29, SD = 0.89), was gathered from public schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas in Lima. A total of 45 teachers gave information about their perceptions regarding the study variables in their respective students. Results. The hierarchical linear regression analysis results show that both effortful control and school liking are positive and significant predictors of perceived academic performance, even after controlling for students’ cognitive skills and their mothers’ educational level. Discussion and Conclusion. Possible explanations for these findings and their relevance in the Peruvian context are discussed.

Longitudinal and situational associations between math anxiety and performance among early adolescents.

Studies have found math anxiety and achievement to be related from the beginning of formal schooling, but the knowledge regarding the direction of the relationship is vague. The purpose of the present study was to study this relationship. We investigated math anxiety from two points of view: trait and state anxiety. In the first substudy, we investigated the longitudinal relationship between math anxiety and performance from sixth to seventh grade (n = 848) with cross-lagged modeling. In the second substudy, we investigated the situational relationship of anxiety and performance by giving the participants (n = 149) challenging and nonchallenging math tasks adapted to their skill level, and then examining the association between anxiety and the performance. The results suggest that math anxiety has a small longitudinal effect on performance: High anxiety in sixth grade predicted low performance in seventh grade. Anxiety also had a situational association with performance: when anxiety was aroused, the participants performed more poorly compared to their skill level. The results adduce the two-fold effect of anxiety on achievement: math anxiety seems to have both a real-time association with performance and a long-term effect on the development of basic arithmetic skills.

Associations between Childhood and Adolescent Emotional and Behavioral Characteristics and Screen Time of Adolescents

The correlations between emotional and behavioral problems and increased screen time among young people has been highlighted in the literature. This study examined both longitudinal and cross-directional associations between the degree of childhood and adolescent emotional and behavioral problem characteristics and a higher level of daily screen time in adolescence using an extensive population study. Questionnaires providing data on a representative cohort sample (the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 Study, NFBC 1986; n = 6479; 3101 males) were completed at birth, in childhood, and in adolescence. Male gender, and self-reported behavioral issues (such as a higher degree of hyperactivity/distractibility problems at the beginning of formal schooling and adolescent rule-breaking problems), predicted higher daily screen time in adolescence, after controlling for confounding factors. Higher levels of anxious-depression symptoms among adolescents were inversely related to them having elevated daily digital screen time. Individual behavioral tendencies at the start of formal schooling and later in adolescence may predict higher screen time among young people.

Early predictors of first and fourth grade reading and math: The role of self-regulation and early literacy skills

This study aimed to elucidate possible similarities and differences in early predictors of reading and math in First and Fourth Grade. Participants were 110 4-year-old Icelandic children (mean age 55.7 months, 49% girls) who were assessed on literacy and self-regulation in preschool and their performance related to their reading and math scores in Grades 1 and 4 (mean age 79.8 months and 122.2 months, respectively). The results revealed that basic reading skills in First Grade were predicted by domain-specific constructs related to preschool literacy, including phonological awareness and letter-knowledge, while First and Fourth Grade math, as well as Fourth Grade reading comprehension, was predicted by a wider constellation of skills, including self-regulation, early knowledge of written language and, in the case of reading comprehension, also phonological awareness. These results confirm previous findings indicating that self-regulation plays a stronger role in math than in reading at the beginning of formal schooling, but extends prior studies by linking preschool self-regulation to more advanced aspects of reading and math development in Fourth Grade. The findings also add to an emerging evidence that early written language skills, but not phonological awareness, are unique predictors of math. The instructional implications of these findings are discussed.

Система психологического сопровождения образования детей с задержкой психического развития

Введение. В статье обсуждаются вопросы, связанные с проблемой психологического сопровождения наиболее представленной в инклюзивной образовательной среде категории школьников – детей с задержкой психического развития (ЗПР). Новизна исследования заключается в проектировании целостной системы дифференцированного психологического сопровождения образования данной категории детей с учетом вариативности их развития к началу школьного обучения, а также в выделении и описании основных видов и направлений деятельности педагога-психолога.&#x0D; Теоретическое обоснование. Представлены методологические основы исследования, включающие: базовые положения специальной психологии и коррекционной педагогики, основанные на культурно-исторической теории Л. С. Выготского; социокультурный подход к анализу развития образовательной практики и задачам специальной психологии на каждом этапе развития системы образования детей с ограниченными возможностями здоровья; методологию психологического сопровождения в рамках образовательного процесса. Описываются современные подходы к целям и организации психологического сопровождения детей с задержкой психического развития в связи с модернизацией системы образования, анализируются необходимое содержание и условия образования младших школьников, направленные на удовлетворение их особых образовательных потребностей.&#x0D; Результаты и их обсуждение. Авторы рассматривают психологическое сопровождение детей с задержкой психического развития как планомерную реализацию основных видов профессиональной деятельности психолога, дифференцированных в соответствии с актуальными задачами современной образовательной практики и способствующих в своей совокупности успешному обучению и развитию каждого ребенка. В качестве основных задач сопровождения выделяются: выявление, устранение и предотвращение дисбаланса между процессами обучения и развития детей с учетом их индивидуальных возможностей; коррекция вторичных нарушений развития, проявляющихся в когнитивной, эмоциональной и социально-поведенческой сферах; создание условий для социально-психологической адаптации личности ребенка. Обосновываются основные виды деятельности психолога: диагностическая, коррекционно-развивающая, экспертно-консультативная. В заключении приводятся критерии оценки эффективности психологического сопровождения.

Self-Concept in Kindergarten and First Grade Children: A Longitudinal Study on Structure, Development, and Relation to Achievement

The self-concept refers to a multidimensional construct that organizes a person’s self-perceptions into a hierarchical structure comprising global and specific facets. Children’s self-concept, however, is believed to be less differentiated and less realistic, as children tend to systematically overestimate their abilities. Since little research has been conducted with children before the beginning of formal schooling, the present longitudinal study aimed to explore the structure of kindergarten children’s self-concept, its development during the transition to school, as well as the links between self-concept and achievement in first grade. Counteracting the positively biased self-ratings in children, self-concept was assessed by an innovative measurement instrument that allows for fine-tuned self-evaluations. Structural Equation Modeling showed that kindergarten children’s self-concept is already organized in a multidimensional structure, and thus, differentiates much earlier than previously believed. Like the self-concept of adults, kindergarten children’s self-concept is composed of domain-specific facets, comprising literacy, mathematical, peer-related and teacher-related self-concept aspects. Moreover, gender stereotype conforming differences—like boys having a higher mathematical and girls having a higher social self-concept—already seem to develop at such a young age. Upon first grade entry, children’s academic self-concept increases and becomes positively related to achievement, indicating at least some realism in children’s self-perceptions. Taken together, the findings provide new insights into the structure, development, and validity of young children’s self-concept, contributing substantially to the generalizability of a multidimensionally organized self-concept.

Gender Differences in Early Literacy and Mathematics Achievement and Self-regulatory Behaviours in the First Year of School: An Australian Study

THIS PAPER PRESENTS ANALYSES of gender differences in classroom behaviours (e.g. attentiveness and task persistence) and early academic outcomes. Data is drawn from Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian children (LSAC). In these analyses, data from Wave 1 data collection (2004) and Wave 2 data collection (2006) for the Kindergarten Cohort are used. A sample of 2315 children who were in Year 1 of school at Wave 2 data collection are the focus for the analyses reported. The analyses draw on teacher ratings of children's literacy and language competence and mathematical thinking in Year 1 of school; as well as ratings of children's self-regulatory behaviour in the classroom and level of problem behaviours. Girls were rated by their teachers as having better literacy and language outcomes that were predicted by more positive classroom behaviours. Results are discussed with respect to the influence of children's classroom behaviours on academic learning at the beginning of formal schooling.

Relative Age Effects in Mathematics and Reading: Investigating the Generalizability across Students, Time and Classes.

A child's age in comparison to the age of her or his classmates (relative age) has been found to be an influential factor on academic achievement, particularly but not exclusively at the beginning of formal schooling. However, few studies have focused on the generalizability of relative age effects. To close this gap, the present study analyzes the generalizability across students with and without immigrant backgrounds, across three student cohorts that entered school under a changing law of school enrollment, and across classes. To this end, we capitalized on representative large-scale data sets from three student cohorts attending public schools in Berlin, the capital of Germany. We analyzed the data using a multilevel framework. Our results for the overall student sample indicate relative age effects for reading and mathematics in favor of the relatively older students in Grade 2 that become somewhat smaller in size in Grade 3. By Grade 8, relative age effects had vanished in reading and had even reversed in favor of the relatively young in mathematics. Furthermore, relative age effects were not found to be systematically different among students with and without immigrant backgrounds, student cohorts, or across classes. Taken together, these results empirically underscore the broad generalizability of the findings as found for the overall student population and replicate the pattern of findings on relative effects as identified by the majority of previous studies.

Influence of Demographic Variables on Metalinguistic Skills

Background/Aims: The existing literature reports no clear patterns for the influence of extralinguistic variables on MSs because they vary across languages. Therefore, the current study addresses this issue by analyzing the development of MSs at the beginning of formal schooling and by determining the extent to which demographic variables affect metalinguistic development in normally developing European-Portuguese (EP) children. Methods: The sample included 80 EP first graders aged 6;00-6;11 years who presented a normal linguistic development. The Language Test - Preschool Language Assessment (TL-ALPE) was used to assess MSs in the domains of semantic, structural, and phonological awareness. Results: At the beginning of formal schooling, only one phonological awareness task involving syllables was considered to be acquired and established among all metalinguistic tasks elicited. Significant group differences were not found for the demographic variables of gender, socioeconomic status, and ecological setting. Conclusion: These findings contribute to the increasing literature on MSs. The reference information provided is important for accurately identifying school-aged children with language impairment.

Mostruário de Práticas: considerações sobre a formação e a atuação de professores dos Anos Iniciais a partir das Feiras Catarinenses de Matemática

Resumo Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo apresentar e analisar narrativas que, em seu conjunto, permitiram atribuir significado a concepções e práticas atualmente vigentes, relacionadas ao ensino e à aprendizagem de Matemática nos Anos Iniciais, em escolas do estado de Santa Catarina. Ressalta-se, nesse panorama, as Feiras Catarinenses de Matemática. Valendo-se da metodologia conhecida como História Oral, foram coletados, editados e estudados depoimentos de quinze professoras atuantes no início da escolarização formal que têm ou tiveram envolvimento com as Feiras de Matemática, espaço reconhecido na educação catarinense para divulgação de práticas relativas ao ensino de Matemática. As narrativas ressaltam certa lacunaridade na formação inicial dos professores que ensinam Matemática, estratégias possíveis de formação contínua e algumas expectativas quanto ao ensino de Matemática praticado nas Séries Iniciais.

Introduction

Introduction Laura L. Lovett and Karen Sánchez-Eppler When I was One, I had just begun.When I was Two, I was nearly new.When I was Three, I was hardly me.When I was Four, I was not much more.When I was Five, I was just alive.But now I am Six, I’m as clever as clever,So I think I’ll be six now for ever and ever. (A. A. Milne, Now We are Six) For the past six years we have had the pleasure of launching and editing the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. It has been a real honor and a source of learning and delight to watch the process of the journal’s growth from when it had “just begun.” And while we have sought as readers and editors to acknowledge the multiplicity of perspectives, historical moments, and cultures that think very differently about childhood, as we enter the journal’s seventh year in production and distribution, we are reminded of the many ways that seven, as an age, resonates with a kind of maturity in Western traditions: the Age of Reason, the beginning of formal schooling (in Finland), or the age of moral culpability in ecclesiastical law. Seven years seems a good juncture for passing the care of this journal on to other hands. The history of childhood in many ways seems “nearly new,” and as historians we are still trying to name and gauge the “usefulness,” as Joan Scott so aptly asked of gender, of this “category of analysis.” The uses we have discerned through our work on the journal are both theoretical and methodological. Age is a malleable category and so particularly helpful for allowing us to see beyond binaries through spectrums and transitions. Capacity-based arguments for the subjugation of many groups (the poor, the disabled, women, colonized peoples) often infantilize their subjects through an undifferentiated [End Page 407] narrative of childhood. The figure of the child naturalizes power imbalances and marks them as benign, and so serves a normalizing function for all kinds of hierarchies, even those that don’t explicitly involve children. Studying childhood requires that scholars address the balance of capacity and dependence. As a field we need to ask where does dependency trump rights and where do we need to reassess our assumptions about those seen as vulnerable? Studying childhood authorizes interrogating something seemingly familiar and yet inherently strange; the past as all historians know is a foreign country, and this is even true of our own childhood pasts. Children’s most important experiences are unlikely to leave documents or written records, and what records there are come mediated by adults, including the child’s own adult self. Such methodological obstacles are problems for history in general but they are magnified by the History of Childhood, heightening self-awareness and prompting innovation in research methods. This issue of the journal instances such interpretive resourcefulness with essays by Elizabeth Hanson and Carol Manzione that models strategies for discovering children’s experience through the data entered in early modern registers, by José dos Santos on insights into child labor to be gained through legal records in Brazil, and by Kaisa Vehkalahti and Susanna Hoikkala that carefully compares gender differences in early twentieth century Finnish children’s reformatories. As an international journal JHCY highlights how the definitions and experiences of childhood are remarkably different across time and geography. Yet there are children everywhere. Paying attention to childhood both facilitates robust comparisons and makes visible cultural features less salient without the vantage childhood affords. Structures such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child have worked to set universal standards for children’s rights and well-being. The History of Childhood insists that we contextualize rights and care, and seek to understand the diversity of childhood experience, even as contemporary advocates seek universal rights. Virginie Ladisch’s essay on the International Center for Transitional Justice’s work with children describes the importance and difficulty of balancing protection and participation for young people victimized by state and institutional violence. We are grateful for the international community of scholars who care about childhood, who are...

Development of Cognitive Skills in Children with Motor Coordination Impairments at 12-Month Follow-up

The current study presents a 1-year follow-up investigation of the development of executive functions (i.e., inhibition, updating, and shifting) in children with motor coordination impairments. Cognitive and motor coordination skills of children (N = 94) aged between 5 and 7 years with and without motor coordination impairments were compared. A second focus of the study was on pre-academic skills. The results indicate marked stability of motor coordination impairments and persistent executive functioning deficits in motor-impaired children. Inhibition and shifting performance was consistently lower, compared to the children without motor coordination impairments. Moreover, children with motor coordination impairments showed lower pre-academic skills, facing a substantial disadvantage at the beginning of formal schooling. The combined cognitive and motor problems may be the result of an underlying inhibition deficit or a general automation deficit. Implications for intervention are discussed.

Refocusing on Oral Language and Rich Representations to Develop the Early Mathematical Understandings of Indigenous Students

This article examines the nature of oral language and representations used by teachers as they instruct young Indigenous Australian students at the beginning of formal schooling during play-based activities in mathematics. In particular, the use of Standard Australian English (SAE), the mathematical register used, and the interplay with mathematical representations during classroom instruction are analysed based upon the teachers' selfreported practices. The data are drawn from structured telephone interviews with 40 teachers in 15 schools from rural and remote or multicultural settings in Queensland at the initial stage of a large, longitudinal study. The specific aim of the study was the identification of effective pedagogical practices that may assist young Australian students from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds to negotiate western mathematical understanding. The findings indicate that despite experience in these settings and focused professional learning sessions, the majority of these teachers report practices which reflect a strong emphasis on literacy acquisition rather than mathematical understanding. It is the contention of the researchers that the use of oral language with a rich selection of mathematical representations strongly supports mathematical understanding.

Early mathematics development and later achievement: Further evidence

There is a growing international recognition of the importance of the early years of schooling as well as an interest being shown in the relationship of early education to later achievement. This article focuses on a cohort of English pupils who have been tracked through primary school during the first five years of the new National Numeracy Strategy. It reports a limited longitudinal study of young children’s early mathematical development, initially within three testing cycles: at the mid-point and towards the end of their reception year (at five years-of-age) and again at the mid-point of Year 1 (at six years-ofage). These cycles were located within the broader context of progress through to the end of Key Stage 1 (at seven years) and Key Stage 2 (at eleven years) on the basis of national standardised assessment tests (SATs). Results showed that children who bring into school early mathematical knowledge do appear to be advantaged in terms of their mathematical progress through primary school. Numerical attainment increases in importance across the primary years and practical problem solving remains an important element of this. This finding is significant given the current emphasis on numerical calculation in the English curriculum. It is concluded that without active intervention, it is likely that children with little mathematical knowledge at the beginning of formal schooling will remain low achievers throughout their primary years and, probably, beyond.

Time to Talk of Early Childhood

EVEN THOSE given to betting on long shots would not accept the odds facing thousands of kindergarten and primary school teachers these days. Before they complete the first lessons - and certainly before they give the first tests - these teachers know that they have signed up to perform the difficult juggling act of bringing all their young charges up to the same level, while sticking to the standards local definitions of accountability demand of them. It is sad to admit that the inequality allowed to exist in the richest nation in the world means that children enter kindergarten with backgrounds that differ widely in the preparation they provide for learning. These gaps are present on the first day of school, and, so far, most schools have not figured out how to close them. The recent report on mathematics achievement from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), for example, did find higher performance since the early 1990s in the fourth and eighth grades. But NAEP also found that, because skills had improved in all racial and income groups, the academic gap between disadvantaged and more advantaged students hadn't closed. Indeed, in some cases, it had even grown wider. The realities of a serious learning gap at the beginning of formal schooling, coupled with our failure to deal with it, might sour the whole school year for some readers. But something significant is on the verge of happening in public policy and understanding that could change the picture. We may be headed for an acceptance of universal preschool. Certainly, some of the framework exists already. Even Start, Head Start, early education services for the developmentally delayed, programs such as Parents as Partners, and a variety of state-funded initiatives make opportunities available to some families in an effort to compensate for what more affluent families can do for their children. When we also take into account the array of private early childhood programs, we can see that the pattern of early childhood education in the U.S. seems to be a patchwork of programs. It has never really been a system. Certainly, the problem of unequal access has plagued U.S. early childhood education, but, more important, there has been no public commitment to quality. The U.S. is one of the few industrialized nations that does not offer public support for universal preschool programs. This failure to give priority to the preparation of our youngest citizens means that we have no clear standards for the environments that best stimulate their learning. Moreover, we do not expect those to whom we entrust the care and education of young children to be extraordinarily well prepared, and we pay them accordingly. The lack of universal standards and the inadequate levels of investment are now on a collision course with the findings of research about what high-quality early childhood education can accomplish. And standards need not here mean conformity. A good Head Start program can do as much for young children as the most exclusive suburban Montessori school and still be very different. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) represents all sorts of programs and providers, but for a long time it has supported certain standards for programs and for the preparation of caregivers and teachers. Federal policy is now moving cautiously toward changing this situation. President Bush has emphasized more attention to cognitive preparation in Head Start programs. Unfortunately, such moves fall far short of promoting quality throughout the early childhood experiences of those children who will fill the K-12 classrooms of the future. Without some means of improving teacher preparation and knowledge of child development, a move toward more academic instruction in the early years could restrict young children's capacities for deep learning, a skill they will need as they enter school. …

Do transitional classrooms really provide transitional time?

In the United States, kindergarten marks the beginning of formal schooling for more than 3 million children each year (Shepard & Smith, 1986). At the end of the kindergarten year, most of these children demonstrate expected levels of achievement and are promoted to traditional first-grade classrooms. Others are labeled “unready” or “immature” for successful performance in today's academically rigorous first grade. In most elementary schools, the placement for these at-risk children is either retention in kindergarten or social promotion to first grade. An alternative in approximately 17% of the nation's elementary schools is assignment to a “transitional classroom” between kindergarten and first grade (Educational Research Service, in press). This additional year of instruction is often viewed as a “gift of time” — time for children to mature and make a gradual transition from kindergarten to first grade.

The Repair of Umbilical Hernia: Unvoiced Assumptions and Sex-Reply

In Reply. —I responded to a letter that requested information and an opinion on the appropriate timing for the surgical repair of a persistent umbilical hernia in a child. I do know that many umbilical hernias spontaneously reduce and heal over a period of time. However, the need for making an adequate closure at the time of the beginning of a formal education, when physical activity becomes competitive, is one reason why timing of the child's surgery should occur just prior to the beginning of formal schooling. In addition, since in our society, and particularly here in the Northeast, girls at the postpubescent age may become pregnant and may do so as mature women, the integrity of the abdominal wall should be secure. We would not want an umbilical hernia to remain present during pregnancy. My response in no way had anything whatever to do with a moral or ethical