Social-emotional School Readiness Research Articles

Parental involvement and Chinese children’s cognitive and social-emotional school readiness: Differential effects across family socioeconomic status

Children’s school readiness skills are strong predictors of their academic achievement in later schooling. This study examined the relationship between multiple types of parental involvement (i.e. home-based involvement, school-based involvement and home-school conferencing) and Chinese children’s cognitive and social-emotional school readiness as well as the moderating role of family socioeconomic status (SES) in these associations. A total of 311 parents (Mage = 35.50 years, SD = 3.60) and their five to six years old children (Mage = 5.53 years, SD = .50), from four kindergartens in Shanghai, China participated in this study. Results indicated that Chinese parental involvement had a stronger relationship with children’s cognitive readiness than social-emotional readiness. Home-based involvement was more related to children’s cognitive and social-emotional school readiness than school-based involvement and home-school conferencing. Family SES moderated the relationship between home-based involvement and home-school conferencing and children’s cognitive and social-emotional school readiness. Home-based involvement was more strongly related to low-SES children’s cognitive and social-emotional readiness and home-school conferencing was more strongly related to low-SES children’s cognitive readiness compared with their high-SES peers. Implications for research, practice and policy are discussed.

Effectiveness of a Multicomponent Parenting Intervention for Promoting Social-Emotional School Readiness Among Children From Low-Income Families in Hong Kong

Most parenting programs target parents of children with severe behavioral problems. There is limited evidence on the effectiveness of universal parenting programs, especially for families with low income. To evaluate the effectiveness of the KeySteps@JC Parent-Child Interaction Program for low-income families in Hong Kong. A parallel, unblinded, cluster, randomized clinical trial was conducted from September 2018 to June 2019. Eight participating preschools in Hong Kong were randomly assigned (1:1) using an online randomization plan generator into intervention (immediate) and waiting list control (delayed) groups. Intervention participants included the parents of children in kindergarten grade 1. The results were processed by an intention-to-treat analysis. KeySteps@JC Parent-Child Interaction program. The primary outcome was child behavioral problems, which were assessed using the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire. Secondary outcomes were parental emotion coaching, involvement in child reading and play, and parent stress levels, which were assessed using Chinese-validated versions of the Parent Reading Belief Inventory, the Chinese Parent-Child Interaction Scale, the Emotion-Related Parenting Styles, and the Parental Stress Scale questionnaires. Parents in the intervention group participated in a training program consisting of 20 weekly 1.5-hour sessions on child behavior management, emotion coaching, dialogic reading, and interactive play. The primary hypothesis was that child behavior problems would be reduced after the intervention. The main analysis was a mixed-method regression with group status as the independent variable. A total of 267 parents (mean age, intervention group: 33.8 years; 95% CI, 32.9-34.7 years; waiting list group: 35.7 years; 95% CI, 34.5-36.9 years) participated in the program. The intervention group included 153 participants (57.3%), and the waiting list group included 114 participants (42.7%). Among the target children (mean age, intervention group: 3.5 years; 95% CI, 3.4-3.5 years; waiting list group: 3.4 years; 95% CI, 3.4-3.5 years), there were 88 boys (57.5%) in the intervention group and 59 boys (51.8%) in the waiting list group. At postintervention, the intervention group reported a statistically significant improvement in children's behavior (Cohen d, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.04-0.53); parents' use of emotion-coaching strategies, including feelings of uncertainty or ineffectiveness in emotion socialization (Cohen d, 0.26; 95% CI, 0.01-0.50) and parental rejection of negative emotion (Cohen d, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.08-0.57); and involvement in child reading (Cohen d, 0.17; 95% CI, -0.07 to 0.41). The results of this randomized clinical trial provide promising evidence on the effectiveness of a multicomponent parenting intervention in preparing children from low-income families to be more socially and emotionally ready for school. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03615937.

Language Problems and ADHD Behaviors: Unique and Interactive Associations with School Readiness in a Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Preschool Sample.

This study examined the unique and interactive effects of receptive language ability and ADHD behaviors on six school readiness outcomes, over and above the effects of socioeconomic status, in 49 preschoolers (Mage = 3.98, SDage = .58; 53.06% female) recruited from Head Start-affiliated classrooms. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed unique positive associations between receptive language ability and cognitive and mathematics readiness, and unique negative associations between ADHD behaviors and social-emotional, physical, cognitive, and literacy readiness. Moderation analyses indicated that at higher, but not lower, levels of ADHD behaviors, lower receptive language ability was associated with lower social-emotional readiness. Results highlight that, when considered together, children's receptive language ability and ADHD behaviors vary in how they predict school readiness. Further, results provide preliminary evidence for ADHD behaviors as a risk factor in the association between receptive language deficits and social-emotional school readiness. Educational and clinical practice implications are discussed.

The Effect of Home-to-School Transition Program on Social-Emotional Readiness of Preschool Students

Aim: This study was done to investigate the effect of home-to-school transition program on social-emotional readiness of preschool students.
 Methods: For this study, semi-experimental design with pretest-posttest and control groups were used. The population included all preschool students in Isfahan during the 2017-2018 academic year who entered kindergarten for the first time. Data collection for this study included voluntary participation of two kindergartens from the city’s 5th district, and each was randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. Seventeen students who were qualified to enter the interventional phase were included in the treatment and control group. The transition from home to school program was performed on the experimental group during 3 months and the control group did not received any interventions. The scale of the Social-Emotional School Readiness (Bustin, 2007) was used to collect the data.
 Findings: The data was analysed with one-way and multivariate analysis of covariance and the results showed that the home-to-school transition program was effective to promote social-emotional readiness of preschool student (p <0/003).
 Conclusion: Therefore, we can use this program for preschool student to increase their social-emotional readiness.

Performance of pre-schoolers for social emotional school readiness from urban areas of Panipat and Hisar district of Haryana state

Social-emotional school readiness is gaining currency as a viable strategy to close the learning gap and improve equity in achieving lifelong learning and full developmental potential among young children. Social and emotional development consists of the relationships an individual has with others, the level of self-control, and the motivation and perseverance a person has during an activity is considered as an important factor in child school readiness. Urban area of Panipat and Hisar districts was selected from Haryana state. A sample of 400 preschool children were selected from these two districts. There was significant difference in social emotional school readiness preschoolers in urban areas. The statistically significant difference was observed for the aspects including self-awareness behaviour, self-regulation behaviours, empathy behaviour and coping skill in children of urban locations from both the districts. While in empathy behaviour, and coping skill behaviour statistically non-significant difference was observed in respondents of rural areas from of both the districts.

A Modifying the Instrument of Self-Regulation in Early Childhood Assessment

Self-regulation for pre-school children is very important to support children’s adjustments in all situations and conditions. The current problem is the instrument of self-regulation is more focused on regulation in learning which is not suitable for young children. This study aims to examine the validity and reliability of Preschool Self-Regulation Assessment (PSRA) in Indonesia by modifying several children self-regulation theories. The instrument was translated from English into Indonesian and it retranslated into the native language by linguists. The questions, then, were validated through a process of professional judgment and cognitive de-briefing. The study was carried out to 179 children aged 6 to 7 years old. Data were analyzed by using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). It showed that there are 5 dimensions of children's self-regulation, namely: attentional focus, behavioral control, self-motivated, self-autonomy and emotional control. The result showed that the five-dimensional model is agreed with the data and prove to measure children’s self-regulation. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient value was 0.899, indicating high scale reliability. Thus, the pre-school children’s self-regulation assessment has well psychometric for further use.
 Keywords: Children’s self-regulation, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Construct validation, Pre-school self-regulation assessment, Reliability
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Parental contributors to children’s persistence and school readiness

This study examined whether parental teaching strategies (e.g., scaffolding) are predictive of school readiness competencies through children’s task persistence, and if the strength of the relation varies across two contextual features of parenting (e.g., warmth and harsh discipline). Past research has examined contextual features of parenting or specific parenting practices as being related to children’s achievement, with less attention given to how they might interact. In the present study, a moderated-mediation model was tested to assess whether parental scaffolding skills predict children’s language-cognitive and social–emotional school readiness, mediated by children’s persistence and moderated by parent warmth and harsh discipline. Exploratory analyses assessed whether a competing sequential-mediation model better explained the associations among parenting, children’s persistence, and school readiness than a moderated-mediation model. In a low-income sample of families from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (N = 2977), parental scaffolding significantly predicted children’s persistence at 36 months, as well as both latent constructs of school readiness before kindergarten. Persistence partially mediated the link between parental scaffolding and both latent constructs of school readiness. Neither warmth nor harsh discipline moderated the mediational model. In the sequential-mediation model, parent scaffolding and children’s persistence mediated the associations between warmth and harsh discipline and both latent constructs of school readiness. The sequential-mediation model provided a similar fit to the data as the moderated-mediation model. The results indicate that parental scaffolding can promote children’s persistence and later school readiness.

The Role of Authoritative and Authoritarian Parenting in the Early Academic Achievement of Latino Students.

Early academic achievement has been shown to predict high school completion, but there have been few studies of the predictors of early academic success focused on Latino students. Using longitudinal data from 750 Mexican and Dominican American families, this study examined a cultural model of parenting and early academic achievement. While Latino students were achieving in the average range as a whole, certain subgroups (e.g., Dominicans, boys) were at higher risk for underachievement. Results highlighted the protective role of authoritative parenting, which was associated with academic and social-emotional school readiness, both of which predicted higher achievement at the end of first grade. The role of respeto and authoritarian parenting practices in academic achievement at first grade differed between Mexican and Dominican American families. Findings advance understanding of early achievement and parenting among Latino families from a cultural perspective.

Development of Elementary School Social Competence Questionnaire and Analysis of Its Psychometric Characteristics

While social competence is widely studied, relatively few studies are aimed at investigating social competence at elementary school years. Furthermore, social competence tends to be dependent on social and cultural context; hence instrument developed in one country may require significant adaptations in other countries. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to develop a Lithuanian questionnaire for assessment of social competence at elementary school.
 Individual items for the Elementary School Social Competence Questionnaire were drawn from the Early Developement Instrument (Janus et al., 2007), the Social Emotional School Readiness Scale (Bustin, 2007), and the Social Competence Inventory (Rydell et al., 1997). The study was conducted in two waves. In the first wave subjects were 437 first graders (198 boys and 239 girls) from Lithuania. In the second wave, which took place a year after, 192 boys and 228 girls participated.
 The Elementary School Social Competence Questionnaire was developed from the initial pool of items using structural equation modeling. The Questionnaire contained the Communicative Social Competence Subscale and the Ability to Take Directions Subscale. The initial measurement model was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis on the dataset obtained during the second wave of measurement. Both subscales demonstrated good internal and test-retest reliability. Construct validity of the instrument was assessed by correlating its subscales with student-teacher relationship, in-class popularity, and school anxiety measures.

Associations between attendance in center-based care and social-emotional school readiness competencies in kindergarten

본 연구는 미국 아동들을 대상으로 한 ECLS-K: 2011 데이터를 사용하여 중 성향점수맞춤 (PSM)분석 방법을 이용하여, 센터중심(center-based)의 프리스쿨 경험과 유치원 시기 아동의 다양한 사회 정서적 관계를 조사하는 것을 목적으로 하였다. 연구결과 들은 다음과 같다. 첫째, 아동의 학령기 전 다양한 형태의 센터중심(center-based)의 프리스쿨 경험과 사회 정서적 관계에서는, 전형적 센터 중심(center-based)의 프리스쿨을 경험한 아동들은 긍정적인 사회적 정서적 향상을 보였다. 둘째, 전형적 센터 중심(center-based)의 프리스쿨을 경험한 아동들은 프리스쿨 경험이 없는 아동에 비해 유치원 시기 문제행동을 보였다. 셋째, 센터중심(center-based)의 프리스쿨 경험이 있는 아동들 중에서 인구통계학적 특성 중 인종 간 사회 정서적 기술에 대한 차이는 보였으나, 저소득 계층 아동들 간 센터 중심(center-based)의 프리스쿨 경험에 대한 사회적 정서적 기술에 대한 차이는 거의 나타나지 않았다. 그러나 헤드스타트(Head Start) 프로그램에 참여했던 아동들의 경우, 인구통계학적 특성의 차이를 보였다. 이상의 결과들은 학령기 전 다양한 형태의 프리스쿨 경험과 사회 정서적 발달과 문제 행동 간의 관계에 대해 고찰해 봄으로써, 종단연구의 필요성과 질 높은 교육경험에 대한 정책적인 방향에 대한 중요성을 시사한다.Using a nationally representative data set, the study examines the relationship between attendance in center-based care before entering kindergarten and social-emotional school readiness competencies in kindergarten. Results based on propensity score matching (PSM) point to a small positive association between participation in center-based care and individual social-emotional school readiness competencies. In addition, a moderate association was found between attendance in center-based care and children’s behavioral problems by the end of kindergarten. There were few significant differences between participation in center-based care and children’s social-emotional outcomes across race/ethnicity among the middle-SES groups. However, the impacts of Head Start program varied among low-SES groups. Suggestion for long-term study in terms of early social-emotional development and policy implications are discussed.

Effect of the Imagination Library on caregiver–child literacy interactions and school readiness: findings from two quasi-experimental propensity score studies

ABSTRACTThe paper reports findings of two quasi-experimental, propensity score matched (PSM) studies on the effects of Imagination Library (IL). IL is a community book-distribution program targeting improved caregiver–child literacy interactions, which are hypothesized to lead to increased school readiness – consisting of improved emergent literacy skills and social-emotional school readiness. In Study One, interviews were used to examine proximal increases in the quality of child–caregiver literacy interactions with 112 PSM families (IL = 56; non-IL = 56). Small effects were observed in Study One favoring IL families on reading interactions (d = .043). In Study Two, 378 PSM kindergarten students (IL = 189; non-IL = 189) were compared with regard to standardized tests of emergent literacy skills and social-emotional school readiness – distal outcomes of IL. No effects were observed in Study Two. Taken together, these two studies run counter to prior reports on the effects of IL and suggest that more must ...

Family Routines and Social-Emotional School Readiness Among Preschool-Age Children

To determine whether preschool-age children's participation in family routines is associated with greater likelihood of having high social-emotional health (SEH). Data come from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort preschool wave, a nationally representative sample of children born in 2001. Based on the literature and distribution of responses, 5 routines were categorized as present if children participated in family dinners ≥5 days per week, reading, storytelling, or singing ≥3 times per week, and play ≥few times per week. A total routines score (0-5) was also computed. Mothers rated children's SEH on 24 items scored 1 through 5. Items were summed into a total score, which was dichotomized at >1 SD above the mean, to reflect low/high SEH. Multivariable analyses assessed associations between SEH, routines score, and individual routines, adjusting for confounders. Among ∼8550 children, 16.6% had high SEH. For each additional routine in which a child participated, there was a 1.47 greater odds of having high SEH. In adjusted models, participating in dinners: 1.4 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.3-1.6), storytelling: 1.9 (95% CI, 1.6-2.4), singing: 1.5 (95% CI, 1.2-1.9), and play: 1.3 (95% CI, 1.1-1.5) was associated with increased odds of high SEH. Reading was not associated with greater odds of high SEH (1.2, 95% CI, 0.9-1.5). Participation in a higher number of routines and in select routines was associated with increased likelihood of having high SEH. Promoting family routines may contribute to greater SEH before school entry.

An investigation of preschool classroom behavioral adjustment problems and social–emotional school readiness competencies

The study examined the unique relationship between multiple dimensions of classroom behavioral adjustment problems and salient social–emotional competencies for urban Head Start children. These relationships were investigated using a hierarchical model that controlled for the variance in social–emotional outcomes attributed to age, gender, and verbal ability. Classroom behavioral adjustment problems were assessed early in the year by the Adjustment Scales for Preschool Intervention (ASPI) across multiple, routine preschool classroom situations. Outcomes assessed at the end of the year included emotion regulation, peer play in the home and neighborhood context, and approaches to learning. Socially negative behavior in the classroom predicted emotional lability, maladaptive learning behaviors, and disruptive social play in the home at the end of the year. Withdrawn behavior uniquely predicted lower affective engagement in the classroom and disconnection from peers in the home context. Findings provide predictive validity for the ASPI. Implications for policy, practice and future research are discussed.

Motivation as a Facet of School Readiness in a Head Start Sample

The EZ-Yale Personality Motivation Questionnaire (EZPQ) was used to measure motivation as a facet of school readiness in a sample of 133 children during the spring of their final year of Head Start. Three motivational constructs assessed by the EZPQ, academic mastery motivation, negative reaction tendency, and outerdirectedness, were associated with criterion measures of cognitive and social-emotional school readiness in the expected directions. The EZPQ scales were also sensitive to amount of time spent in Head Start. Children completing their second year of Head Start evinced more adaptive motivational characteristics than children who had been in the program for just one year. Implications address the value of comprehensive definitions of school readiness not restricted to just emergent literacy, math, and language skills.