![[ED Home]](/icons/edhome.gif){kind=icon}
FOR RELEASE
February 17, 2000
Contact:
David Thomas
(202) 401-1579
NEW STUDY PROVIDES FIRST COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL DATA ON KINDERGARTNERS
A new national study shows that most children enter kindergarten with beginning reading skills and nearly all know numbers and shapes. Furthermore, most children start school with good social skills and are in good health.
America's Kindergartners, released today by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), provides first-time national data on children attending public and private kindergarten, their families, and their classrooms. The report presents baseline data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99, a study of 22,000 kindergarten children, their families, schools, and classrooms.
"This important study underscores the importance of increasing efforts to support and expand early childhood learning," said U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. "While this report is very positive, I am concerned that it tells us that only half of all parents are reading to their children every day. My message to parents is to read, read, read. It makes a powerful difference."
Prior to the study, national data on kindergartners came from household and other surveys, but could not be used to study the relationships between children's classroom and school experiences, home environments and their school performance. This new report is designed to study such relationships.
The study found that 82 percent of children enter kindergarten with print familiarity skills, such as knowing that print reads from left to right, and 66 percent recognize letters. Some children can recognize words and a very few can understand words in simple sentences. Ninety-four percent of children begin school knowing their numbers to ten and basic shapes; and a very few -- four percent -- can add or subtract.
Teachers in the study reported that most children enter kindergarten with good social skills, such as accepting peer ideas (74 percent), and forming friendships (77 percent). However, a few children enter kindergarten with potentially disruptive behaviors such as arguing (11 percent) and fighting (10 percent). Furthermore, parents report that nearly all children (97 percent) are in good to excellent health when they enter kindergarten.
Although the findings were positive for the population as a whole, there are several groups of children whose knowledge and skill levels put them at-risk.
"Possibly the most important finding in the base-year of the study is that many of the differences we see between groups of students in elementary and secondary school are already there when the children enter kindergarten," said Gary Phillips, acting commissioner of education statistics. "Differences in children's reading, math, and social skills, and health that are related to poverty, parents' education and race and ethnicity are already there upon entering kindergarten."
On average, according to the study, African American and Hispanic children, children from welfare homes, and those whose parents have less education had significantly fewer early reading and math skills, exhibited more problem behaviors, and were less healthy.
This new study will continue to follow the same sample of children through the fifth grade, regularly gathering data on their reading and math achievement, social skills, physical development, and school experiences. The study will reveal whether differences that exist when children enter school persist or change over time.
Phillips said the study would provide a rich data set for examining how a wide range of family, classroom, teacher and individual characteristics affects early success in school. Reports planned for the near future will focus on the changes that occur in children's skills and knowledge during the kindergarten year. Kindergarten teachers and teaching practices also will be described.
The full text of America's Kindergartners is available on the NCES web site at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2000070. A copy of the report can be obtained by calling toll free 1-877-4ED-PUBS (1-877-433-7827) TTY/TTD 1-877-576-7734; email at edpubs@inet.ed.gov; Internet at http://www.ed.gov/pubs/edpubs.html.
###