About this session

Saturday, 12:10 PM - 1:40 PM

Measurement of Different School Readiness Skills: The New Way of Looking at the “Old” Construct

Transition to school is regarded as a pivotal developmental period for children. Children who enter school ready to learn are expected to succeed academically (Duncan et al., 2007) and have improved social, economic, and health outcomes (McClelland et al., 2013; Moffitt et al., 2011; Shonkoff & Philips, 2000). Although historically, the focus of school readiness was on pre-academic skills such as identifying letters and basic counting, being ready for school goes beyond these skills. Emergent work has demonstrated the importance of nonacademic skills (e.g., social-emotional skills, self-regulation) for general school success and domain-specific skills (e.g., science, mathematical language) for early academic performance. Yet, the narrow focus on measuring school readiness (e.g., language, early literacy, early mathematics) limits our understanding of other important constructs for children’s success. This symposium will present three new measurement approaches to school readiness and explore less-studied domains of this construct, including self-regulation, science and engineering knowledge, and mathematical language.

The first presentation focuses on a commonly used self-regulation task, the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders, as a screening tool for kindergarten-level achievement in mathematics and literacy. The second presentation focuses on the relations between science and engineering knowledge, as measured by a newly developed assessment and other school readiness domains. The third presentation focuses on children’s mathematical language comprehension and use of mathematical language terms during social block play. Overall, findings will be discussed to highlight the role of self-regulation, mathematical language, and science and engineering knowledge for children’s school readiness and novel approaches for assessing the school readiness construct.

Paper #1
Title	The Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders Task as a Screening Tool for Kindergarten-level Achievement
Presenting author	Irem Korucu, Florida Atlantic University, United States

Paper #2
Title	Measuring Math Language: Relations Among Preschoolers’ Comprehension and Use of Math Language Terms
Presenting author	Brianna Devlin, Ph.D., University At Buffalo, United States

Paper #3
Title	Relations Between the Dimensions of Preschoolers’ Science and Engineering Knowledge and Other School Readiness Domains
Presenting author	Lauren Westerberg, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States

View all paper details

Session chair
Irem Korucu, Florida Atlantic University, United States

Discussant
Robert Duncan, Ph.D., Colorado State University, United States

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