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Methods and proceduresParticipants ParticipantsThe children studied here included all 5-year-olds in the third longitudinal cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY; see Appendix A). These children were born between April and December in 1997, and were 5 years old as of December 31, 2002. At the time of interview, they ranged from 57 to 65 months old. Altogether 3,923 children were included in the sample, representing approximately 360,000 5-year-olds in the Canadian population. Note that because of the sample selection procedure, no children who were born in the first four months of the year are included in the study; therefore, conclusions apply to a population of 5-year-olds that is relatively young. MeasuresMeasures of readiness to learn at schoolThe domains of readiness to learn at school examined in this paper include:
Much of the information in the survey was provided by the person most knowledgeable about the child, usually the mother. She provided information about herself, the household and family, and the child. Direct measures of the child’s abilities were also taken. These included a test of receptive vocabulary, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Revised (PPVT-R); a Number Knowledge Assessment; and “Who Am I?”, which is a test of developmental level that assesses the ability of a child to copy shapes and to reproduce symbols like letters, words and numbers (De Lemos 2002). Some of the measures available within the NLSCY data set for each of the domains of readiness to learn under study are listed below. Details about the measures appear in Appendix B.
Child and family characteristics (demographic variables)Several child and family characteristics were included as predictor variables in the analyses. They included: sex of the child, household income level (four levels: see Appendix B), parent education level (high school or less than high school/more than high school), family structure (one-parent/two-parent), country of birth of parent (not Canada/Canada), kindergarten attendance of child (not attending/attending), community size (five levels, rural to 500,000 and over: see Appendix B), and province of residence. This report presents an overview of readiness to learn measures for all child and family characteristics. More detailed analyses in the present report focus on sex of the child and household income level. Home environment variablesThe NLSCY data set contains several variables that measure aspects of the home environment of children (see Appendix B). These include family environment and participation by the child in group activities. Family environment variables include:
Parents were asked how often their child participated in several different kinds of group activities. These included:
Parents were asked whether the child attended any early childhood education program or activity, such as nursery school, play group, drop-in centre and others (see Appendix B). Participation in one or more such activities at age 3, two years before the readiness to learn measures, was used as a predictor variable in the investigation. Data analysis and statistical proceduresStatistical and substantive significance. Because of the large size of the sample under study, many statistics were statistically significant even though the effects were small. Unless noted otherwise, only effects that were both statistically and substantively significant as defined in Appendix C (Data analysis) are reported as significant in this paper. Are there differences in readiness to learn measures between demographic groups? To answer this question, the means of all continuous readiness to learn measures at age 5 were compared for the eight child and family characteristics under study. The categorical readiness to learn measures were cross-tabulated with the child and family characteristics, to determine whether there were important differences in readiness to learn between demographic groups. Do home environment variables predict readiness to learn at school, and if so, do they explain differences between children at different income levels? This question was answered by comparing the means of the continuous measures for the seven home environment variables, and cross-tabulating the categorical readiness to learn measures with the home environment variables, in order to determine if there were important readiness differences linked to home environment. Next, the categorical measures of home environment were cross-tabulated with the eight child and family characteristics (that is, the demographic variables), to establish whether there were important differences between demographic groups in these home environment variables. Finally, where a home environment variable predicted readiness to learn, and household income predicted both the home environment variable and the readiness to learn measure, an analysis was undertaken to discover whether the household income level predicted readiness to learn indirectly, by way of the environment variable. The purpose was to establish whether the home environment variable explained part of the difference in readiness to learn between lower and higher income level children. These statistical procedures are described in detail in Appendix C. A separate set of analyses was undertaken to look at possible links between early childhood education activities at age 3 and readiness to learn measures at age 5. Because this age 3 variable was strongly linked to household income, the analysis was undertaken separately for the four household income levels. Within each income level, the means of continuous readiness to learn measures at age 5 were compared for children who did and did not participate in early childhood education activities at age 3, and the categorical readiness to learn measures were cross-tabulated with the participation variable, to determine whether there were important differences in readiness to learn among them. When do differences in readiness to learn measures between demographic groups develop? A series of analyses was undertaken that looked back in time to try to discover whether the differences in readiness to learn that were found at age 5 between girls and boys and between children with different household income levels were already apparent two years earlier. Readiness to learn measures at age 3 were compared between girls and boys and between household income levels using mean comparisons and cross-tabulations. Change scores between age 3 and age 5 and three-way contingency tables that included readiness to learn measures at both ages were analyzed, to determine whether girls and boys or children at different income levels differed in their patterns of change over time.
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