Objective

The purpose of the present report is to provide an overview of readiness to learn at school among Canadian 5-year-old children in 2002/03, including:

1. to present descriptive data on their readiness to learn at school, including language and communication skill, academic skill, self-regulation of learning, self-control of behaviour, and social competence and independence;
2. to examine links among the domains of readiness to learn;
3. to report on patterns of readiness to learn according to child and family characteristics, including: sex of the child, income of the household, parent education level, family structure, country of birth of the parent, kindergarten attendance of the child, community type and size, and province of residence;
4. to investigate dimensions of the home environment of children that may be linked to differences in readiness to learn at age 5 among demographic groups, including interaction with the parent, cognitive stimulation in the home, child activities outside the home, and early childhood education activities at age 3;
5. to discover whether patterns of school readiness that existed at age 5 were already apparent two years earlier, at age 3, or whether they emerged over the two-year preschool period.