School Readiness Indicators

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A core set of school readiness indicators can guide state and national policy action for young children.
The indicators selected by the 17 states point to a core set of common school readiness indicators. Highlighted on the following pages are core indicators in the areas of ready children, ready families, ready communities, ready services (including health care and early education), and ready schools. Policymakers and community leaders can use the core set of indicators, as well as other indicators that emerge from their own work, to measure progress toward improved outcomes for young children and families. Annual monitoring of key school readiness indicators can signal if things are moving in the right direction—and if they are not. Measuring progress over time can lead to more informed decisions about programs, policies and investments.

The set of core indicators were selected based on several criteria:

Each of the core indicators had been selected as a high priority school readiness indicator by multiple states involved in the School Readiness Indicators Initiative. The core indicators reflect conditions that can be altered through state policy actions. A change in one or more of the core indicators will influence children’s school readiness. Each of the core indicators is currently measurable using state and local data.

Also highlighted … are emerging indicators. Emerging indicators are critically important to the school readiness of young children but are currently difficult to measure and track at the state level. The emerging indicators could be tracked if additional work is done to identify appropriate measures and methods for collecting the data over time at the state level and across communities. 

The core indicators and emerging indicators … here are the result of a synthesis of … 17 states’ individual work. This core set of school readiness indicators can be a useful tool to guide policies, programs and investments in young children and families.  School readiness indicators are an important tool for helping government and community leaders better understand whether or not young children will arrive at school ready to succeed. By using the data provided by a comprehensive set of school readiness indicators, states can establish baseline measures for key areas that influence a child’s school readiness. Although school readiness indicators cannot be used to establish causal relationships between specific interventions and outcomes, they can be used to monitor progress toward outcomes over time.

The Ready Child Equation
Children’s readiness for school is made up of multiple components and shaped by numerous factors. Improving school readiness, therefore, must address children’s development of skills and behaviors as well as the environments in which they spend their time.

Early childhood leaders at the state and national level agree that efforts to improve school readiness must address three interrelated components:

      Children’s readiness for school.

      School’s readiness for children.

      The capacity of families and communities to provide developmental opportunities for their young children.

The School Readiness Indicators Initiative used this view of school readiness as the foundation for its work and created the “Ready Child Equation” to describe the range of components that influence children’s ability to be ready for school:

      Ready Families: Describes children’s family context and home environment.

      Ready Communities: Describes the community resources and supports available to families with young children.

      Ready Services: Describes the availability, quality and affordability of proven programs that influence child development and school readiness.

      Ready Schools: Describes critical elements of schools that influence child development and school success.

The Five Domains of School Readiness
There is consensus, based upon a wealth of research, that a child’s readiness for school should be measured and addressed across five distinct but connected domains:

      Physical Well-Being and Motor Development.

      Social and Emotional Development.

      Approaches to Learning.

      Language Development.

      Cognition and General Knowledge.

While separate and distinct, these domains interact with and reinforce each other. The need for children to develop across all five domains is supported by kindergarten teachers. They agree that physical well-being, social development, and curiosity are very important for kindergarten readiness. In addition, teachers want kindergartners to be able to communicate needs, wants, and thoughts and to be enthusiastic and curious when approaching new activities. Teachers also place significant importance on skills such as the ability to follow directions, not being disruptive in class, and being sensitive to other children’s feelings.

Core Indicators at a Glance
The following summarizes the core set of common indicators agreed upon by the 17 states involved in the National School Readiness Indicators Initiative. This core set of common indicators is based on the national research and informed by the state experiences in selecting measurable indicators relating to and defining school readiness.

Ready Children

      Physical Well-Being and Motor Development
% of children with age-appropriate fine motor skills

      Social and Emotional Development
% of children who often or very often exhibit positive social behaviors when interacting with their peers

      Approaches to Learning
% of kindergarten students with moderate to serious difficulty following directions

      Language Development
% of children almost always recognizing the relationships between letters and sounds at kindergarten entry

      Cognition and General Knowledge
% of children recognizing basic shapes at kindergarten entry

Ready Families

      Mother’s Education Level
% of births to mothers with less than a 12th grade education

      Births to Teens
# of births to teens ages 15-17 per 1,000 girls

      Child Abuse and Neglect
Rate of substantiated child abuse and neglect among children birth to age 6

      Children in Foster Care
% of children birth to age 6 in out-of-home placement (foster care) who have no more than two placements in a 24-month period

Ready Communities

      Young Children in Poverty
% of children under age 6 living in families with income below the federal poverty threshold

      Supports for Families with Infants and Toddlers
% of infants and toddlers in poverty who are enrolled in Early Head Start

      Lead Poisoning
% of children under age 6 with blood lead levels at or above 10 micrograms per deciliter 20

Ready Services – Health

      Health Insurance
% of children under age 6 without health insurance

      Low Birthweight Infants
% of infants born weighing under 2,500 grams (5.5 pounds)

      Access to Prenatal Care
% of births to women who receive late or no prenatal care

      Immunizations
% of children ages 19-35 months who have been fully immunized

Ready Services - Early Care and Education

      Children Enrolled in an Early Education Program
% of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in a center-based early childhood care and education program (including child care centers, nursery schools, preschool programs, Head Start programs, and pre-kindergarten programs)

      Early Education Teacher Credentials
% of early childhood teachers with a bachelor’s degree and specialized training in early childhood

      Accredited Child Care Centers
% of child care centers accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)

      Accredited Family Child Care Homes
% of family child care homes accredited by the National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC)

      Access to Child Care Subsidies
% of eligible children under age 6 receiving child care subsidies

Ready Schools

      Class Size
Average teacher/child ratio in K-1 classrooms

      Fourth Grade Reading Scores
% of children with reading proficiency in fourth grade as measured by the state’s proficiency tests

Ready Children
Indicators in this section describe characteristics of children’s health and development.

A valid, reliable assessment of children’s skills and behaviors between birth and age 3, in the preschool years and at kindergarten entry is important for promptly meeting the needs of young children and their families as well as monitoring state progress in achieving school readiness for all children. Age-appropriate assessment of skills and behaviors can help to ensure that children are making progress in all areas of development and identify groups of children that need additional intervention.29 Health providers and early childhood program providers are often able to conduct developmental screening and assessment as part of their routine interactions with children and their families.

Core Indicators
Physical Well-Being and Motor Development
Healthy children are more able to engage in the full range of life experiences that promote early learning. Children’s motor skills and coordination have an important influence on their cognitive and social-emotional development, as well as their academic achievement.

      Core Indicator: % of children with age-appropriate fine motor skills

Social and Emotional Development
Children’s school experience is more positive and productive when they have a sense of personal well-being established through stable, caring relationships in their early lives. Emotional health and social competence enable children to parti-cipate in learning and form good relationships with teachers and peers.

      Core Indicator: % of children who often or very often exhibit positive social behaviors when interacting with their peers

Language Development and Literacy
Language proficiency is a key predictor of school success. Early literacy skills (size of vocabulary, recognizing letters, understanding letter and sound relationships) at kindergarten entry are good predictors of children’s reading abilities throughout their educational careers. Language and literacy skills enable children to develop cognitive skills and knowledge and to interact effectively with peers and adults.

      Core Indicator: % of children almost always recognizing the relationships between letters and sounds at kindergarten entry

Cognition and General Knowledge
Cognitive skills, reflecting an array of experiences in the early years, help make children ready to acquire new knowledge and information. Through cognitive development, children learn to observe, note similarities and differences, solve problems and ask questions.

      Core Indicator: % of children recognizing basic shapes at kindergarten entry

Approaches to Learning
Children’s school success depends not only on academic skills, but also on the learning styles, habits and attitudes with which they approach learning. Curiosity, creativity, independence, cooperativeness and persistence enhance early learning and development.

      Core Indicator: % of kindergarten students with moderate to serious difficulty following directions

Emerging Indicators
Emerging indicators are critically important to the school readiness of young children but are currently difficult to measure and track at the state level.

Assessment of Skills and Behaviors for Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers
Research shows that it is critical to intervene early in order to address delays in any of the five domains of child development: physical health and motor development, social-emotional development, language and literacy, cognition and approaches to learning. More work needs to be done to identify valid, reliable, age-appropriate tools and measures that can be widely used to assess individual children and to monitor progress among groups of children at different ages.

      Emerging Indicator: % of infants and toddlers with developmentally-appropriate skills and behaviors (in each of the five domains of child development)

      Emerging Indicator: % of 3- and 4-year-olds with age-appropriate skills and behaviors (in each of the five domains of child development)

Mathematical Skills
Basic understanding of number concepts is present very early in children’s develop-ment. Early math skills (such as counting, spatial relationships, and patterns) serve as the starting point for more formal mathematical instruction in preschool and kindergarten. Because mathematical skills build upon each other, children lacking basic skills will have difficulty with math in the first grade and beyond.

      Emerging Indicator: % of children at kindergarten entry who can count beyond 10, sequence patterns and use nonstandard units of length to compare numbers

Ready Families
Indicators in this section describe children’s family context and home environment.

Core Indicators
Mother’s Education Level
The level of education attained by parents strongly affects their children’s development. Higher levels of maternal education are associated with better school readiness among young children, better health throughout childhood and adolescence, and an increased likelihood of finishing high school and going to college. Higher education levels of parents contribute to a more supportive home learning environment and more involve-ment in the child’s school.

      Core Indicator: % of births to mothers with less than a 12th grade education

Births to Teens
Children born to teen mothers are more likely to be born low birthweight, suffer poor health, experience behavior problems, and have limited language and literacy skills. Teen mothers are less likely to have the financial resources, social supports and parenting skills needed for healthy child development.

      Core Indicator: # of births to teens ages 15-17 per 1,000 girls

Child Abuse and Neglect
Children who have been neglected or physically or sexually abused are more likely to have cognitive and emotional problems. Abuse and neglect are strongly linked with many negative outcomes for children including poor school performance, frequent grade retention, juvenile delinquency and teenage pregnancy. Children are most at risk of maltreatment if their families are overwhelmed by multiple problems such as inadequate income, lack of a job, inadequate housing, emotional stress, drug or alcohol abuse, mental illness or domestic violence.

      Core Indicator: Rate of substantiated child abuse and neglect among children birth to age 6

Children in Foster Care
Children need stability, permanency and safety in order to flourish. All children, but especially young children in the process of establishing trust with adults, require a safe and stable home and caring, permanent relationships. Long-term stays in temporary out-of-home placement can negatively affect children, causing emotional, behavioral and educational problems.

      Core Indicator: % of children birth to age 6 in out-of-home placement (foster care) who have no more than two placements in a 24-month period

Emerging Indicators
Emerging indicators are critically important to the school readiness of young children but are currently difficult to measure and track at the state level.

Family Reading to Young Children
Young children who are read to regularly by their parents develop better early literacy skills, are better readers when they reach elementary school and are more likely to succeed in school. Reading to young children helps to develop imagination, creativity, vocabulary and early literacy skills. Children who are read to on a regular basis and who have books in the home are more likely to enjoy books and to read on their own.

      Emerging Indicator: % of infants and toddlers (ages 4 months to 35 months) who were read to by their parents every day in the last week

      Emerging Indicator: % of children ages 3 to 5 who were read to by a family member every day in the past week

Maternal Depression
Young children with depressed mothers are more likely than other children to demonstrate social-emotional and behavior problems, difficulties in school, trouble with self-control, poor peer relationships and aggression.

Parents who are depressed experience feelings of sadness, stress, inability to sleep, and other symptoms that can compromise their ability to parent their children effectively. Mothers suffering from depression are less likely to interact with, play with or read to their children.

      Emerging Indicator: % of mothers experiencing depression (of all mothers with young children)

      Emerging Indicator: % of kindergartners with parents considered at risk for depression

All children, but especially young children in the process of establishing trust with adults, require a safe and stable home and caring, permanent relationships.

Ready Communities
Indicators in this section describe the critical elements of children’s community or neighborhood environment.

Core Indicators
Young Children in Poverty
Poverty during early childhood can have negative effects on children’s health and development. On average, poor children between the ages of two and five have significantly lower scores on intelligence and verbal tests than other children. They are more likely to experience behavioral problems that compromise learning. Poor children are less likely to be ready for school due to the lack of economic resources in the family as well as the social factors associated with poverty, such as low parental education, teen parenting, and lack of community resources.

      Core Indicator: % of children under age 6 living in families with income below the federal poverty threshold

Supports for Families with Infants and Toddlers
Interventions for children and families identified as at-risk for poor social and educational outcomes are most effective if they begin early. Children who are most at-risk benefit when programs are comprehensive, intensive and work with the family as well as the child. Research has demonstrated the long-term cost-effectiveness of high quality early childhood programs for young children with multiple social and economic risk factors.

      Core Indicator: % of infants and toddlers in poverty who are enrolled in Early Head Start

Lead Poisoning
Children with elevated blood lead levels in early childhood are more likely to have a lowered IQ and behavioral problems, resulting in academic failure, need for special education services and increased risk of juvenile delinquency. Lead exposure is a significant problem, especially in poor and urban communities. The lack of affordable housing forces many low-income families to live in older dwellings with deteriorating lead paint, placing children at risk for exposure to lead-based paint chips and lead-contaminated dust and soil.

      Core Indicator: % of children under age 6 with blood lead levels at or above 10 micrograms per deciliter

Emerging Indicators
Emerging indicators are critically important to the school readiness of young children but are currently difficult to measure and track at the state level.

Housing
Inadequate, crowded, or unaffordable housing has a negative impact on children’s health, safety, education and emotional well-being. Families with high housing costs are more likely to go without other basic necessities in order to pay for rent and utilities. High housing costs can increase the likelihood of frequent moves and doubling up with family members or friends. Frequent moves have a negative affect on school performance and behavior. Children in unstable living conditions are more likely to repeat a grade and to drop out of school before graduating.

      Emerging indicator: % of families with children under age 6 paying more than 30% of their income for housing (rent or mortgage plus heat and utilities)

      Emerging Indicator: # of times a student changes schools between kindergarten and fourth grade

Homeless Children
Infants, toddlers and preschoolers who are homeless develop more slowly and may develop emotional problems serious enough to require professional care. Homeless children are more likely to get sick, develop mental health problems, have academic problems, be victims of violence, and exhibit delinquent or aggressive behavior than children who are not homeless. School-age children who are homeless are more likely to be behind academically and to have social and emotional issues that result in poor academic performance, behavior problems and depression.

      Emerging Indicator: # of children under age 6 receiving emergency housing services

      Emerging Indicator: # of children enrolled in grades K-3 who are homeless or doubled up with family members or friends

Neighborhood Conditions
The neighborhoods in which children live have an influence on their development. As a group, children from low-income families who live in more affluent neighborhoods score higher on tests of verbal ability, reading recognition and overall achievement than children with the same income levels who live in high poverty neighborhoods. Children growing up in neighborhoods with high rates of poverty are more likely to attend under-resourced and low-performing schools, to have fewer playgrounds, parks and libraries and to have less access to high quality early education programs.

      Emerging Indicator: % of children under age 6 living in neighborhoods in which more than 20% of the population lives in poverty

Ready Services – Health
Indicators in this section describe the availability, quality and affordability of health care and health issues that influence child development and school readiness.

Core Indicators
Health Insurance
Children and families with health insurance are more likely to access primary health care services that can prevent health problems or address existing chronic or acute health conditions. Lack of health insurance can affect a child’s school attendance and ability to participate in school activities. Lack of health care or delays in treating children’s health problems can negatively affect cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and physical development, sometimes with lifelong consequences.

      Core Indicator: % of children under age 6 without health insurance

Low Birthweight Infants
Infants born weighing less than 2,500 grams (5.5 pounds) are at greater risk for physical and developmental problems than infants of normal weight. Children who are born at a low birthweight are at higher risk for long-term illness or disability and are more likely to be enrolled in special education classes or to repeat a grade. Teens, women who smoke, Black women and women with inadequate prenatal care are more likely than other women to have an infant who is born low birthweight.

      Core Indicator: % of infants born weighing under 2,500 grams (5.5 pounds)

Access to Prenatal Care
Early, comprehensive prenatal care increases the likelihood that a child will be born healthy. Prenatal care presents a critical opportunity to identify and treat maternal health conditions that threaten the birth of a healthy child. Mothers who receive good prenatal care are less likely to have preterm or low birthweight infants and are more likely to obtain regular pediatric care for their young children.

      Core Indicator: % of births to women who received late or no prenatal care.

Immunizations
Receipt of timely, age-appropriate immunizations usually indicates that a child has access to regular medical care. Vaccines are cost-effective tools that prevent children from developing severe diseases. Children without a regular medical provider are less likely to have timely immunizations. Late or missing immunizations can result in preventable illnesses that can lead to long-term physical and developmental problems.

      Core Indicator: % of children ages 19–35 months who have been fully immunized

Emerging Indicators
Emerging indicators are critically important to the school readiness of young children but are currently difficult to measure and track at the state level.

Well-Child Visits
Young children visit a primary care provider many times between birth and age five. These well-child visits provide an opportunity for health professionals to monitor children’s physical and behavioral health and development, provide age-appropriate guidance to parents, and screen for maternal depression. Well-child visits are an opportunity to screen children for common concerns in early childhood, including lead poisoning, hearing and vision problems, behavior problems and delayed speech and language development.

      Emerging Indicator: % of children under age 6 who received a well-child check-up in the past year

      Emerging Indicator: % of 2-year-olds with a recent well-child visit that included a lead screening, vision screening, hearing screening, and comprehensive developmental screening.

Developmental Screening and Assessment
Access to developmental screening and assessment throughout infancy and early childhood is critical in order to identify problems early and provide appropriate intervention. A comprehensive developmental assessment that addresses all domains of child development (physical health and motor development, speech and language, social-emotional, cognitive and approaches to learning) is an important component of well-child care for infants, toddlers and preschoolers.

      Emerging Indicator: % of children under age 6 with a comprehensive developmental screening within the previous year

      Emerging Indicator: % of children birth to age 3 in the care of the state child welfare system who received a developmental assessment through Early Intervention (Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)

Ready Services – Early Care and Education
Indicators in this section describe the availability, quality, affordability and other critical elements of early care and education services that promote healthy child development.

Core Indicators
Children Enrolled in an Early Education Program
Children who attend a high quality early education program in the year or two before kindergarten are better prepared for school—academically, socially and emotionally. Economically disadvantaged 3- and 4-year-old children who participate in high-quality preschool programs have better school achievement, social skills and behavior than children who do not participate in a preschool experience or who are enrolled in a low quality program.

      Core Indicator: % of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in a center-based early childhood care and education program (including child care centers, nursery schools, preschool programs, Head Start programs, and pre-kindergarten programs)

Early Education Teacher Credentials
Early care and education programs (including preschool programs, center-based child care programs and family child care homes) with highly qualified staff are more likely to produce positive outcomes for children’s learning and development. Research shows that preschool teachers with at least a four-year degree and specialized training in early childhood are more effective and more actively engaged with the children they teach.

      Core Indicator: % of early childhood teachers with a bachelor’s degree and specialized training in early childhood

Accredited Child Care
High-quality child care provides a safe and nurturing learning environment for infants and young children. Children who have received high quality child care score higher on tests of both cognitive and social skills in their early childhood years than children in low-quality care. To obtain national accreditation, early childhood programs must meet specific quality standards, such as low child-teacher ratios, increased teacher training, improved facilities and formalized management procedures.

      Core Indicator: % of child care centers accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)

      Core Indicator: % of family child care homes accredited by the National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC)

Access to Child Care Subsidies
Families rely on child care to enable them to work and to provide the early education experiences needed to prepare their children for school. The high cost of child care puts quality care and early education out of reach for many families, particularly low-income families. Access to child care subsidies helps families afford higher quality child care.

      Core Indicator: % of eligible children under age 6 receiving child care subsidies

Emerging Indicators
Emerging indicators are critically important to the school readiness of young children but are currently difficult to measure and track at the state level.

High-Quality Child Care and Early Education Programs
Compared to children in lower-quality child care and early education programs, children in higher-quality programs have more advanced language and pre-math skills, more advanced social skills and warmer relationships with their teachers. Elements of quality include well-trained and well-compensated teachers, language-rich classroom environments, small group sizes, low staff-child ratios, low staff turnover rates and practices that involve and support parents.

      Emerging Indicator: % of child care and early education classrooms that rank at the top level in a statewide quality rating system

Parent Involvement in Early Care and Education Programs
Parent involvement in early care and education settings benefits children, families, and programs. Parents become more knowledgeable about their children’s activities and are more able to continue the learning process at home. Families receive support and referrals to needed services. Programs that incorporate parent input and involve-ment on a regular basis are more likely to improve child and family outcomes.

      Emerging Indicator: % of early care and education programs with multiple strategies to involve and support parents

Ready Schools
Indicators in this section describe critical elements of the elementary school environment that influence child development and school success.

Core Indicators
Class Size
Smaller classes (with a lower pupil-to-teacher ratio) give teachers the ability to identify the needs of young children and address them with individualized strategies. Research has found that smaller class sizes, especially in the early grades, result in increased student achievement.

      Core Indicator: Average teacher/child ratio in K-1 classrooms

Fourth Grade Reading Scores
Fourth grade reading scores are a key predictor of future academic success, a reliable indicator of a child’s school readiness and a measure of whether or not children’s needs have been met between birth and fourth grade. Students who cannot read pro-ficiently by fourth grade are more likely to be absent from school, exhibit behavior problems, have low self-confidence, and perform poorly in school.

      Core Indicator: % of children with reading proficiency in fourth grade as measured by the state’s proficiency tests

Emerging Indicators
Emerging indicators are critically important to the school readiness of young children but are currently difficult to measure and track at the state level.

Transition Practices Between Pre-School and School
The transition from early childhood care and education settings or home to kindergarten is a significant milestone in the lives of young children, their families, and their teachers. A smooth transition into kindergarten forms the basis for later academic achievement and success. When transitions are well-planned, children have fewer adjustment problems and more continuous developmental progress.

      Emerging Indicator: % of schools with formal working transition plans between early childhood settings and kindergarten

Special Education and Early Intervention
Without appropriate supports and services in the early years, children with special educational needs are less likely to be ready for school and are at higher risk for poor educational outcomes. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part C, each state has an Early Intervention program that provides services for infants and toddlers with developmental delays or disabilities. Local school districts provide special education services for eligible children ages 3 to 21.

      Emerging Indicator: % of kindergarten children enrolled in special education who were not previously enrolled in Early Intervention (Part C) or preschool special education services

Criteria that Guided the Selection of School Readiness Indicators
To be most useful as a tool to inform policy decisions, each indicator selected should meet the following criteria:

      Is something you care about enough to measure and track.

   Reflects an important child, family, or community outcome.

   Reflects access to service systems or programs that are “widely accepted” as important to child outcomes. (For example, health insurance coverage, early prenatal care, high quality child care).

      Has policy relevance.

   Can be influenced by program or policy changes.

   Helps to better understand the impact of investments or policy choices.

   Is something policymakers want to know.

      Enables states to assess gaps, with special attention to populations at high risk.

   Measures the conditions of children, by race/ethnicity and family income.

   Uses accessible data that is timely and available on an annual basis.

   Tracks data for the state as a whole and for local communities (county, city, town, neighborhood).

      Uses measures that are developmentally-appropriate.

   Addresses special considerations by age group: birth to age 3 preschool kindergarten to third grade.

   Addresses the special needs of children with disabilities.

      Uses measures that are relevant across all racial, cultural and language groups.

School Readiness: Closing the Gap in School Achievement
Studies show that at least half of the educational achievement gaps already exist at kindergarten entry. Children from low-income families are more likely to start school with limited language skills, health problems, and social and emotional problems that interfere with learning. The larger the gap at school entry, the harder it is to close.

Race, Ethnicity and Income
Children from low-income families and from minority racial and ethnic backgrounds are much more likely to start school already behind their peers in the set of skills that correlate with future school success.

While children from minority racial and ethnic backgrounds are more likely to be poor, research also shows that Black, Hispanic and Native American children consistently have lower educational achievement levels than White and Asian children of similar socio-economic status.

The Role of Culture in Child Development
Efforts to improve school readiness are most effective when they are responsive to and embrace the diverse cultural and language backgrounds of families and children. Children entering kindergarten vary in their early experiences, skills, knowledge, language, culture and family background. Early childhood programs and schools must be ready to address the diverse needs of the children and families in their community and be committed to the success of every child.

It is critical that the design and implementation of early childhood policies and practices be examined through a cultural lens. Parent belief systems and patterns of parent-child interactions provide some of the most important ways in which culture is embedded in early child development. There are cross-cultural differences in how parents’ access information, make decisions about early learning, and interact with early childhood programs, social services and schools.

Closing the school readiness gap will require attention to the multiple influences on early child development, including the contributions of family and neighborhood, home environments related to language and literacy, parenting practices, health status, health behaviors, child care and early education. The growing racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity of young children requires that health, mental health, early childhood and education programs periodically reassess their appropriateness and effectiveness for the wide variety of families they serve.

It is critical that the design and implementation of early childhood policies and practices be examined through a cultural lens.

Children Birth to Three
Introduction
From birth to age three, the pace of human development exceeds that of any subse-quent stage of life. Beginning in the prenatal period and extending through the early childhood years, virtually every aspect of human development, from the brain’s evolving circuitry to the capacity for empathy, is affected by children’s experiences and environments. The first three years of life are a time of great vulnerability and great opportunity.

During the first few years of life, children rapidly develop the social, emotional, behavioral and cognitive capacities that provide the foundation for their future development. In addition to remarkable gains in language and cognition, infants and toddlers make dramatic progress in their social-emotional, self-regulatory, and moral capacities. Healthy development during the first months and years of life is crucial, not because it provides an indelible blueprint for lifelong well-being, but because itcreates either a sturdy or fragile foundation for future development.

Striking disparities in what children know and can do are evident well before they enter kindergarten. These disparities are related to differing life experiences in the early years. Stable, caring relationships with caregivers are an essential element of early child development. Dependable relationships that provide nurturance, security, responsive interaction, and encouragement help young children grow and thrive. In addition, the environments in which children spend their time each day can either contribute to healthy physical, cognitive, language and social-emotional development or set the stage for compromised development that may have lifelong consequences.

Potential Indicators
Ready Child – Physical Well-Being and Motor Development

      % of children ages 0-3 without health insurance

      % of two year olds who are fully immunized

      % of infants and toddlers who have elevated levels of lead

Ready Child – Social and Emotional Development

      Rate of expulsion from child care placements for behavior problems

Ready Child – Language and Literacy Development

      % of children ages 0-3 who are read to by an adult four times per week

Ready Child – Cognition and General Knowledge

      % of children ages 0-3 in Early Intervention

      % of children ages 0-3 with appropriate developmental screenings

Family Environment

      Child abuse and neglect rates for children ages 0-3

      Rate of depression in mothers of children ages 0-3

      % of mothers with higher than a high school diploma

Community Conditions

      Residential mobility rate for families with children ages 0-3

      % of health care providers who accept Medicaid and SCHIP

      Capacity of home visiting programs and family resource centers

Ready Schools

      % of secondary schools with explicit teen parent support programs

      % of children in Early Intervention who are referred to and assessed by preschool special education

Ready Services – General

      % of infants who receive recommended developmental evaluations

      % of eligible children enrolled in WIC

      % of eligible children enrolled in Early Head Start

Ready Services – Child Care

      % of eligible infants and toddlers receiving child care subsidies

      % of caregivers trained in infant/toddler development

      % of providers with access to infant/toddler mental health and health consultation

Kindergarten Assessment
Introduction
Kindergarten assessments measure what children know and can do. The results can be used at the individual level to tailor teaching and identify special needs; at the program level to measure effectiveness; and at the city, county or state level to monitor trends in school readiness.

Young children’s development is rapid, episodic, and highly influenced by the envi-ronments in which they spend their time. As a result, accurately assessing children in the earliest years of life is difficult. Because young children learn differently from older children and adults, assessments must be designed differently. Considerations for developing assessments for young children include:

      Young children often represent their knowledge better by showing than by talking or writing.

      Young children develop and learn quickly, so an assessment given at one point in time is not likely to give a complete picture of the child’s knowledge and skills.

      Young children often do not understand the goals of formal testing, so the assessment needs to be structured accordingly.

Before age 8, standardized achievement measures are not accurate enough to be used for decisions about individual children. Naturalistic, observational methods, rather than paper and pencil tests, are most appropriate in assessing children’s emerging capacities. From a practical perspective, these assessments are often done by kinder-garten teachers themselves, after observing their students over a period of time and selecting appropriate times for conducting specific aspects of the assessment. It is important for kindergarten assessments to include multiple measures from each of the five domains of school readiness.  Matrix sampling, a statistical technique for getting an overall picture of school readiness by having different children be assessed using different parts of the assessment, can be used to ensure technical accuracy and safeguard against using results to rate or label individual children.