Environment plays key role in children's readiness ...( Early school success seems to depend...),Health
Early school success seems to depend largely on children entering school ready to learn, and many policy initiatives have highlighted the importance of preparing children for school entry. A new study finds that childrens environment plays a major role in their readiness for school, suggesting that intervention could help boost readiness in at-risk youngsters.
The study, conducted by researchers at Laval University, the University of Montreal, and the University of Quebec at Montreal, appears in the November/December 2007 issue of the journal Child Development. It is one of the first studies to consider both environmental and genetic influences on childrens readiness for school.
The researchers examined 420 pairs of 5-year-old twins, assessing the children on four measures of school readiness that included identifying colors and shapes; answering questions about spatial position (such as above, below, left, right), relative size (such as smaller, bigger), and order (such as first, middle, last); identifying numbers and counting; and identifying letters and writing. Two years later, the childrens teachers were asked to rate the school achievement of 237 pairs of the twins.
Environmental factors shared by twins in the same familysuch as family resources and income, parents behavior with respect to learning, and the twins child care experienceswere responsible for much of the individual difference in the childrens school readiness skills, according to the study. The influence of the environmental factors was seen over and above the influence of genetic factors. These shared factors influenced school readiness in both general and specific ways, that is, they were found to be significant for each component of school readiness, as well for the core abilities underlying overall school readiness.
Genetic factors played a significant role in the childrens core abilities underlying the four components of school readiness, but the environment shared by
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| Contact: Andrea Browning abrowning@srcd.org 202-289-7905 Society for Research in Child Development Source:Eurekalert |
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