151P
Early Child Care and School Readiness of Low-Income Children
Young children’s preparedness to succeed academically with a well-developed behavior growth at school has been a focus of developmental and educational research. Research showed that low-income children are at an increasing risk of school readiness deficits in terms of both cognitive and social development. Both family environment and non-parental child care have shown impacts on children’s school readiness. Participation in non-parental care prior to elementary school becomes more common for low-income children due to increases in the proportions of single-parent families and working mothers with little children. Well-designed and high-quality child care services, therefore, could be an important strategy to close the gap in school readiness between low-income children and those living in households with a higherincome.
Methods:
The study examines the relationship between center-based child care and low-income children’s school readiness using longitudinal data from the Massachusetts Early Care and Education and School Readiness Study, 2001-2008 (N=372). The dependent variables include multiple dichotomous measures of children’s academic and social development at pre-K time. The academic measurements include children’s vocabulary, understanding of concepts, expressive language, cognitive abilities and early literacy. Social development is indicated by the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) score and the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) subscale. Children’s center-based child care, the independent variable of the study, include children’s entry age, hours of care per week, teacher-child interaction, and child care qualities (measured by Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Extension, Early Literacy Assessment scale and Arnett Scale of Caregiver Behavior). Demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of children and their family are controlled in logistic analyses, including gender, race/ethnicity, development level at baseline, home environment, mother’s education level, and poverty status.
Results:
For academic development, science education is positively, and teacher’s flexibility (which is one of the center quality element of Arnett) is negatively associated with children’s vocabulary development; children’s entry age has a negative relationship with their ability to understand concepts as well as expressive vocabulary. For social development, teacher-child interaction and teacher’s flexibility show significant and positive relationships with skills such as communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving, and developmentally appropriate practice education. Teacher’s flexibility is also significantly related to children’s prosocial behavior evaluated by teachers.
Implications:
Findings suggest that different strategies can be taken to improve low-income children’s experiences of center-based child care, and to reduce the disparity in school readiness by income or socioeconomic characteristics. One way to improve low-come children’s academic performance may be to enroll children in the center-based care at an early age. To improve teacher-child interaction, for example, by reducing the class size, may contribute to better social development of children. It is interesting that teacher’s flexibility has different relationships with academic and social development. These findings should be implemented in social work practices for low-income children, and for designing high-quality center-based child care for this population.