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Pilot scheme improved young children's transition to formal education through collaboration and involving families

Preschool physical environments significantly affect children behavior and development. Efforts by the Malaysian Government to improve the quality of preschool education shows a lack of emphasis on the physical learning environment - despite overall improvements, school readiness remains moderate. In Malaysia, the impact of preschool physical learning environments on children's school readiness is still unclear; thus, this paper aims to investigate, highlight and conclude a clear theoretical relationship between these two aspects through literature review. Findings are hoped to lay the groundworks for future research into this matter to improve preschool education in Malaysia.Keywords: Malaysian preschool education; Physical learning environment; Children school readiness; Children developmenteISSN 2398-4279 © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.

The author considers whether differences in genetic endowment may account for racial and ethnic differences in school readiness. While acknowledging an important role for genes in explaining differences within races, he nevertheless argues that environment explains most of the gap between blacks and whites, leaving little role for genetics.

Based on a wide range of direct and indirect evidence, particularly work by Klaus Eyferth and James Flynn, the author concludes that the black-white gap is not substantially genetic in orgin. In studies in 1959 and 1961, Eyferth first pointed to the near-disappearance of the black-white gap among children of black and white servicemen raised by German mothers after World War II. In the author's view, Flynn's exhaustive 1980 analysis of Eyferth's work provides close to definitive evidence that the black disadvantage is not genetic to any important degree.

But even studies showing an important role for genes in explaining within-group differences, he says, do not rule out the possibility of improving the school performance of disadvantaged children through interventions aimed at improving their school readiness. Such interventions, he argues, should stand or fall on their own costs and benefits. And behavioral genetics offers some lessons in designing and evaluating interventions. Because normal differences in preschool resources or parenting practices in working- and middle-class families have only limited effects on school readiness, interventions can have large effects only if they significantly change the allocation of resources or the nature of parenting practices.

The effects of most interventions on cognitive ability resemble the effect of exercise on physical conditioning: they are profound but short-lived. But if interventions make even small permanent changes in behavior that support improved cognitive ability, they can set off multiplier processes, with improved ability leading to more stimulating environments and still further improvements in ability. The best interventions, argues the author, would saturate a social group and reinforce individual multiplier effects by social multipliers and feedback effects. The aim of preschool programs, for example, should be to get students to continue to seek out the cognitive stimulation the program provides even after it ends.

High-quality early education has the potential to improve children's development, giving them the essential social, emotional and academic tools they need to successfully transition to school

The author documents pervasive racial disparities in the health of American children and analyzes how and how much those disparities contribute to racial gaps in school readiness. She explores a broad sample of health problems common to U.S. children, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, asthma, and lead poisoning, as well as maternal health problems and health-related behaviors that affect children's behavioral and cognitive readiness for school.

If a health problem is to affect the readiness gap, it must affect many children, it must be linked to academic performance or behavior problems, and it must show a racial disparity either in its prevalence or in its effects. The author focuses not only on the black-white gap in health status but also on the poor-nonpoor gap because black children tend to be poorer than white children.

The health conditions Currie considers seriously impair cognitive skills and behavior in individual children. But most explain little of the overall racial gap in school readiness. Still, the cumulative effect of health differentials summed over all conditions is significant. Currie's rough calculation is that racial differences in health conditions and in maternal health and behaviors together may account for as much as a quarter of the racial gap in school readiness.

Currie scrutinizes several policy steps to lessen racial and socioeconomic disparities in children's health and to begin to close the readiness gap. Increasing poor children's eligibility for Medicaid and state child health insurance is unlikely to be effective because most poor children are already eligible for public insurance. The problem is that many are not enrolled. Even increasing enrollment may not work: socioeconomic disparities in health persist in Canada and the United Kingdom despite universal public health insurance. The author finds more promise in strengthening early childhood programs with a built-in health component, like Head Start; family-based services and home visiting programs; and WIC, the federal nutrition program for women, infants, and small children. In all three, trained staff can help parents get ongoing care for their children.

In the United States black women have for decades been twice as likely as white women to give birth to babies of low birth weight who are at elevated risk for developmental disabilities. Does the black-white disparity in low birth weight contribute to the racial disparity in readiness?

The author summarizes the cognitive and behavioral problems that beset many low birth weight children and notes that not only are the problems greatest for the smallest babies, but black babies are two to three times as likely as whites to be very small. Nevertheless, the racial disparities in low birth weight cannot explain much of the aggregate gap in readiness because the most serious birth weight-related disabilities affect a very small share of children. The author estimates that low birth weight explains at most 3-4 percent of the racial gap in IQ scores.

The author applauds the post-1980 expansions of Medicaid for increasing rates of prenatal care use among poor pregnant women but stresses that standard prenatal medical care cannot improve aggregate birth outcomes substantially. Smoking cessation and nutrition are two prenatal interventions that show promise. Several early intervention programs have been shown to improve cognitive skills of low birth weight children. But even the most promising programs can narrow the readiness gap only a little because their benefits are greatest for heavier low birth weight children and because low birth weight explains only a small share of the gap.

The author stresses the importance of reducing rates of low birth weight generally and of extending to all children who need them the interventions that have improved cognitive outcomes among low birth weight children. But because black infants are more likely to be born at the lowest birth weights, preventing low birth weight—when researchers learn how to—is likely to be more effective than early intervention in narrowing birth weight-related racial gaps in school readiness.

The federal child care subsidy program represents one of the government's largest investments in early care and education. Using data from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), this paper examines associations, among subsidy-eligible families, between child care subsidy receipt when children are 4 years old and a range of school readiness outcomes in kindergarten (sample n ≈ 1,400). Findings suggest that subsidy receipt in preschool is not directly linked to subsequent reading or social-emotional skills. However, subsidy receipt predicted lower math scores among children attending community-based centers. Supplementary analyses revealed that subsidies predicted greater use of center care, but this association did not appear to affect school readiness.

AbstractIn this paper, we aim to contribute to the understanding of the multidimensional nature of school readiness. In a sample of over 4,000 Australian children in their first year of school, we used latent class analysis to examine patterns of school readiness based on child, family, school and community characteristics, and examine the relationship between these patterns of school readiness and subsequent outcomes (reading comprehension, school absence and emotional and behavioural difficulties). We identified four distinct groups: a Developmentally Enabled group (70 per cent of children), a Parenting Risk group (16 per cent of children), an Emotionally Immature Risk group (7 per cent of children) and a Language and Developmental Risks group (7 per cent of children). The four profiles showed differential patterns of association with low reading comprehension and emotional and behavioural difficulties at age 8, but no association with school absence. The study highlights the importance of family, school and community factors when considering school readiness.

Objective: In this article, we use data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Kindergarten Cohort to analyze the links between preschool attendance and the school readiness of children of immigrants. Methods: Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Kindergarten Cohort, we estimate multivariate regression models for the effects of preschool on school readiness for children of immigrants and children of natives. Results: We find that children whose mothers were born outside the United States are less likely to be enrolled in school or center-based preschool programs than other children. We find that preschool attendance raises reading and math scores as much for children of immigrants as it does for other children. Attending preschool also raises the English-language proficiency of children of immigrants. Although not the main focus of our study, we examined the effects of Head Start, and found that this program improves children's English proficiency, with especially large effects for children of immigrants whose mothers have less than a high school education; in this latter group, Head Start also improved math scores. Conclusions: Given that preschool benefits children of immigrants as much as it does children of natives and given that children of immigrants are less likely to be enrolled, our findings strongly suggest that enrolling more children of immigrants in preschool would help reduce inequality in skills at school entry. Tables, References. Adapted from the source document.

Objective. In this article, we use data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey—Kindergarten Cohort to analyze the links between preschool attendance and the school readiness of children of immigrants.Methods. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey—Kindergarten Cohort, we estimate multivariate regression models for the effects of preschool on school readiness for children of immigrants and children of natives.Results. We find that children whose mothers were born outside the United States are less likely to be enrolled in school or center‐based preschool programs than other children. We find that preschool attendance raises reading and math scores as much for children of immigrants as it does for other children. Attending preschool also raises the English‐language proficiency of children of immigrants. Although not the main focus of our study, we examined the effects of Head Start, and found that this program improves children's English proficiency, with especially large effects for children of immigrants whose mothers have less than a high school education; in this latter group, Head Start also improved math scores.Conclusions. Given that preschool benefits children of immigrants as much as it does children of natives and given that children of immigrants are less likely to be enrolled, our findings strongly suggest that enrolling more children of immigrants in preschool would help reduce inequality in skills at school entry.