Métodos

An important decision for parents in preparing their child for school is whether to enrol them in a formal pre-school programme. A substantial body of research has examined the effects of early childhood education, particularly preschool attendance, on features of school readiness. A review of extant research by Burger (2010) was concerned with the effects of preschool attendance on cognitive development and whether such attendance could foster equal opportunity to education for children from different backgrounds. The findings indicated that the vast majority of pre-school programmes had considerable positive short- term effects and somewhat smaller long-term effects on cognitive development. The review also indicated that children from disadvantaged families made slightly more progress than their more advantaged peers. However, they also concluded that pre-school education cannot completely compensate for the full range of challenges encountered by children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Because of its status in the American system, the Head Start programme has been the subject of considerable research attention, particularly in relation to school readiness. Although early evaluations of Head Start raised some doubts about its effectiveness, rigorous assessment studies have demonstrated academic benefits for the participants in the programme (Lee, Zhai, Brooks-Gunn, Han & Waldfogel (2014). Comparing children randomly assigned to Head Start at age 3 or 4 years with those who were not, findings have shown that the Head Start experience confers significant short-term gains in areas that are crucial for school readiness including pre-reading, pre-writing and vocabulary test scores (e.g. Deming, 2009).

There is evidence that the size of the benefit of Head Start depends on the comparison group. A study by Zhai, Brooks-Gunn & Waldfogel (2011) found that while participants showed benefits for academic outcomes at age 5, these were no greater than for children attending other similar programmes. On the other hand, Lee et al. (2014) showed that children involved in Head Start had higher levels of reading and maths than was the case for children attending

other programmes or in parental care. Furthermore, the benefits of the programme were more pronounced for children whose cognitive ability was initially low or whose parents had lower levels of education.

There is recent evidence that the traditional Montessori programme can be especially beneficial if tailored to meet the needs of the target group. Ansari & Winsler (2014), based on data from the Miami School Readiness Project, found that Latino children in Montessori programs began the year at most risk in pre-academic and behavioural skills, yet exhibited the greatest gains across these domains and ended the year scoring above national averages. Conversely, children from other minorities exhibited healthy gains in Montessori, but they demonstrated slightly greater gains when attending more conventional pre-Kindergarten programs.

There may be different ways in which pre-school attendance could promote cognitive development and ease the transition to school; not just through a ‘head start’ on literacy and numeracy but by introducing learning as something that can be enjoyable, getting children used to group activities and instructions from someone other than their parents, or even an improvement in nutrition during the day. For the Infant Cohort of Growing Up in Ireland, the issue of pre-school attendance was of particular interest given that they were among the first children eligible to avail themselves of the new Free Pre-School Year scheme. This scheme aims to give universal access to an academic year of formal early years education and is outlined in more detail in Section 3.3.1.2.

4.1.5 INFANT COHORT AT WAVE 3

There are several relevant indices of school readiness in the data collection at age 5 in

Growing Up in Ireland. These include detailed ratings by the class teacher (when a child is in

primary school) of attitudes to and engagement with school, language for communication and thinking and aspects of social-emotional competencies including relationships with teachers and peers and capacity for self-regulation. In turn, there is potential to identify the major factors that influence school readiness including child and home characteristics, measures of the home learning environment, and attendance at pre-school (including participation in the Free Pre-School Year).

A longitudinal perspective is particularly relevant to this topic given the detailed home learning measures available for age 3 years (with some limited information for age 9 months), and the capacity to track change in family structure and socio-economic circumstances over time. Furthermore, it will be possible to compare the direct assessments of the child’s cognitive abilities at age 3 years with the same assessments conducted at age 5 years, and the addition of the teacher’s ratings of ability once they have started school. In terms of exploring what it is about pre-school experiences that can foster progress in development, researchers

will be able to draw on details collected at age 3 years when a detailed questionnaire was posted to the regular non-parental carers of children. These questionnaires collected information from both home and centre-based carers including the qualifications and experience of the carer, the duration of care, the activities available to the child and (for centres) whether the facility was a pre-school, crèche, Montessori etc.