School readiness profiles of Head Start children: stability and within-profile variation

Abstract

Kindergarten entry is a critical time for young children that helps to shape their academic, social-emotional, and cognitive developmental trajectories. Differences in the competency levels of school readiness contribute to starting-gate inequalities in education. These entry-level differences can be attributed to children’s sociodemographic backgrounds and prekindergarten experiences. Understanding children’s development of school readiness and the variation in their skill sets highlights the need for a nuanced understanding of school readiness development in marginalized populations. Previous person-centered school readiness studies find varying patterns of school readiness. Some studies observe stability and changes in these profiles within the same school year or across grades. This study contributes to this research as one of the first to include literacy and executive function skills as part of the school readiness profiles and to observe the stability of these profiles across two time points within a low-income population. Using the Head Start CARES (Classroom-based Approaches and Resources for Emotion and Social Skill promotion) restricted secondary data, the aim of this study is (1) to observe how school readiness skills (emotion knowledge, social problem-solving, social skills, interpersonal skills, executive functioning, behavior problems, learning behaviors, and preacademics) combine in unique ways within four-year-old Head Start children, and (2) to observe the stability of the school readiness profiles over the course of the prekindergarten school year. Using a latent class analysis model, this study identifies five distinct school readiness profiles with varying levels of school readiness functioning—overall high needs, average social skills/behavior problems/learning behaviors, mixed levels of functioning, strong emotion knowledge/executive function/preacademics, and overall strength. These profiles indicate variations in school readiness skill patterns for Head Start children. Using a latent transition model, this study finds five distinct school readiness profiles at the beginning and end of the prekindergarten school year, but with qualitative changes for the average profile and the strong profile in the spring. Ultimately, most children were more likely to move to a different qualitative profile (65 percent) throughout the prekindergarten school year, with the exceptions of the strength profile (78 percent) and the high needs profile (55 percent), where children were more likely to stay. The findings from this project will contribute to the knowledge of across- and within-group school readiness skill set differences. This will allow early identification of those who need more support, a more targeted approach to teaching, and to inform curricular, instructional decisions, and intervention to better align with children’s unique skill sets and contributing demographic and background factors.