Book Description

This report presents data on the school readiness of children in the United States as reported by their parents. This report incorporates basic demographic information about the children, parent/guardian characteristics, and household characteristics. These data come from the School Readiness Survey (SR) of the 2007 National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES:2007). Topics addressed include the participation of young children in preschool or other types of center-based care or education arrangements; parental plans for kindergarten enrollment and an assessment of what parents should do to prepare their children for kindergarten; children's developmental accomplishments and difficulties, including emerging literacy and numeracy; family activities with children in the home and outside of the home; and children's television-viewing habits. NHES:2007 fielded multiple interviews together including SR and the Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey (PFI). The sample was selected using random digit dial (RDD) methods and the data were collected using computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) technology. NHES:2007 was conducted by Westat, a social science research firm, from January 2 through May 6, 2007. SR interviews were conducted with parents or guardians of a nationally representative sample of children from 3 years of age through 6 years of age who were not yet enrolled in kindergarten. The total number of completed SR interviews was 2,633, representing a population of 8.7 million children when weighted to reflect national totals. The household screener interview, which contained an initial set of questions used to collect information on household composition and interview eligibility, had a response rate of 52.8 percent. The weighted unit response rate for the SR Survey was 77.0 percent, and the overall unit response rate was 40.7 percent. An analysis of bias detected no evidence of substantial non-response bias in the published weighted estimates. Although weighting adjustments reduced the potential for non-coverage bias, the analysis suggests that the final weighted data do include the potential for non-coverage bias in parents' education level. All statements of comparison made in this report have been tested for statistical significance using two-tailed t-tests and are significant at the 95 percent confidence level. The purpose of this report is to introduce new NHES survey data through the presentation of selected descriptive information. Readers are cautioned not to draw causal inferences based on the bivariate results presented: many of the variables examined in this report may be related to one another and complex interactions/relationships among the variables have not been explored. Selected findings include: (1) Overall, 58 percent of children ages 3 to 6 and not yet in kindergarten were reported to be attending preschool or a daycare center in 2007; (2) Given school district guidelines for admission based on birth date, 7 percent of children ages 3-6 had parents who planned to delay their entrance into kindergarten with a higher percentage of boys than girls to be delayed, 1 percent had parents who planned to enroll them early and 3 percent had parents who did not plan to enroll them or who had not yet made a decision about enrollment; (3) Regarding children's school readiness skills, as reported by parents, 93 percent had speech that was understandable to a stranger, 87 percent could hold a pencil with their fingers, 63 percent could count to 20 or higher, 60 percent could write their first name, 32 percent could recognize all letters of the alphabet, and 8 percent could read written words in books; (4) Parent-reported ability to recognize all letters of the alphabet varies by child's age; (5) When parents were asked how important they thought it was to teach their children certain things to prepare them for kindergarten, 62 percent of children had parents who reported is was essential to teach their children about sharing, followed by academic readiness measurements. (6) For children who were read to in the past week, the mean daily reading time was about 21 minutes; (7) A lower percentage of children residing in poor households were read to every day compared with children residing in non-poor households; (8) On average, children who watched TV or videos watched for 2.6 hours on a typical weekday, and 2.7 hours on a typical day of the weekend; and (9) On average, children whose mothers were employed for 35 hours or more per week spent more time watching television or videos on a typical day of the weekend than children whose mothers were employed for less than 35 hours per week or were not in the labor force. Three appendixes include: (1) Technical Notes; (2) Glossary; and (3) Standard Errors. (Contains 4 footnotes, 1 figure, and 12 tables. Tables are footnoted individually.).