E3 Alliance conducted the 2011-2012 Kindergarten Readiness Study to determine the portion of Central Texas children who were ready for school when they entered kindergarten, using an assessment based on the Texas Pre-K Guidelines. The study surveyed Central Texas Kindergarten teachers on a representative sample of Central Texas kindergarten students, across four domains of child development (social-emotional development, language and communication, early literacy, and mathematics) to determine their kindergarten readiness.
Key Findings
- In the 2011-2012 school year, half (50%) of Kindergartners in the Central Texas region were ready for school, and half (50%) were not ready for school.
- Girls were ready for kindergarten at a higher percentage for overall readiness, and for all domains, than boys were. Girls were more ready than boys regardless of income status or Pre-K attendance.
- Children from low income households were less ready (40%) than children from homes that were not low income (62%).
- Asian and White students were more prepared for kindergarten than are Hispanic or Black students, and this same relationship between ethnicity and kindergarten readiness was also found when the analysis controlled for economic status.
- Overall, when controlling for other demographic variables, English language learners did not differ in their kindergarten readiness from non-English language learners.
- Children who had attended any type of Pre-K program (public or private) were more prepared for kindergarten (54%) than children who had not (38%). This was the case regardless of economic status such that low-income and non-low income students both showed higher kindergarten readiness after Pre-K.
- Attending Pre-K is associated with greater Kindergarten readiness overall, and readiness for low-income students who attended Pre-K was statistically indistinguishable from readiness of non-low-income students who did not attend
Pre-K. - Children from economically disadvantaged families who attended a Pre-K at a public school had greater overall readiness than those at home or with a relative.
