school readiness assignment

WHAT IS THE KINDERGARTEN OBSERVATION FORM?

The Kindergarten Observation Form (KOF) was developed in 2001 to help fill an information gap that still exists in many areas today: the preparedness of children to smoothly transition into kindergarten. In a partnership between Applied Survey Research, the Peninsula Community Foundation and First 5 San Mateo, a scan was conducted of readiness frameworks and tools used around the country, and the KOF’s items were developed with significant local input from the fields of early childhood education, primary education, philanthropy and research. Using a blend of observational and test-based assessment techniques, the Kindergarten Observation Form was piloted in 2001 with over 700 students in 8 high need districts in San Mateo County. After initial psychometric testing, the tool was refined and implemented in 2002. In 2009, an expert panel of early education and elementary school educators helped develop the KOF’s Scoring Guide, a rating rubric which defines each indicator across the four levels of proficiency. A preschool version of the tool, the Pre-Kindergarten Observation Form (P-KOF), was also developed to give early learning sites a tool to assess the kindergarten readiness of children in their programs.

For more information and to see sample reports, please see the school readiness page on ASR's website .

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How has school readiness been defined, what determines school readiness, school readiness testing, schools’ readiness for children, how ready are children in the united states as they enter kindergarten, the relationship between early childhood education and school readiness, children with special educational needs, how schools and communities promote school readiness, what pediatricians do to support school readiness, conclusions, lead authors, council on early childhood executive committee, 2017–2018, council on school health executive committee, 2017–2018, school readiness.

POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors have indicated they have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: The authors have indicated they have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.

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P. Gail Williams , Marc Alan Lerner , COUNCIL ON EARLY CHILDHOOD , COUNCIL ON SCHOOL HEALTH , Jill Sells , Sherri L. Alderman , Andrew Hashikawa , Alan Mendelsohn , Terri McFadden , Dipesh Navsaria , Georgina Peacock , Seth Scholer , Jennifer Takagishi , Douglas Vanderbilt , Cheryl L. De Pinto , Elliott Attisha , Nathaniel Beers , Erica Gibson , Peter Gorski , Chris Kjolhede , Sonja C. O’Leary , Heidi K. Schumacher , Adrienne Weiss-Harrison; School Readiness. Pediatrics August 2019; 144 (2): e20191766. 10.1542/peds.2019-1766

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School readiness includes the readiness of the individual child, the school’s readiness for children, and the ability of the family and community to support optimal early child development. It is the responsibility of schools to meet the needs of all children at all levels of readiness. Children’s readiness for kindergarten should become an outcome measure for a coordinated system of community-based programs and supports for the healthy development of young children. Our rapidly expanding insights into early brain and child development have revealed that modifiable factors in a child’s early experience can greatly affect that child’s health and learning trajectories. Many children in the United States enter kindergarten with limitations in their social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development that might have been significantly diminished or eliminated through early identification and attention to child and family needs. A strong correlation between social-emotional development and school and life success, combined with alarming rates of preschool expulsion, point toward the urgency of leveraging opportunities to support social-emotional development and address behavioral concerns early. Pediatric primary care providers have access to the youngest children and their families. Pediatricians can promote and use community supports, such as home visiting programs, quality early care and education programs, family support programs and resources, early intervention services, children’s museums, and libraries, which are important for addressing school readiness and are too often underused by populations who can benefit most from them. When these are not available, pediatricians can support the development of such resources. The American Academy of Pediatrics affords pediatricians many opportunities to improve the physical, social-emotional, and educational health of young children, in conjunction with other advocacy groups. This technical report provides an updated version of the previous iteration from the American Academy of Pediatrics published in 2008.

All of a child’s early experiences, whether at home, in child care, or in other preschool settings, are educational. When early experiences are consistent, developmentally sound, and emotionally supportive, children learn optimally and develop resilience for life. To focus only on the education of children beginning with kindergarten is to ignore the science of early development and to deny the importance of early experiences. Our current understanding of the importance of experiences in early brain development and in cognitive and social-emotional outcomes for children converge in our contemporary conceptualization of school readiness. Children who enter school ready to learn are expected to achieve more academically. Academic success has been linked to improved social, economic, and health outcomes. 1 , – 3  

The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study revealed that multiple factors can cause toxic stress that results in changes in brain circuitry with subsequent negative effects on physical and mental health. 4 , 5 Toxic stress occurs when a child experiences strong, frequent, and/or prolonged adversity, such as physical or emotional abuse, chronic neglect, caregiver substance abuse or mental illness, exposure to violence, and/or the accumulated burdens of family economic hardship, without adequate adult support. 6  

According to data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, 12.5% of all US children have had a documented episode of child abuse or neglect reported by 18 years of age. 7 , 8 According to data from the National Survey of Children’s Health, 48% of US children have had at least 1 of the 9 key adverse childhood experiences, and 22.6% of children between 0 and 17 years of age had experienced 2 or more of the experiences, although the data exhibit considerable variability across states. 9  

Authors of a recent study used 2011–2012 data from the National Survey of Children’s Health to examine the impact of adverse childhood experiences on school success. 10 Data analysis revealed that children with 2 or more adverse childhood experiences were 2.67 times more likely to repeat a grade in school compared with children without any adverse experiences. Children without adverse childhood experiences were 2.59 times more likely to be usually or always engaged in school compared with their peers with 2 or more adverse experiences. 10 Resilience, defined in that study as “staying calm and in control when faced with a challenge,” ameliorated these effects. Clearly, there is a role for minimizing toxic stress and building resilience in children as a way of promoting school readiness.

One of the most widely recognized risk factors for school readiness is poverty. Fewer than half (48%) of poor children are ready for school at 5 years of age as compared with 75% of children from moderate- or high-income households. 11 Poverty affects school readiness across racial and ethnic divisions, likely because of both lack of financial resources and parents having less education, higher rates of single and teenage parenthood, poorer health, etc. When family demographics are controlled for factors such as single parenthood and maternal education the poverty-related gap decreases; differences in parent characteristics and parent-child interactions account for much of the gap and have the potential for remediation to break the cycle of negative relationships that often impact 1 generation to the next. 12 Children in foster or kinship care or otherwise involved with child welfare may be less ready for school for several reasons: the impact of childhood trauma and loss on the developing brain (cognitive and emotional) and less access to early childhood education and programs that may help to remediate losses. Children in foster care are at particular risk, especially if their placement is unstable. These children demonstrate higher rates of internalizing problems, such as depression, poorer social skills, lower adaptive functioning, and more externalizing behavioral problems such as aggression and impulsivity. 13 Furthermore, there is evidence that the foster care experience itself (eg, instability of placements) may be further damaging to the developmental outcomes of children who are maltreated. 14 Other risk factors that have been shown to have an effect on school readiness are prenatal exposure to tobacco and alcohol, low birth weight, developmental disability, and maternal depression. 15 Interventions such as home visitation programs, smoking cessation programs, and preschool programs have the potential of ameliorating these negative factors and creating more positive early childhood experiences that may translate into improved school readiness. 16 , 17 Pediatric primary care has recently been shown to have potential to facilitate school readiness through both primary prevention programs that seek to prevent disparities by working directly with parents to enhance interactions (eg, within the context of reading, talking, and play) and through referral to secondary and/or tertiary prevention programs that identify and treat families at increased risk (eg, maternal depression) or children with already existing difficulties in 1 or more school readiness domains (behavioral health or education). 18  

“Ready to Learn” became a national mantra in 1991 when the National Education Goals Panel adopted as its first goal that “by the year 2000, all children will enter school ready to learn.” 19 This panel identified readiness in the child as determined by a set of interdependent developmental trajectories. Three components of school readiness were broadly described as follows:

readiness in the child, defined by the following:

physical well-being and sensory motor development, including health status and growth;

social and emotional development, including self-regulation, attention, impulse control, capacity to limit aggressive and disruptive behaviors, turn-taking, cooperation, empathy, and the ability to communicate one’s own emotions; identification of feelings facilitates accurate communication of these feelings;

approaches to learning, including enthusiasm, curiosity, temperament, culture, and values;

language development, including listening, speaking, and vocabulary, as well as literacy skills, including print awareness, story sense, and writing and drawing processes; and

general knowledge and cognition, including early literacy and math skills;

schools’ readiness for children, illustrated by the following:

smooth transition between home and school, including cultural sensitivity;

opportunities for parent engagement with schools;

understanding of early child development and that children learn through play and natural experiences;

continuity between early care, intervention, and education programs and elementary school;

use of high-quality instruction, provided within the context of relationships and at a rate designed to challenge but not overwhelm a child;

demonstration of commitment to the success of every child through awareness of the needs of individual children, including the effects of adverse childhood experiences, including poverty and racial discrimination, and trying to meet special needs within the regular classroom; implementation of individualized education programs that include adaptations to support children with disabilities;

demonstration of commitment to the success of every teacher in providing effective instruction to children;

introduction of approaches that raise achievement, such as parent involvement and early intervention for children falling behind;

alteration of practices and programs if they do not benefit children;

provision of services to children in their communities within the context of a safe, secure, and inclusive environment that supports student health and wellness and promotes learning;

willingness to take responsibility for results; and

strong leadership; and

family and community supports that contribute to child readiness:

excellent prenatal care and ongoing primary care within a medical home setting that is comprehensive, compassionate, and family centered;

optimal nutrition and daily physical activity so that children arrive at school with healthy minds and bodies;

access to high-quality preschool and child care for all children; and

time set aside daily for parents to help their child learn along with the supports that allow parents to be effective teachers.

An individual child’s school readiness is determined in large measure by the environment in which he or she lives and grows. The Child Welfare League of America described a vision for the United States in which every child is healthy and safe and develops to his or her full capacity. 20 Five universal needs of all children were described. First, children need the basics of proper nutrition, economic security, adequate clothing and shelter, appropriate education, and primary and preventive physical and mental health services. Second, children need strong nurturing relationships within their families, their communities, and their peer groups. Third, children need opportunities to develop their talents and skills and to contribute to their communities. Children with indications of disability need early assessment and intervention to prevent later, more serious problems. Fourth, children need protection from injury, abuse, and neglect as well as from exposure to violence and discrimination. Fifth, children have a basic need for healing. When caregivers and providers have not been able to protect them, children need us to ease the effects of any harm they have suffered by providing emotional support, by addressing physical and mental health care needs, and by sometimes making amends through restorative judicial practices. Meeting these needs builds resilience and requires collaborative comprehensive approaches so that children become a priority at the levels of the family, the community, and the nation. 20  

Although various constructs of school readiness have been proposed in the past, the conceptualization of school readiness that is widely accepted at present is an “interactional relational” model. This model is focused on the ongoing interaction between the child and the environment. The model suggests that school readiness is “the product of a set of educational decisions that are differentially shaped by the skills, experiences and learning opportunities the child has had and the perspectives and goals of the community, classroom and teacher.” This construct suggests that readiness assessments “can only be done over time and in context” rather than by means of a 1-time screening test. 21 This conceptualization is most consistent with the current understanding of the importance of early experiences and early relationships at home and in community and early education settings in promoting child development. 22  

Six fundamental misconceptions prevalent regarding school readiness are as follows: (1) learning happens only at school; (2) readiness is a specific condition within each child; (3) readiness can be measured easily; (4) readiness is mostly a function of time (maturation), and some children need a little more; (5) children are ready to learn when they can sit quietly at a desk and listen; and (6) children who are not ready do not belong in school. 23  

An emphasis on kindergarten readiness that only considers the skills of a child places an undue burden of proof of readiness on that child and is particularly unfair because of economic, experiential, and cultural inequities in our society. Typical or normal development in 4- and 5-year-old children is highly variable, so labeling children as not being school ready at such an early age may cause them to be isolated from a more appropriate learning environment. In a 1988 national survey, 10% to 50% of children in various states who were eligible to enter kindergarten on the basis of age did not enter because of readiness test scores. 24 A follow-up survey in 1996 25 revealed a response to growing concerns about misuse of these kinds of data. Since that time, there has been increased recognition that school readiness assessment should not be used to exclude age-eligible children from kindergarten. In 2010, only 6% of children in kindergarten were delayed entry. 26  

Although the use of readiness assessments to restrict kindergarten entry has markedly decreased, a growing number of states are using readiness assessments for other purposes. At least 25 states in 2010 reported mandatory kindergarten assessments. These assessments varied significantly in scope: 11 evaluated between 5 and 9 domains of school readiness, 4 evaluated only reading readiness, 2 evaluated math and reading, and 2 evaluated unspecified domains. Of the states that assessed multiple domains, 7 used a state-created assessment instrument and 4 used a commercial instrument. Authors of a technical report from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) noted that although state-created instruments are less costly and better reflect state-specific learning requirements, they need to meet standards for reliability and validity. 27 Most state readiness assessments used single teacher checklists completed on the basis of child observation; these can be inaccurate because of rater bias and can have problems with reliability between raters and consistent over- or underrating on the basis of a general impression of the child.

Reported use of assessments included guidance for planning, curriculum, and instruction (18 states), informing policy decisions or tracking kindergarten readiness at the state level (12 states), feedback to parents (4 states), and evaluation of the readiness of schools to receive incoming students (2 states). Of the 25 states that required kindergarten assessment, 12 did not publish any results. Of the 13 that published results, 4 published only state-level data, and 7 reported results by geographic region. In general, these data were much less detailed than student performance results required for later grades by the No Child Left Behind Act, which was in place from 2002 to 2015. Of concern is the fact that only 22 states in 2010 had a formal definition of school readiness. 28  

Recent federal initiatives have bolstered funding for state early childhood assessments. The federal Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge allowed 9 states to put sizeable funding from their grant into development and implementation of kindergarten entry assessment. Other states received funding through the federal Enhanced Assessment Grants program to develop comprehensive kindergarten through third-grade assessment systems. An update by the NCSL in 2014 documented an additional 14 states that established or amended school readiness assessments of young children, yielding a total of 34 states and the District of Columbia, which now use a state-approved assessment for children entering kindergarten. 29 Approaches to school readiness testing are subject to frequent change. The most recent information on state laws is available through the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Division of State Government Affairs ( https://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/state-advocacy/Pages/State-Advocacy.aspx ).

A position paper by the Early Childhood Education State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards in 2011 stated that kindergarten readiness assessments can be helpful if used to directly support children’s developmental and academic achievement to improve educational outcomes. 30 Such assessment efforts should (1) use multiple tools for multiple purposes, (2) address multiple developmental domains and diverse cultural contexts, (3) align with early learning guidelines, (4) collect information from multiple sources, (5) implement a systems-based approach, and (6) avoid inappropriate use of assessment, such as labeling children, restricting kindergarten entry, and predicting children’s future academic success.

As the NCSL data from 2010 reveal, there is considerable variability in the approach taken to kindergarten readiness on the state and national level, both with regard to assessment tools and use of test results. One effort at standardizing results for state reporting is the Early Development Instrument created by Transforming Early Childhood Community Systems, a collaboration between the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Healthier Children, Families, and Communities and the United Way Worldwide. 31 This initiative currently operates in more than 40 communities across the country and reports the percentage of children who are developmentally vulnerable in 5 areas (physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, and communication and child knowledge). Transforming Early Childhood Community Systems states that the reports help guide community efforts to help children reach school healthy and ready to succeed. To the extent that such efforts decrease the disparity between school and child readiness by using the assessments as a tool to help schools prepare for the children they will be serving and promote opportunities for early childhood experiences leading to educational success, readiness assessments can be highly useful.

The current disparity between school and child readiness may be attributable to schools not being prepared to offer the necessary and appropriate educational setting for age-eligible children, not because children cannot learn in an appropriate educational setting. If there is a predetermined set of skills necessary for school enrollment, then commitment to promoting universal readiness must address early-life inequities in experience. Promoting universal readiness may be accomplished by providing access to opportunities that promote educational success, recognizing and supporting individual differences among children, and establishing reasonable and appropriate expectations of children’s capabilities at school entry for all children. 32 The data gained from testing children at kindergarten entry need to be interpreted carefully. Ideally, data can be used as a tool to help prepare schools for the diverse group of children they will be serving. It is the responsibility of the schools to be ready for all children and to work with families to make the school experience positive for all children, even those who may be at varying stages of readiness. School programs should be flexible and adaptable to each child’s level of readiness.

One example of schools seeking to address the school readiness needs of low-income and ethnically diverse populations is the Boston Public School System. In 2006, this school system implemented full-day preschool programming for 25% of 4-year-old children in the city and identified key elements of a successful prekindergarten program: a strong curriculum with focus on language, social skills, and concept development (manuals); significant educational supports for teachers in implementing the curriculum; adequate staffing; coaching and training of preschool teachers; and ongoing, independent assessment of instruction and children’s skills. 33 The results of this effort were significant: participants in the prekindergarten program scored higher on third-grade language arts tests than did nonparticipants, and the African American–white achievement gap was one-third smaller among prekindergarten participants than among nonparticipants. In addition, the prekindergarten program was able to close the gap between children from low-income and affluent families by more than half. The authors of Restoring Opportunity: The Crisis of Inequality and the Challenge for American Education conclude that “well-designed and well-implemented pre-K programs have the potential to be a vital component of a strategy to improve the life chances of children from low income families.” 33  

A landmark study by the National Center for Education and Statistics (NCES) (1998–1999) surveyed a nationally representative sample of 22 000 first-time kindergarten students and their schools, classroom teachers, and families. 34 , 35 The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) was designed to gather information about the entry status of the nation’s kindergarteners. Progress of this cohort is still being monitored to inform educational policy and practice. Information was obtained regarding children’s cognitive, emotional, social, and physical development as well as their family interactions and home literacy environment. In the study, children “at risk for school difficulty” were defined as children whose mothers had less than a high school education, children who were being raised by single mothers, children whose families had received public assistance, and children in families whose primary language was not English. 34 , 35  

Fifty-one percent of parents of children who entered kindergarten for the first time in 1998 rated their child’s general health as excellent, and 32% rated it as very good. 34 , 35 Kindergarteners whose mothers had higher levels of education, who were from 2-parent families, whose families had not used public assistance, and who were of white non-Hispanic descent were rated as having generally better health by their parents. Six percent of first-time kindergartners were experiencing vision problems, and 3% were identified as having hearing problems. In that study, 12% of boys and 11% of girls were at risk for overweight, defined as BMI at or above age- and sex-specific guidelines. The risk was greater for children whose mothers had not attained a bachelor’s degree and for children from homes in which the primary language spoken was not English. 34 , 35  

The study attempted to examine the social and emotional status of first-time kindergartners. Teachers reported that 10% to 11% of children often argued or fought with others or were angered easily. Single parents were more likely to report behavior problems, such as fighting, arguing, and getting angry. Parents with partners, those with higher education, and those who had not received public assistance were more likely to have kindergartners with prosocial behaviors, such as often forming friendships. Teachers were less likely than parents to report that children were eager to learn (75% vs 92%). Children with lower maternal education, those from single-mother homes, and those whose families had received public assistance were less likely to be viewed as eager to learn by their teachers. 34 , 35  

Variability also was seen in home literacy environments and in family interactions for first-time kindergartners. Forty-five percent of all parents reported reading with their child every day, and this value decreased to 36% if mothers had less than a high school education, 38% if English was not the primary language spoken at home, 35% for African American non-Hispanic children, and 39% for Hispanic children. Almost three-fourths of parents reported having more than 25 children’s books at home, but this was true for only 38% of kindergartners whose mothers had not graduated from high school and only 35% of those from homes where English was not the primary language spoken. Approximately half of kindergartners from African American non-Hispanic, Hispanic, or American Indian or Alaskan native families had more than 25 children’s books at home. 34 , 35  

Early academic competencies were also surveyed in the study. In 1998 in the United States, as children entered kindergarten for the first time, two-thirds recognized their letters, and 29% also recognized beginning sounds; 94% recognized single numerals and shapes and could count to 10, and 58% could count beyond 10, recognize sequence patterns, and use nonstandard units of length to compare objects. Of those children, 37% demonstrated strong print familiarity skills, including knowing that print reads from left to right and knowing where to go when a line of print ends. Kindergartners’ performance on math, reading, and general knowledge items increased with the level of their mothers’ education and was higher for children from 2-parent families. 34 , 35  

Overall, children with few risk factors were more likely to have attained these various proficiencies and were in better general health than were children at risk. Follow-up evaluation of the same children in the spring of first grade revealed that children who demonstrated early literacy skills and who came from a positive literacy environment, who possessed a positive approach to learning, and who enjoyed very good or excellent general health at kindergarten entry performed better in both reading and mathematics after 2 years of formal schooling than did children who did not have these resources. The relationships between the resources children possessed at kindergarten entry and their reading and mathematics performance in the spring of first grade remained significant after controlling for the influence of children’s poverty status and their race and/or ethnicity. 36  

When these children were evaluated after 4 years of education, in the spring of third grade, children with more family risk factors (eg, living below the poverty level, primary language spoken in the home was not English, mother had not completed high school, and single-parent home) demonstrated lower mean achievement scores in reading, mathematics, and science. Over that time, children with more family risk factors made smaller gains in math and reading, so the achievement gaps between disadvantaged and more advantaged children grew wider over the first 4 years of school. The third-graders also completed self-descriptive questionnaires evaluating internalizing (eg, shy, withdrawn, or sad) and externalizing (eg, fighting, arguing, or distractibility) behavior problems. Overall, problem behavior scores were low; however, children with lower achievement and more family risk factors tended to rate themselves higher on both of the problem behavior scales. 37  

These findings, although they are disturbing, are not surprising to pediatricians, who have long been advocates for underserved pediatric populations. This inequity in school readiness, which is apparent at school entry and is associated with persistent academic underachievement and social-emotional risk, points to a need to address these differences before children enter kindergarten, especially for families and children at risk.

More recent studies have also addressed school readiness. Data from the 2007 National Household Education Surveys Program of the NCES were used to look at how parents perceived the school readiness of their young children. 38 Among the findings were that 58% of children 3 to 6 years of age and not yet in kindergarten were reported to be attending preschool or a child care center. Eighty-nine percent of children’s parents planned to enroll them into kindergarten on time; 7% planned delayed enrollment. A higher percentage of boys (9% vs 4%) had parents who planned to delay kindergarten entry. When surveyed about literacy issues, 55% of children were read to every day, 28% were read to 3 or more times in the past week, 13% were read to once or twice a week, and 3% were not read to at all in the past week; mean daily reading time was 21 minutes. A lower percentage of children residing in poor households (40%) were read to every day compared with children residing in households living above the poverty level (60%).

Average television or video time for those who watched was 2.6 hours daily. Television time was somewhat longer for children of mothers who worked 35 hours or more (3 hours daily) as compared with mothers who worked less than 35 hours weekly (2.5 hours daily) or were not in the labor force (2.4 hours). With regard to school readiness skills, 93% of parents reported that their child had speech that was understandable to a stranger, 87% of children could hold a pencil, 63% could count to 20 or higher, 60% could write their first name, 32% could recognize all the letters of the alphabet, and 8% could read written words in books. Alphabet recognition varied by age, with only 13% of 3-year-olds, 38% of 4-year-olds, and 59% of 5- and 6-year-olds not enrolled in kindergarten recognizing all letters. When parents were surveyed regarding essential skills needed to prepare for kindergarten, 62% reported that sharing was essential, 56% reported that teaching the alphabet was essential, 54% reported that teaching numbers was essential, 45% reported reading was essential, and 41% reported holding a pencil was a needed skill. 38  

Child Trends analysis of the National Household Education Surveys data in 2015 indicates an increase in early literacy skills over time. 38 The percentage of 3- to 6-year-old children able to recognize all letters increased from 21% in 1993 to 38% in 2012, and those able to count to 20 or higher increased from 52% to 68% during that period. Between 1999 and 2007, the percentage of these young children who read words in a book increased from 8% to 22%. Significant discrepancies exist between early childhood readiness skills on the basis of factors such as poverty status, parents’ educational status, and race and/or ethnicity. In 2007, only 21% of children living below the poverty level were able to recognize all letters of the alphabet compared with 35% of those living above the poverty level; similarly, counting to 20 was a skill that 49% of poor children at this age achieved compared with 67% of those above poverty. 39 In 2012, only 15% of children between 3 and 6 years of age (not yet in kindergarten) whose parents had not completed high school could recognize all letters of the alphabet and only 38% could count to 20, which is between 46% and 142% lower than for children whose parents had completed some college. Young Hispanic children were less likely to demonstrate the ability to recognize all letters (27%) than white (41%) or African American (44%) children in 2012; Asian American and Pacific Islander children had the highest rate of letter recognition (58%). The sex gap in readiness skills has disappeared; although girls in 1999 were significantly more likely to have achieved skills for letter recognition and counting than boys, there were no such differences by 2012. These data reflect improvement in overall readiness skills of young children from earlier studies, but gaps in achievement based on poverty and race and/or ethnicity are still readily apparent. 39  

Measurements from 2016 of the benefits of early childhood education vary depending on the type of program studied and educational outcomes tracked. In general, benefits on standardized academic achievement tests are higher for model programs (0.57 SD; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.24 to 0.81) than for those organized at the district, state (0.32 SD; 95% CI, 0.25 to 0.38), or federal (Head Start; 0.17 SD; 95% CI, 0.12 to 0.23) levels. 40 Model programs, such as the Abecedarian Project and Perry Preschool Program, have generally been implemented as part of well-funded research projects and are closely monitored for fidelity of implementation and staffed by highly trained individuals. Evaluation of programs at the school district and state level found a statistically significant positive effect on student self-regulation (0.23 SD; 95% CI, 0.12 to 0.33), whereas a nonsignificant benefit was shown for Head Start (0.16 SD; 95% CI, −0.09 to 0.41). Long-term follow-up of participants in Head Start revealed a positive effect on high school graduation rate (0.18 SD; 95% CI, 0.03 to 0.33). Nonsignificant beneficial effects are also reported on measures of grade retention, assignment to special education, teenage birth rates, and criminality. 16  

A study from 2005 that evaluated the economic features of investing in a 1-year, high-quality, universal, preschool education in California estimated a $7000 net present-value benefit per child. This benefit equaled a return of $2.62 for every $1 invested, with an annual return rate of 10% over 60 years. This model did not include other benefits to society, such as the improved health and well-being of participating children and the potential intergenerational transmission of favorable benefits. 41 , 42 Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis examined the rate of return on investment for early education. When considering the Perry Preschool Program, conducted in Michigan in the 1960s, which provided high-quality preschool to 3- and 4-year-old children in poverty, along with home visitation to involve parents, the economists found a “real” return on investment, adjusted for inflation, of 16%, with at least 75% of those benefits going to the general public. 43 , 44 The benefit/cost ratio (the ratio of the aggregate program benefits over the life of the child to the input of costs) was found to be greater than 8:1. 41 These benefits persisted to age 40, at which time more of the program group were employed than the nonprogram group (76% vs 56%), more earned over $20 000 dollars per year (60% vs 40%), and fewer were arrested more than 5 times (36% vs 55%). 45 The Carolina Abecedarian Project conducted in 1972 provides data that support the developmental and behavioral benefits of quality education provided within the context of day care programs into adulthood. 46 Economic benefits were reported in maternal earnings, decreased schooling costs from kindergarten through grade 12, increased lifetime earnings, and decreased costs related to smoking.

A position paper by the National Institute for Early Education Research was published in 2013, concluding that expanding access to quality prekindergarten programs is sound public policy. 47 That authors pointed to a meta-analysis that summarizes the effects of preschool programs, the results of which pointed to 2 basic findings: (1) state and local prekindergarten programs, almost without exception, improve academic readiness for school; and (2) there are persistent impacts on achievement well beyond school entry, even though these are somewhat smaller than short-term impacts.

Enrollment of children in state-funded preschool programs nationwide doubled from 2001 to 2016, with states serving nearly 33% of 4-year-old children in 2016. 47 However, enrollment of 3-year-old children has changed little (5% total of 3-year-old children served in public preschools in 2016). Those numbers improve when looking at all public preschool programs (including special education and Head Start) to 43% of 4-year-old and 16% of 3-year-old children. Provision of preschool services is highly variable from state to state, with some states offering nearly universal services at 4 years of age and others having no programs. A negative trend of decreased state expenditure per child occurred from 2008 to 2014, but that trend has reversed from 2014 to 2016, with total state funding for preschool programs increasing to almost 7.4 billion dollars. There has also been a positive move toward improvement in developing and implementing early learning standards and developing quality standards. 48 Benchmarks need to be applied to preschool programs, including teacher training requirements, rules on class size and staff/child ratios, adequate teacher compensation, adherence to early learning standards, provision of comprehensive services, provision of at least 1 meal, and monitoring quality of sites. In 2016, many states met fewer than half of the current quality standards benchmarks, and charter schools are not required to meet these benchmarks. 47  

The data are not as clear-cut for the benefits of child care programs. Approximately 58% of children 4 and 5 years of age received center-based care in 2012, 13% received home-based relative care, and 19% had no early childhood education arrangement on a regular basis. 49 The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (2006) found that children in higher-quality nonmaternal child care had somewhat better language and cognitive development during the first 4.5 years of life but that those children with high number of hours in child care demonstrated more behavior problems; parent and family characteristics were more associated with developmental outcome than were facility features. 50  

In general, school readiness appears to have improved over the past 2 decades. The NCES tracked 2 large, nationally representative cohorts of children entering kindergarten through its ECLS. 51 The study compared school readiness in the 1998 kindergarten cohort versus the 2010 cohort. Children in the 2010 cohort were more proficient across a variety of math and reading skills, regardless of race or socioeconomic status, with particularly large gains in math and literacy proficiency among African American children. The authors suggested that early achievement gaps are narrowing and that the skills and knowledge children possess when entering school are increasing. However, they also noted that teachers rated the 2010 cohort somewhat less favorably with respect to their “approaches to learning,” a measure that encompasses eagerness to learn, ability to work independently, persistence, and attention. Authors of another study using the same ECLS data concluded that “despite widening income inequality, increasing income segregation, and growing disparities in parental spending on children, disparities in school readiness narrowed from 1998 to 2010.” 52 The authors hypothesized that the narrowing of the disparity was attributable to a relatively rapid increase in overall school readiness levels among poor and Hispanic children, along with less rapid increases in readiness among high-income and white children. Although these findings are encouraging, there is still reason for concern. Authors of a previously mentioned article on school readiness in poor children noted that preschool programs offer the best chance to increase school readiness in this population. 11 Although investment in early childhood education programs increased for most states from 2001 to 2009, that trend has changed since the recession in 2008. Early childhood programs receive much less funding than public education and are often at greater risk for federal and state budget cuts. Continued recognition of the importance of quality early childhood programs and the need for adequate funding will be critical.

Children with developmental disabilities are particularly at risk for deficits in school readiness. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 was enacted to ensure that children with special needs have access to a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment with adequate supports and services. Part B of the IDEA covers children with developmental disabilities from 3 to 21 years of age, and Part C addresses the need for early intervention services for children from birth to 3 years of age with qualifying conditions.

Approximately 6% of children between 3 and 5 years of age in the United States are served under Part B of IDEA with significant variability among states (4% in AL to 14% in WY). 53 The majority of these children are served under a speech and language delay category (3.1%). The second largest category is developmental delay (2.5%), and the third largest category is autism (0.6%). White children account for 52% of this population with special needs, Hispanic children represent 25%, and African American children account for 13%. This disparity of services among ethnic minority groups likely represents underidentification of minority children with disabilities at an early age, especially given the fact that African American children represent a higher percentage (15%) than do white children (13%) when evaluating the number of children in special education services between 3 and 21 years of age. 53  

With regard to early intervention services covered under Part C of IDEA, approximately 3% of children 0 to 3 years of age are served, with boys accounting for 64% of children. 54 The categories under which children received services were not available, but white children accounted for 52.6%, Hispanic children accounted for 25.9%, and African American children accounted for 12.4%. The majority (approximately 86%) of these developmental intervention services were provided in home settings. Approximately 8% of children receiving Part C services were no longer eligible for Part B services at 3 years of age, perhaps reflecting the effectiveness of early intervention.

These data seem to reflect an underrepresentation of minorities in early childhood intervention programs. Pediatricians, through developmental surveillance and screening, play an important role in identifying all children with developmental disabilities at an early age. It also appears from the data that autism spectrum disorders may be underrecognized at an early age. The prevalence of autism spectrum disorders has increased drastically, and there is evidence that intensive early intervention makes a positive impact in school readiness. 43 , – 57 Addressing the needs of children with developmental disabilities in a timely fashion with appropriate educational services and family resources improves potential outcomes. 58  

Limited research is available regarding readiness of schools and communities to meet the needs of the diverse population of children. One approach to identifying and tracking indicators of school and community preparedness is the School Readiness Indicators: Making Progress for Young Children program, a partnership of 16 states funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. 59 This initiative has 3 goals: (1) to create a set of measurable indicators related to and defining school readiness that can be tracked at the state and local levels; (2) to have states adopt this indicator-based definition of school readiness, to fill in gaps in data, to track data, and to report findings to their citizens; and (3) to stimulate policies, programs, and other actions to improve the ability of children to read at grade level by third grade. Sample system indicators tracked by this group include (1) the proportion of children with health coverage; (2) the proportion of 3- and 4-year-old children enrolled in high-quality early education and child care programs; (3) the proportion of schools offering universal access to full-day kindergarten; (4) the proportion of children with hearing, vision, or dental problems not detected at school entry; (5) the number of adults enrolled in adult education programs or programs teaching English as a second language per 100 adults seeking those services; (6) the proportion of births to mothers with less than a 12th-grade education; and (7) the proportion of children younger than 6 years in foster care who have had more than 2 placements in 24 months. The complete set of indicators selected by each state is available online ( http://www.rikidscount.org/IssueAreas/EarlyLearningampDevelopment/GettingReady.aspx ). It is the belief of those investigators that this work will play an important role in shaping the educational agenda for young children and their families across the country. 60 , 61  

Evidence-based interventions with substantial effects on school readiness include early intervention programs for formerly preterm infants, which have been shown to prevent developmental delay, to improve grade retention, and to accelerate placement into special education. 62 , – 64 Food supplement programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, have been shown to reduce rates of low birth weight 65 and iron deficiency. 66 , 67 Children attending schools with school nutrition programs have improved scores on standardized academic tests. 68 Home visiting by nurses has been shown consistently to reduce rates of childhood injury, to increase fathers’ involvement, to reduce family welfare dependency, and to improve school readiness. 69 , 70 Housing subsidies have resulted in improved neighborhood safety and reduced exposure to violence. 71 , 72  

In addition, there are numerous pediatric primary care programs that have been shown to have impacts across varying domains of school readiness. 73 These programs include both primary prevention programs (which seek to prevent gaps in readiness before they emerge) as well as secondary and/or tertiary prevention programs (which seek to provide additional services for families at increased risk and/or for children with observed gaps in child school readiness); these target early literacy and/or social-emotional development. All of these programs capitalize on the unique reach of pediatric well-child visits for families with young children, especially from birth to 3 years of age, and facilitate population-level intervention at a low cost. The most studied and scaled primary prevention program is Reach Out and Read ( http://www.reachoutandread.org/ ), which impacts more than 25% of all children in low-income families by improving child language skills and increasing reading aloud activities, according to more than 15 published studies. 74 An enhancement to Reach Out and Read, the Video Interaction Project, promotes parental self-reflection and positive actions through review of videotaped parent-child interactions and was recently found to have positive impact on child social-emotional development. 75 HealthySteps uses a specialist who facilitates the delivery of well-child care on the basis of the standards in Bright Futures: Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children, and Adolescents , Fourth Edition , and provides primary prevention through enhanced parenting and secondary prevention through appropriate screening and referral for services. 76 , 77 A primary care adaptation of The Incredible Years has been shown to promote effective parenting and improve child behavior for families with children with behavior problems. 78 Two additional programs, Assuring Better Child Health and Development and Help Me Grow, provide effective secondary prevention by linking families with appropriate community services. 79 , 80  

The role of the pediatrician in promoting school readiness was previously delineated in a recent AAP policy statement, “The Pediatrician’s Role in Optimizing School Readiness.” 81 It is clear that pediatric health care providers promote school readiness in the children they serve in many ways. In their office practices, they provide medical homes that promote optimal nutrition, growth, development, and physical health as part of health maintenance. Full implementation of the recommendations in Bright Futures: Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children, and Adolescents , Fourth Edition , includes not only provision of immunizations in a timely manner but also anticipatory guidance regarding nutrition, safety issues, vision and hearing screening, lead and anemia screening, advice regarding dental needs, and developmental surveillance and/or screening. 77 By providing ongoing surveillance and information regarding injury prevention, pediatric providers help protect children from injury and abuse.

Pediatric health care providers promote positive parent-child relationships by screening for psychosocial risks, such as parental mental illness, substance abuse, family violence, poverty, and lack of connection to community and family supports, and then identifying appropriate community resources for families. 82 The AAP Web site on social determinants of health offers numerous screening and toolkit resources for pediatric primary care providers ( https://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-initiatives/Screening/Pages/Social-Determinants-of-Health.aspx ). Modeling appropriate interactions in the office and providing materials and educational opportunities that promote parental knowledge of child development enhance parent-child interactions. Ongoing assessment of the interactions between the parent and child and guidance regarding behavior, temperament, and development facilitate parent understanding of child differences. Primary care parenting models such as HealthySteps, Very Important Parenting, and colocated behavioral health models have been found to be effective in supporting positive parent-child relationships and model appropriate disciplinary strategies. For families whose children present with significant behavior concerns, use of evidence-based models, such as the Positive Parenting Program and Circle of Security, and referral to appropriate behavioral health resources provide assistance to families. The Positive Parenting Program is designed to prevent and treat behavioral and emotional problems in children and teenagers by equipping parents with skills and confidence to address these problems. The Circle of Security seeks to support secure parent-child relationships by helping parents read their child’s emotional needs, enhance the child’s self-esteem, and support the child’s ability to manage emotions. 83 Resources available to pediatricians in promoting early literacy include such evidenced-based programs as Reach Out and Read and the AAP Books Build Connections Toolkit, as well as community libraries and early childhood education programs. Pediatricians often provide guidance to parents regarding quality early child care and child education programs, including information from the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Children’s Home Society, Child Care and Resource and Referral Centers, and Help Me Grow. Pediatricians also encourage communication between parents and early learning centers. 84 Pediatric health care providers identify children with delays in their development by integrating regular, systematic, developmental screening and surveillance into their practices. Children identified as having delays and children at risk for delays can then be referred to community-based services, such as early intervention programs, home visitation programs, Head Start, and special education programs available through school departments. 85  

Many pediatricians take an active role in advocating for those evidence-based practices that promote optimal early brain and child development. Some examples include (1) access to health care, including mental health services, for all children; (2) standards for state Medicaid and Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment programs that conform, at a minimum, to AAP policy recommendations 86 ; (3) universal funding for clinic-based early literacy programs such as Reach Out and Read; (4) Head Start and Early Head Start programs; and (5) federal child care subsidies. AAP chapters can be centers for advocacy because they have experience, resources, and established relationships with policy makers who will be making decisions at the state level. The AAP offers opportunities to effect these policies through their state AAP chapters and in collaboration with state early childhood comprehensive systems. On a national level, the Federal Advocacy Action Network provides an additional avenue of advocacy for interested pediatricians.

Pediatricians, in their work with young children and families, provide the skills and expertise that promote not only physical health but also social-emotional health and guidance with regard to development. Their partnership with families allows for ongoing assessment of strengths and stressors and the development of collaborative strategies and interventions, which support optimal child well-being. 82 , 87 Pediatricians, in collaboration with school, community, and national agencies, contribute to the school readiness of young children. 81  

Knowledge of early brain and child development has revealed that modifiable factors in a child’s early experience can greatly affect that child’s learning trajectory. Several qualities that are necessary for children to be ready for school are physical and nutritional well-being, intellectual skills, motivation to learn, and strong social-emotional capacity and supports. These qualities are influenced by the health and well-being of the families and neighborhoods in which children are raised. Many US children enter kindergarten with limitations in their social-emotional, physical, and cognitive development that might have been significantly diminished or eliminated through early recognition of and attention to child and family needs. School readiness testing, when used appropriately, can yield helpful information regarding the progress of communities and states in meeting the needs of young children. Early childhood education programs can lessen the disparity in school readiness created by poverty and other toxic stressors. Community and national programs that support young children and their families also play a significant role in optimizing school readiness. Pediatricians, by the nature of their work with young children and families, are at the forefront of the effort to promote school readiness. Pediatric primary care providers can both model and promote effective early childhood practices and interventions to promote school readiness and collaborate with communities and schools to ensure their implementation.

Drs Williams and Lerner were responsible for conceptualizing, writing, and revising the manuscript and for considering input from reviewers and the Board of Directors; and all authors approved the final manuscript as submitted and take responsibility for the manuscript in its final form.

This document is copyrighted and is property of the American Academy of Pediatrics and its Board of Directors. All authors have filed conflict of interest statements with the American Academy of Pediatrics. Any conflicts have been resolved through a process approved by the Board of Directors. The American Academy of Pediatrics has neither solicited nor accepted any commercial involvement in the development of the content of this publication.

Technical reports from the American Academy of Pediatrics benefit from expertise and resources of liaisons and internal (AAP) and external reviewers. However, technical reports from the American Academy of Pediatrics may not reflect the views of the liaisons or the organizations or government agencies that they represent.

The guidance in this report does not indicate an exclusive course of treatment or serve as a standard of medical care. Variations, taking into account individual circumstances, may be appropriate.

All technical reports from the American Academy of Pediatrics automatically expire 5 years after publication unless reaffirmed, revised, or retired at or before that time.

FUNDING: No external funding.

American Academy of Pediatrics

confidence interval

Early Childhood Longitudinal Study

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

National Center for Education and Statistics

National Conference of State Legislatures

P. Gail Williams, MD, FAAP

Marc Alan Lerner, MD, FAAP

Jill Sells, MD, Chairperson

Sherri L. Alderman, MD, MPH, IMH-E, FAAP

Andrew Hashikawa, MD, MPH, FAAP

Alan Mendelsohn, MD, FAAP

Terri McFadden, MD, FAAP

Dipesh Navsaria, MD, MPH, MSILS, FAAP

Georgina Peacock, MD, MPH, FAAP

Seth Scholer, MD, MPH, FAAP

Jennifer Takagishi, MD, FAAP

Douglas Vanderbilt, MD, FAAP

Lynette Fraga, PhD – Child Care Aware

Rebecca Parlakian, MS – Zero To Three

Katiana Garagozlo, MD – American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Pediatric Trainees

Dina Lieser, MD, FAAP – Maternal and Child Health Bureau

Alecia Stephenson – National Association for the Education of Young Children

Charlotte O. Zia, MPH, CHES

Marc Alan Lerner, MD, FAAP, Chairperson

Cheryl L. De Pinto, MD, MPH, FAAP, Chairperson Elect

Elliott Attisha, DO, FAAP

Nathaniel Beers, MD, MPA, FAAP

Erica Gibson, MD, FAAP

Peter Gorski, MD, MPA, FAAP

Chris Kjolhede, MD, MPH, FAAP

Sonja C. O’Leary, MD, FAAP

Heidi K. Schumacher, MD, FAAP

Adrienne Weiss-Harrison, MD, FAAP

Susan Hocevar Adkins, MD, FAAP – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Laurie G. Combe, MN, RN, NCSN – National Association of School Nurses

Veda Johnson, MD, FAAP – School-Based Health Alliance

Madra Guinn-Jones, MPH

Stephanie Domain, MS

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The Ultimate School Readiness Checklist for Parents and Teachers

By: Author Tanja McIlroy

Posted on Last updated: 7 April 2024

Categories Child Development

What is school readiness and how exactly do you know if a child is ready for school or not?

This guide, written for teachers and parents, is an overview and includes a school readiness checklist for easy reference.

Read on to find out what school readiness is, how to know if a child is ready and what you can do to help kids achieve it .

In the field of early childhood education, school readiness refers to whether a child is ready to benefit from formal education in a group context.

What Does School Readiness Mean?

School readiness means a child has learned the necessary skills to be able to cope and thrive in the first grade of school – known as Grade One or First Grade in most countries.

The first grade of school is the first formal year. All years leading up to this grade are considered informal schooling.

Kindergarten Readiness

The year before the first grade is also considered an important year and is basically a semi-formal preparation for starting formal schooling .

Depending on what country you live in, this class may be referred to as Kindergarten, Reception Year, Grade R, Grade 0 or something similar.

While most school readiness skills checklists out there are for kindergarten, this year should not be mistaken as the official start of formal schooling , as kindergarten should still include many play-based learning experiences.

The checklist below can be used as a general Kindergarten readiness checklist. However, some skills – such as sound and letter recognition – will still be developing during this year.

How is School Readiness Measured?

Unlike a high school pupil taking a sit-down entrance exam, a young child’s holistic development cannot be measured with a test.

This is especially true because a huge part of their readiness has to do with physical, emotional and social maturity.

There are no exact criteria and no actual way to establish 100% readiness because all children are completely different and develop at different rates. They also have different strengths and weaknesses.

All the readiness checklists online have different criteria, although they share many similarities. A checklist is merely a general guide.

Therefore children are ready for school when:

• They meet most of the criteria on the checklist
• They are able to cope in a formal environment
• They are emotionally mature
• They interact and behave in a similar way to peers of similar age

Readiness is certainly not an exact science. It is determined by understanding a child and determining whether you think they will cope in elementary/ primary school.

School Assessment Tests

Some schools prefer to do a school readiness assessment with young children going into the first grade .

The test is usually quite short as children of this age have a limited concentration span.

This kind of assessment usually involves testing for specific skills such as a child’s auditory memory or phonological awareness (e.g. hearing rhyming sounds).

Assessments may provide some insight into a child’s ability. There will not be a strict measuring of criteria but rather an opinion formed of the child’s predicted general ability to fit into a formal grade.

What Does School Readiness Look Like?

In order for children to be considered ready for school, they must have developed their emotional, social, physical and cognitive skills .

A child who is ready for school has well-developed:

• Physical and motor skills
• Visual, auditory and tactile perception
• Listening skills
• Communication skills, language ability and wide vocabulary
• Pre-mathematical skills (the ability to manipulate concrete materials)
• Basic chemistry, physics and biology skills (through play and discovery e.g. blocks and water)
• Problem-solving skills
• Ability to express through art, music and stories
• Love of books and a desire to read    

Criteria for School Readiness

The following is a rough guide of criteria for determining school readiness.

The milestones are set out in the four developmental areas – emotional, social, physical and cognitive.

Emotional Development

• Shows independence
• Separates easily at school drop-off
• Has a healthy self-esteem and feels competent
• Accepts authority and obeys simple rules at home and school
• Has self-care skills – dressing, eating, and going to the bathroom independently
• Can go places without a parent – e.g. stay over at granny, visit a friend
• Expresses feelings in a healthy way
• Works on a task independently
• Works quietly and calmly
• Asks questions and seeks help when necessary
• Follows home and school routines with ease
• Copes with disappointments in a mature way
• Shows perseverance and determination when working on a task

Social Development

• Takes turns and shares with others
• Forms healthy relationships with peers
• Socializes with more than one peer (not only one ‘special’ friend)
• Is assertive when necessary and can also follow another’s lead
• Handles conflict appropriately and independently (without always reporting it to an adult)
• Shows manners unprompted -e.g. says please, thank you and sorry
• Respects others’ property
• Works cooperatively in a group
• Shows respect and listens when someone is speaking – a peer or adult

Physical and Motor Development

• Runs easily, climbs and moves with agility
• Balances when walking along a beam
• Distinguishes between left and right
• Throws and catches a ball
• Walks along a straight line
• Hops on one leg and hops with legs together
• Stands on one leg for 5 seconds, maintaining balance
• Crosses the midline
• Holds a pencil or crayon correctly ( tripod grip )
• Cuts along a line and controls a pair of scissors
• Does activities that require fine motor control – e.g. pasting, tearing, placing pegs on a board
• Determines his or her dominant hand
• Moves rhythmically to music
• Sits at a desk for a period of time with good posture and without slouching or tiring
• Sits on a floor/carpet with legs crossed without flopping over

Cognitive Development

• Recognizes shapes and colours
• Builds a jigsaw puzzle
• Notices similarities and differences in a picture
• Distinguishes foreground from background in a picture
• Estimates, plans and evaluates
• Counts with one-to-one correspondence (e.g. by touching one item at a time)
• Groups, classifies and sorts objects and information
• Copies a simple pattern
• Does basic addition and subtraction (e.g. what is one more?)
• Uses mathematical terms such as more, less, first, altogether, longer, shorter, etc.
• Has a concept of time – weekdays, seasons, morning/afternoon/evening, etc.
• Understands cause and effect (e.g. consequences of certain actions)
• Solves problems with insight
• Has excellent listening skills
• Is able to follow verbal instructions (at least a 2 or 3 part instruction )
• Listens to a story and recalls the events in sequence
• Answers questions about a story and remembers the details
• Memorizes simple songs and nursery rhymes
• Identifies rhyming words
• Hears the beginning and ending sounds in 3-letter words e.g. bat
• Identifies and discusses characters in a story
• Expresses opinions about a story
• Shows an interest in books and reading
• Knows the names of some of the letters
• Speaks clearly and uses grammar correctly
• Has well-developed vocabulary
• Participates in discussions at home and at school
• Concentrates on a single task for at least 20 minutes
• Completes tasks

This checklist should give you a good idea of where your child is at. 

Is School Readiness Important?

For children to reach their full potential and benefit from formal education, being ready is extremely important.

When children are pushed into a grade they are not ready for, not only does it not benefit them, but they can also regress.

They may struggle to keep up academically or emotionally, which may negatively affect their self-worth and emotional development.

They might even struggle to socialize if they are not yet mature enough for the group, which has negative effects on their social development.

How to Prepare Your Child for School

Even if a child attends preschool, parents can also play a big role in helping prepare for school.

I firmly believe that children learn far more from their parents than they do from anyone else. Parents are a child’s first connection with the world. They learn non-stop by watching and interacting with them.

This does not mean that parents ought to be stressing their children out while trying to get them ready. As you will read here, hard work and learning is all about play.

Read on to find out how to get your children ready for school.

School Readiness Begins in Infancy

School readiness is not something children suddenly acquire when they come of age. It is an accumulation of all the learning and skills a child has picked up right from birth.

Being ready is more about general maturity and skill level than it is about learning specific things or having certain knowledge.

This is one of the reasons I don’t think parents need to follow ‘programs’ for preschoolers. These programs usually come with a set of themes and all the activities are laid out day by day, to be followed in a certain sequence.

Most often, they get put aside when it becomes too much effort to follow or life gets in the way.

Preschool is not rigid and neither should a child’s time at home be.

Learning Through Play

So just how do children learn all these wonderful skills that will get them ready for formal education?

Through none other than good old-fashioned play .

This is sadly becoming a bit underrated in today’s society of packing children’s schedules with non-stop extra activities and introducing formal activities such as reading and writing too early.

Play is the most important activity for your child’s overall development.

What is important is that your child has ample opportunity to engage in all types of play .

There should be sufficient time for free play, where your child decides what to play and where to play, and there should be time for adult-guided activities.

School Readiness Activities and Tips for Parents

Any play activity that you engage in with your child or any free play session your child engages in is part of getting ready for school.

Where you can make a difference is in providing activities for your child that are varied and therefore work on different skills.

You don’t necessarily need to be playing with your child all the time.

Sometimes it is as simple as taking out different materials or making suggestions and offering new ideas. Other times, you will want to really get involved and do an activity together or play a game to work on a specific skill.

The most important thing is that you are aware of the skills children need to learn before formal schooling and that you try wherever possible to create a play opportunity to work on those different skills.

What Skills Should you Teach your Child?

In a nutshell, your children need to learn these basic skills through play:

• Fine motor skills
• Gross motor skills
• Language skills
• Visual perception
• Auditory perception (including phonological awareness)
• Pre-reading skills
• Pre-writing skills
• Early mathematical skills
• Social skills
• Emotional intelligence

Why Do Children Need these Skills?

Everything your child needs to do at school will rely on these basic skills. Something as simple as holding a pencil and writing requires well-developed gross motor, fine motor and visual perceptual skills.

In order to learn to read, children need excellent auditory and visual perception. Learning letters and the sounds they make is not all there is to reading. These are just a few things involved in learning to read:

• Hearing sounds – e.g. through learning nursery rhymes
• Hearing rhyming words and patterns
• Distinguishing whether sounds are the same or different
• Hearing the beginning sound in a word, and the end sound
• Hearing sounds that are missing
• Seeing and identifying letters – an understanding of shape is crucial
• Perceiving similarities and differences (to not confuse b and d )
• Being able to identify patterns (to read words by sight)
• Having good visual memory (to remember common patterns in words)

Many tasks at school require a combination of different skills so the best chance you can give your child is to ensure all their basics are in place.

How Can You Teach Your Child these Skills?

Many of these skills will be learned naturally through free play; however, they should also be learned through adult-guided play-based games and activities.

You can look up all the skills mentioned above and find activity ideas to work on all these skills.

What if My Child is Not Ready for School?

If you go through the checklist and feel your child may not be ready, don’t worry or feel you have done something wrong. I have taught many children who repeated a preschool or kindergarten grade and went on to do well in school.

The younger the child is when repeating, the easier it will be. Repeating a grade higher up (e.g. 5th or 6th) has more damaging effects on a child as they then struggle with feeling incompetent and losing their peers in their grade.

The worst thing you can do is push your child up if it is clear he or she will struggle. Playing catch up all the time and feeling incompetent and incapable will not help their development in the long run.

Repeating an early grade is not serious at all. Simply let it be if necessary and, along with the school, keep helping your child as best as you can.

Signs Your Child May Not be Ready for School

These are very generalized guidelines, but if your child displays some of these characteristics, he or she may need extra time to mature:

• Appears younger than their peers
• Has a short attention span and poor concentration
• Has poor eye-hand coordination
• Moves in a clumsy or uncoordinated way
• Struggles with fine motor skills such as cutting , holding a pencil, etc.
• Is dependent on adults for self-care tasks

I hope you found this readiness-for-school checklist useful.

Are you a preschool teacher or working in Early Childhood Education? Would you like to receive regular emails with useful tips and play-based activity ideas to try with your children? Sign up for the newsletter!

This post contains affiliate links for educational products that I personally recommend. If you purchase through one of them, I earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Read the terms and conditions for more details.

The information in this article is based on my own qualifications and experience in teaching, and is also backed by the information shared by Martie Pieterse in her book “ Language and School Readiness ” as well as the book “ Total Learning: Developmental Curriculum for the Young Child “, by Joanne Hendrick.

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Friday 30th of April 2021

Good evening ,I love this story and I would like to use some ideas for my school assignment and I would like to know the date it was written in so I can reference it

Tanja Mcilroy

Saturday 1st of May 2021

Hello Kyle, Thank you. The publish date for this article is 29 August 2018. Kind regards, Tanja

School readiness

School readiness includes the many skills that develop over time from a child’s birth through school entrance age. School readiness includes the areas of social-emotional, cognitive, language and literacy, and physical development. Another important part of school readiness includes a child’s ability to maintain focus on a task and show interest and curiosity in learning. The interactions children have with caring adults inside and outside of their families, each child’s developmental history and each child’s unique make up, all influence the development of school readiness skills.

Social and emotional development includes

Developing self-control, building problem-solving skills, forming relationships with others and identifying feelings in yourself and others.

Why it matters

When children develop strong social emotional skills, they are better able to form and maintain friendships and better able to focus attention on learning.

How to support development

• Notice and talk with children to support building positive relationships.
• Help children make connections with one another to support developing friendships.
• Talk about feelings and identify feelings throughout the day.
• Model and support ways to help children calm down, identify a problem and talk about how to solve the problem calmly.

Cognitive development includes

Building thinking skills, reasoning skills, problem solving skills and memory skills.

Developing cognitive skills forms a foundation for all learning.

• Play games with children that support memory: matching pictures, letters or number cards.
• Provide games and materials that require children to problem solve: counting to figure out how many blocks fit in a toy truck, arranging items in a pattern during a game, or grouping items by color, size or shape.
• When children are playing, building and creating, ask children questions about why they think something happened, or what they think might happen.
• Allow time for discovery activities (science experiments, cooking activities). Talk with children about their predictions. For example, before mixing cornstarch and water, ask children what they think will happen when the ingredients are mixed.

Language and literacy development includes

Building language skills, vocabulary skills, comprehension skills, and letter knowledge.

Building strong language and literacy skills supports growth in cognitive and social emotional development, and is related to later school success.

• Read to children every day and have conversations with children about books, asking questions about what might happen next in the story, how the characters are feeling, and how something might relate to a child's own experience.
• Have conversations with children throughout the day, for example, at mealtimes, playtimes, and during routine times. Any time of day is a great time to talk with children!
• Play games that support letter knowledge, like "I spy a letter" or letter matching games. Point out letters in everyday life throughout the day.
• Read rhyming poems and stories, sing rhyming songs and play rhyming games.

Physical development includes

Building large motor skills and fine motor skills.

Building large motor skills is important for physical growth and development. Developing fine motor skills is important for successful completion of small motor tasks.

• Allow children time for large motor activities. Provide toys and equipment that support large motor development like bikes, balls and swings.
• Provide opportunities for individual and group games.
• Play games with children that promote running, skipping, jumping and crawling.
• Provide opportunities and materials for fine motor skill development like cutting with scissors, painting, gluing, writing, stringing beads, tracing, and doing puzzles.

References:

• National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. 2004. "Children's Emotional Development Is Built into the Architecture of Their Brains: Working Paper No. 2." Retrieved August 4, 2014. www. developingchild.harvard.edu
• Maxwell, Kelly, Tamara Halle, and Nicole Forry. 2013. "Five things to know about school readiness." Child Trends 5. Publication #2013-35 .
• Nix, R. L., K. L. Bierman, C. E. Domitrovich, and S. Gill. 2013. "Promoting Children's Social-Emotional Skills in Preschool Can Enhance Academic and Behavioral Functioning in Kindergarten: Findings From Head Start REDI." Special issue: Social and Emotional Learning in Education. Early Education and Development 24(7)
• McCardle, Peggy, Hollis S. Scarborough, and Hugh W. Catts. 2001. "Predicting, Explaining, and Preventing Children's Reading Difficulties." Learning Disabilities Research and Practice 16(4): 230-239.
• Daily, Sarah, Mary Burkhauser, and Tamara Halle. 2010. "A Review of School Readiness Practices in the States: Early Learning Guidelines and Assessments." Early Childhood Highlights. Child Trends 1(3).

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School readiness is foundational across early childhood systems and programs. It means children are ready for school, families are ready to support their children's learning, and schools are ready for children. Head Start views school readiness as children possessing the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary for success in school and for later learning and life. Physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development are all essential ingredients of school readiness. Managers, teaching staff, caregivers, family advocates, and families can learn more about creating enriching and supportive learning environments for young children ages birth to 5.

Head Start Approach to School Readiness

The Head Start Approach to School Readiness means that children are ready for school, families are ready to support their children's learning, and schools are ready for children.

Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework (ELOF)

The ELOF shows the continuum of learning for ages birth through 5 years. It is grounded in comprehensive research around what young children should know and be able to do during their early years.

Interactive Head Start ELOF: Ages Birth to Five

This resource shows what children should know and do in five central developmental domains and provides examples of experiences and behaviors that can be expected of children birth to 5.

Parent, Family, and Community Engagement (PFCE) Framework

The PFCE Framework is a roadmap for progress in achieving the types of outcomes that lead to positive and enduring change for children and families.

Head Start Approach to School Readiness: FAQs

Implementation guide: using the elof to establish school readiness goals, explore resources, steps to school readiness for infant and toddler caregivers, steps to school readiness for preschool teachers, health and school readiness, observation toolkit for mental health consultants, fostering developmental competence in the earliest years.

Resource Type: Topic Page

Last Updated: December 29, 2022

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Appendix C: School readiness assessment tools

The following serves as a comprehensive, although not exhaustive, list of school readiness assessment tools created by commercial vendors or consortia of state agencies. The list does not include assessment tools self-developed by a single state or jurisdiction. 

For additional information on screening tools, please refer to The Compendium of Screening Measures for Young Children . The compendium, developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is a collection of research-based screening tools for children under the age of five. Practitioners in early care and education, primary healthcare, child welfare, and mental health can use this reference to learn cost, administration time, quality level, training required, and age range covered for each screening tool. 

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ASSESSMENTS

School readiness assessments.

School readiness assessments are tools used to evaluate a child’s skills and abilities before they enter formal education. These assessments provide parents, educators, and other stakeholders with valuable information about a child’s readiness to learn and succeed in school. In this article, we’ll explore what school readiness assessments are, why they’re important, and what types of assessments are commonly used.

What are School Readiness Assessments?

School readiness assessments are a series of tests and evaluations that are designed to measure a child’s readiness for school. These assessments are typically administered to children between the ages of three and five years old, before they enter kindergarten or first grade. The assessments are used to evaluate a child’s cognitive, social, and emotional development, as well as their language and motor skills.

Why are School Readiness Assessments Important?

School readiness assessments are important for several reasons. First, they help identify children who may be at risk for academic or developmental delays. Early identification of these delays allows for early intervention, which can improve outcomes for children in the long run.

Second, school readiness assessments provide valuable information to educators and other stakeholders. This information can be used to develop individualized learning plans for children and to provide targeted interventions and support where needed.

Finally, school readiness assessments can help parents and caregivers understand their child’s strengths and weaknesses. This information can help parents make informed decisions about their child’s education and can help them support their child’s learning and development at home.

Types of School Readiness Assessments

There are several types of school readiness assessments that are commonly used. These assessments may evaluate a child’s skills in one or more areas, including:

Cognitive Skills: These assessments measure a child’s ability to think, reason, and problem-solve. Examples of cognitive assessments include the Bracken Basic Concept Scale and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children.

Language Skills: These assessments evaluate a child’s ability to communicate effectively and understand language. Examples of language assessments include the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Preschool Language Scale.

Motor Skills: These assessments measure a child’s physical abilities, including fine motor skills (such as drawing and writing) and gross motor skills (such as running and jumping). Examples of motor assessments include the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency and the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration.

Social and Emotional Skills: These assessments evaluate a child’s ability to interact with others, regulate their emotions, and manage behavior. Examples of social and emotional assessments include the Social Skills Improvement System and the Behavior Assessment System for Children.

In conclusion, school readiness assessments are an important tool for evaluating a child’s readiness for formal education. These assessments provide valuable information to educators, parents, and other stakeholders, and can help identify children who may be at risk for academic or developmental delays. By using a variety of assessments that evaluate a child’s cognitive, language, motor, and social and emotional skills, educators and caregivers can develop individualized learning plans and provide targeted interventions and support where needed.

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School and Teacher Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) readiness across 57 countries: The alignment optimization method

• Published: 25 July 2022
• Volume 28 , pages 1273–1297, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

• Rongxiu Wu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0457-2738 1 ,
• Weipeng Yang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8057-2863 2 ,
• Graham Rifenbark   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1467-6469 1 &
• Quan Wu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0495-3111 3  

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This study investigated the measurement invariance of school and teacher Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) readiness among 57 countries that participated in the Program in International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 assessment. School and teacher ICT readiness scale is 11-item scale with two subfactors: school ICT readiness and teacher ICT readiness subscales (Bozkus, International Online Journal of Education and Teaching, 8 (3), 1560–1579, 2021 ). With the novel alignment optimization method, we revealed that the school ICT readiness subscale was invariant for unbiased country comparisons but overall noninvariance was identified for the teacher ICT readiness subscale. Additionally, the rank of the school ICT readiness factor means indicated that Singapore, Sweden, B-S-J-Z (regions of China), United Arab Emirates and United States were among the top league, while countries like Indonesia, Poland, Ireland in between, and Japan, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil ranked comparatively the lowest. Measures of school location, school type and class size further confirmed the validity of the school ICT readiness subscale. It was expected that the study would enhance our understanding of school and teacher ICT readiness across countries with the application of an alternative alignment optimization approach in examining ICT related scales.

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1 Introduction

The digital age in the last decade has witnessed a rapid development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the education field across the world (Cradler et al., 2002 ; OECD, 2016 ; Sezer, 2017 ). A growing body of literature has examined the ICT-related constructs as well as how it reflects educational quality and equity (Gumus & Atalmis, 2011 ; Lowther et al., 2008 ; Novak et al., 2018 ). Currently, under the ongoing circumstances of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, digital technology has especially gained much more attention for schools worldwide since online teaching becomes a necessary alternative to in-person classroom teaching (Kong et al., 2022 ). Nonetheless, facing the global emergency, schools have met unpredictable complex challenges, such as lack of infrastructure of digital device (Kim et al., 2021 ) and teachers’ limited capacity using digital device (Bozkus, 2021 ). All of these have unraveled the important supporting role of a good school and teacher ICT readiness environment to students with online learning (Morse, 2004 ; Norris, 2001 ; Van Dijk, 2020 ).

Throughout the years, the international large-scale assessments such as Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) have recognized the significance of ICT and measured ICT use across the countries through various aspects, such as school ICT resources, teacher ICT self-efficacy, and student ICT familiarity, skills, self-efficacy and engagement (OECD, 2005 , 2016 ; 2019a , b ). In PISA 2018, a developing scale consisting of school infrastructure of digital device and teachers’ capacity using digital devices was used to measure school and teacher ICT readiness across the countries. To make valid cross-country comparisons, an assessment to ensure the scales function the same way across the countries is a prerequisite. However, it remains an open question as to whether cross-cultural invariance of many ICT-related scales is supported. Therefore, establishing measurement invariance is an indispensable pre-procedure to ensure the scale’ validity when researchers aim to conduct multiple country comparisons and latent mean comparisons (Tracey & Xu, 2017 ; Vandenberg & Lance, 2000 ). A novel measurement invariance alignment method, proposed by Asparouhov and Muthén ( 2014 ), has been gradually recognized by researchers in conducting invariance tests across multiple groups.

To date, there has been no in-depth measurement invariance analysis of the scale measuring PISA 2018 school and teacher ICT readiness. There is a great need to examine whether this feature holds before it is widely adopted into use for researchers to conduct comparisons directly. Therefore, the first purpose of this study is to examine whether the measurement invariance of the scale across the countries is supported at an acceptable level with alignment method, using a set of items provided by PISA 2018. Second, if measurement invariance of the scale holds, the countries’ ICT readiness factor scores are comparable. Lastly, we would like to select a few relevant variables to examine group mean differences as validation measures. Specifically, this study starts by outlining the conceptual background of PISA 2018 school and teacher ICT readiness scale, and elaborating on the logic of alignment method, literature of application of alignment method on ICT-related scale to test for measurement invariance; then, followed by the detailed data selection, analysis procedure and result; lastly ended with a discussion of the methodological and practical significance of this approach to measure invariance of ICT readiness scale, with attention to its implications for future cross-country research using large-scale surveys.

2 Conceptual background

A large body of existing studies have been exploring the reasons of successful ICT implementation in schools, from the individual student and teacher level to the wider school context (e.g., Davies & West, 2014 ; Eickelmann, 2011 ; Inan & Lowther, 2010 ; Lim et al., 2013 ; Petko, 2012 ). Petko ( 2012 ) proposed a “skill, will, tool” theoretical model emphasizing the teacher skills, self-efficacy in technology can achieve the technology integration together with the infrastructure of digital devices within schools. School infrastructure of digital devices is usually considered as school ICT readiness, a prerequisite for supporting teachers’ capacity using digital devices (Liu et al., 2016 ; Petko, 2012 ; Petko et al., 2018 ). Liu et al. ( 2016 ) have identified a few factors, such as school technology support, and school access to technology in classroom as impacts affecting classroom technology integration. Teachers’ capacity to utilize the digital devices is often considered as teacher ICT readiness, more successful to implement when having the school support (Daly et al., 2009 ; Richardson & Placier, 2001 ).

2.1 School ICT readiness: School infrastructure of digital devices

Infrastructure of digital devices that schools provide, regarded as school ICT readiness, affects both the way that teachers use for teaching, and students’ ICT-related learning quality, engagement and familiarity in use (Fraillon et al., 2014 ; Lau & Sim, 2008 ; Liu et al., 2016 ; Ma & Qin, 2021 ; Murillo & Román, 2011 ; Woessmann & Fuchs, 2004 ; Zhang & Liu, 2016 ). Digital infrastructure is identified as the first barrier in technology integration even among the current “digital native” generation who grew up with digital technologies (Li et al., 2015 ; Sang et al., 2011 ). Students in a technology-rich school environment are more motivated, more confident in their digital abilities and tend to perform better in ICT-related performance (Sun et al., 2018 ; Wastiau et al., 2013 ). With a multi-level data analysis, Liu et al. ( 2016 ) found out that school digital access and support greatly affected teacher use of technology and classroom technology integration in primary schools. Saal et al. ( 2021 ) reported that computer availability and frequency of use in the mathematical classes were positively associated with the students’ mathematics achievement. An inverted U-shape relationship was identified between school internet use and student performance in mathematics and reading (Woessmann & Fuchs, 2004 ). Factors that affect the frequency of digital use and technology integration in schools are such as, colleagues’ support and principals’ discretion over technology spending (Karaca et al., 2013 ; Miranda & Russell, 2011 ).

2.2 Teachers ICT readiness: Teachers’ capacity using digital devices

Teachers’ capacity using digital devices, another aspect of digital readiness, has often been considered as teacher ICT readiness. It refers to the teachers’ confidence in their abilities to use digital technologies and willingness to utilize them in education (Fraillon et al., 2014 ; Petko et al., 2018 ; Wastiau et al., 2013 ), which directly associates with successful technology implementation and integration in schools (Petko et al., 2015 ; Petko et al., 2018 ). Many factors impede the realization of teachers’ capacity utilizing the digital devices. It is claimed that teachers’ belief and lack of sufficient skills were the main obstacles impeding the digital technology integration (Petko et al., 2018 ). First, teachers who get used with the traditional approach of teaching has a pedagogical prejudice and negative belief against the usage of digital technologies in the classroom (Ertmer et al., 2015 ). Teachers’ self-efficacy affects their confidence in effectively using digital technology for education as well (Fraillon et al., 2014 ). Second, if teachers do not feel competent and lack of sufficient skills in utilizing the technologies, it also impacts the effective application of digital devices in classroom teaching. Speaking of teachers’ skills, technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) currently serves as an important model in this domain (Blackwell et al., 2016 ), which differentiates seven different types of knowledge about pedagogy, technology and content as well as their combinations (Voogt et al., 2013 ). Necessary training is required for effective digital technology integration together with administrative, and peer support.

2.3 Measurement invariance

Measurement invariance is a prerequisite for valid scale comparison research (Vandenberg & Lance, 2000 ). Invariance of the measure represents the scale functions the same across the groups. Specifically, it means the psychometric properties (e.g., factor loadings, item intercepts) relating the observed variables to the latent factor(s) should be similar across groups. Alignment method, proposed as an alternative to the traditional multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) in recent years, can conveniently estimate the means and intercepts of two or more groups. It overcomes the limitations of MGCFA such as labor-intensive and error-prone when the number of items and groups increase (Byrne & Vijver, 2017 ; Magraw-Mickelson et al., 2020 ; Muthen & Asparouhov, 2014 ) and allows for approximate rather than exact measurement invariance. Through automating invariance testing among groups with expected non-invariance, alignment method can estimate the factor loadings, item intercepts and factor means across groups in the presence of partial invariance, which greatly simplifies the testing procedures and has been considered as an optimal pattern of measurement invariance (Asparouhov & Muthén, 2014 ; Flake & Luong, 2021 ; Flake & McCoach, 2018 ; Muthen & Asparouhov, 2014 ).

There are usually two steps involved when conducting alignment analysis. The first step is called FREE alignment, through which a configural model is established and factor loadings and indicator intercepts are freely estimated for each group. The factor means are fixed at 0 and factor variance are fixed at 1. The second step is FIXED alignment optimization, in which the factor means and variances are freely estimated, and for every group factor mean and variance parameter, there are factor loading and intercept parameters that yield the same likelihood estimation as the configural model, therefore, model fit of the M0 is unaffected by alignment optimization and should be equal to the model fit of M1 (Asparouhov & Muthén, 2014 ). Based on the item-level significance tests for good performance, the cutoff point 25% of non-invariant parameters is recommended as a “rough rule of thumb” (Muthen & Asparouhov, 2014 ). FIXED alignment is required when there are only two groups compared and FREE alignment is recommended to work better when there are three and more groups involved. Moreover, researchers can assess the invariance effect size measure, which quantifies how much variability in the item parameter estimates can be explained by the groups’ factor means and variances. An R 2 near 1 indicates complete invariance because the variability in item parameters is completely explained by group mean differences, whereas an R 2 near 0 indicates that group mean differences explain none of the variability in the item parameter (Byrne & Vijver, 2017 ; Asparouhov & Muthén, 2014 ). Collectively, the information can serve as a guide for the follow-up decisions regarding item functioning and development.

Nonetheless, though the importance and necessity of measurement invariance before conducting the group mean comparisons has been recognized since the inception of large-scale national and cross-national assessments such as PISA, it is still rarely used partly due to difficulty in interpretation and implementation when more groups are involved with the traditional MGCFA, and partly due to unfamiliarity with alignment method. Meng et al. ( 2019 ) established the measurement invariance at the scalar level from PISA 2015 ICT student engagement scale with MGCFA but only limited to the comparison between just two countries German and China. Alignment method has still rarely been known and it is even less used in testing the measurement invariance of ICT-related scales. There was only one measurement invariance study on students’ mathematics, science and ICT familiarity scale across PISA 2015 participating countries with the alignment method (Odell et al., 2021 ).

2.4 The present study

School and teacher ICT readiness scale has been studied as a multidimensional construct, in which the two aspects are interrelated with each other (Bozkus, 2021 ). To our knowledge, measurement invariance of this newly introduced school and teacher ICT readiness scale in PISA 2018 has not been found to be addressed (OECD, 2020 ). Recognizing its importance, this study would like to initially assess the measurement invariance of the school and teacher ICT readiness scale before applying it into robust group comparisons. If measurement invariance of the ICT-related questionnaires holds at an acceptable level, then it will be valuable to compare its factor score means across the groups. Moreover, to have a better understanding of the scale with other relevant variables, a few school level indicators would also be use as validation measures.

3.1 Data source and sample description

The data source for this study was the international large-scale assessment PISA 2018, a two-stage stratified assessment which mainly focused on 15-year-old students’ reading, science, and mathematics literacy. PISA 2018 is the latest seventh cycle, which focuses on reading in a digital context (OECD, 2019b ). The questionnaires are designed by the PISA Governing Board, in which the content specialists and measurement experts work together to test its applicability in measuring students’ performance (OECD, 2019a ). For the detailed sampling procedure, please refer to the specific PISA technical report (Kastberg et al., 2021 ).

The dataset for the current analysis was from the school-level questionnaires administered to school principals who participated in PISA 2018. Since the questionnaire was optional for the participating countries (OECD, 2019a ), we have removed the countries that chose not to take the surveys (e.g., Cyprus and Moscow City (RUS)), and those that had very limited responses from the schools (< 100) (e.g., Malta, Brunei Darussalam, Montenegro). The final 57 countries (37 were OECD participating countries) for analysis were selected from America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania, which was a good representation of different geographical regions and distinctive education systems. The country ID variable CNTRYID was used to define the 57 countries as latent classes for further measurement invariance analysis. The total schools from these countries were 18,041 and the average of the school numbers was 316, ranging from 142 in Iceland to 1089 in Spain. The country ID, Country name and number of schools that participated in the survey for each country was provided in Table  1 .

3.2 Variables

School and teacher ICT readiness scale is a self-reported 11-item four-point Likert-type scale. As evidenced by Bozkus ( 2021 ), this scale is a two-factor construct: one is school infrastructure of digital devices, which is measured with five items SC155Q01HA to SC155Q05HA (e.g., The number of digital devices connected to the Internet is sufficient ) and the other is teachers’ capacity using digital devices, which is measured with six items SC155Q06HA to SC155Q11HA (e.g., Teachers have the necessary technical and pedagogical skills to integrate digital devices in instruction ). School principals were asked to rate their agreement with each statement by selecting from four response options (“Strongly disagree”; “Disagree”; “Agree”; “Strongly agree”). The scale had appropriate reliability across the participating countries (Omega ω = .90). A total of 18,041 school principals answered to the list of questionnaires, in which 17,305 principals fully responded to all items. For the details regarding how the scale was administered, please refer to specific PISA manual (Kastberg et al., 2021 ).

To explore whether and how the factor may relate with some school and teacher level variables, a few relevant measures such as school location (Looker & Thiessen, 2003 ; Zhao & Frank, 2003 ), school type (Besley & Ghatak, 2001 ) and class size (Hislop & Ellis, 2004 ; Van de Vord & Pogue, 2012 ) were used for validity. For instance, school location variable SC001Q01TA , which included five ordinal categories from 1 = “A village, hamlet or rural area (fewer than 3 000 people) ”, 2 = “ A small town (3 000 to about 15 000 people) ”, 3 = “ A town (15 000 to about 100 000 people) ”, 4 = “ A city (100 000 to about 1 000 000 people) ” and 5 = “ A large city (with over 1 000 000 people) ”; school type variable SC013Q01TA , which describes whether the school is managed by a public education authority, government agency or a non-government org; and class size variable CLSIZE , which includes nine categories from “15 students or fewer ” to the largest size “ More than 50 students ”. The descriptive statistics of each item in the scale and the relevant validity measures were provided in Table  2 .

3.3 Analytical approach

First, before testing the measurement invariance of school and teacher ICT readiness scale, a conceptually consistent and cross-country measurement model needed to be tested. Therefore, a single-group confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using robust weighted least squares mean and variance (WLSMV; Bowen & Masa, 2015 ) would be conducted to examine the factor structure of the ICT scale for the selected countries (regions). The model fit indices include comparative fit index (CFI; Bentler, 1990 ) and Tucker-Lewis index (TLI; Tucker & Lewis, 1973 ) with acceptable fit ≥ .90 and good fit ≥ .95, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA; Steiger & Lind, 1980 ) with acceptable fit < .06 and standardized root mean residual (SRMR; Joreskog & Sorbom, 1981 ) with acceptable fit ≤ .08 (Hu & Bentler, 1999 ). Chi-square statistics is also reported but only for model comparisons not for accessing model fit since usually a statistically significant chi-square will be produced due to a large sample size (Chen, 2007 ). To account for the uneven probability of selection of schools within each country, school-level weighting variable W_FSTUWT_SCH_SUM was incorporated into the analysis.

After testing the conceptually consistent and cross-country measurement model, the next step is to test the measurement invariance with alignment method. Due to non-implementation of cross-loading in alignment method, five-item subscale of school infrastructure of digital devices and six-item subscale of teachers’ capacity of using digital devices were conducted separated with the goal of comparing mean scores in each subscale across the selected countries. Since FREE alignment is more recommended than FIXED alignment in more than two group comparison, we would first adopt the FREE alignment. If it produces any warning message, we would switch it the FIXED alignment. In the FREE alignment, all factor means are allowed to be estimated, but requires greater factor loading non-invariance (Muthen & Muthen, 2019 ). The reference group used was the country with the factor mean closest to 0, either positive or negative. In the FIXED alignment, the factor mean was constrained to zero for a particular group, similar to typical identification methods in CFA. Given that small number of valid missing responses on individual items existed for some responses, the full maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard errors (MLR; Yuan & Bentler, 2000 ) estimator was adopted. Both the CFA and alignment procedure were conducted in M plu s 8.4 (Muthen & Muthen, 1989– 2019 ) and all other data cleaning and analysis was conducted using R version 4.0.3 (R Core Team, 2020 ).

4.1 Evidence of factor structure

As mentioned in the analytical procedure, school and teacher ICT readiness scale was evidenced as a two-factor construct (Bozkus, 2021 ). We conducted a CFA across all the groups and found that the factor structure was supported with good model fit, χ 2 (43, N  = 17, 305) = 1275.996 ( p  < .001), CFI = .981 > .95, TLI = .976 > .95, RMSEA = .041[.039, .043] < .06, SRMR = .059 < .08. As stated previously, the chi-square test is possibly to be rejected with large sample size. Therefore, based on the model evaluation criteria, we concluded that there was adequate evidence of factor structure of the school and teacher ICT readiness scale to conduct measurement invariance test.

4.2 Alignment method analysis of school and teacher ICT readiness scale

Measurement invariance with FREE alignment approach was initially performed separately on the two subscales of the construct. No warning of untrustworthy standard errors was produced; therefore, we would adopt the FREE alignment approach for the optimization analysis. Table  3 demonstrated an invariance pattern with the two alignment fit indices: (a) fit function contribution value and (b) R 2 value. First, high fit function contribution value is an indication of possible noninvariant item. For school readiness subscale, the intercept of SC155Q02HA showed higher absolute fit function than those of the other items indicating a higher noninvariance feature of SC155Q02HA than that for the other items. For teacher readiness subscale, SC155Q10HA showed much higher absolute fit function than those of the other items, indicating a higher noninvariance feature of SC155Q10HA than that for the other items. Second, the higher R 2 is, the more likely the item is invariant. Contrarily, the lower R 2 is, the more likely the item is non-invariant. In Table 3 , SC155Q01HA and SC155Q03HA were close to 0, which was an indication of high noninvariance of these two items. Comparing the fit values between school ICT readiness subscale and teacher ICT readiness subscale, teacher ICT readiness showed higher values in fit function contribution and much lower R 2 values (all <.06), which partly showed that the items in the subscale teacher ICT readiness subscale was more noninvariant than that for those in the subscale school ICT readiness subscale. Additionally, the overall fit function contribution values for the factor loadings were lower than those for the intercepts for both subscales, indicating a higher degree of invariance among the loadings than that for the intercepts.

The noninvariance of items and intercepts across countries was shown in Appendix Table  6 , where a parenthesized group is an indication of noninvariance. For instance, Country ID 191, 440, 616 and 203 that have been parenthesized for SC155Q01HA intercept indicated that these four countries Croatia, Lithuania, Poland and Czech Republic had noninvariant factor intercepts for SC155Q01HA . Overall, the total number of parentheses in intercepts was much larger than the total number of parentheses in loadings, which suggests that the intercepts of the items were more noninvariant than the loadings of the items. Therefore, metric invariance might hold but not possible scalar invariance. In terms of school ICT readiness, given 5 items and 57 countries, 8 noninvariant parameters (of a total 285 (57*5) parameters) revealed evidence of factor loading noninvariance to be exceedingly low at 2.8%. Turning to the intercepts, though 53 noninvariant parameters were found, their overall percentage of 10.7% was still substantially lower than the recommended 25% cut-off point noted above. When it came to teacher ICT readiness, 103 noninvariant parameters of a total of 342 (57*6) parameters revealed that 30.1% of parameters were noninvariant, which was far higher than the 25% cut-off point. Therefore, overall, we felt confident in the trustworthiness of the latent mean estimates and comparison for the school ICT readiness subscale but not for teacher ICT readiness subscale across the 57 countries. Figure  1 also provided a comparison of proportions of invariant parameters between ICT readiness subscales and threshold visually.

Comparisons of proportion of invariant parameters between ICT readiness subscale and threshold

4.3 Factor mean values for school ICT readiness subscale across countries

The factor mean values for school ICT readiness subscale by country were shown in Table  4 , which was arranged in an ordered list ranging from high to low. As showed in the table, New Zealand (country ID 554) was selected as the reference group with a factor mean closed to 0 ( M  = −.002). The rank order of factor means demonstrated that Singapore (702) had the highest factor mean in school infrastructure of digital devices, whereas Brazil (76) showed the lowest. The five countries with the highest school ICT readiness factor means were Singapore (702), Sweden (752), B-S-J-Z (regions of China) (975), United Arab Emirates (784) and United States (840). The lowest five countries in school ICT readiness factor score were Japan (392), Mexico (484), Colombia (170), Argentina (32) and Brazil (76).

4.4 School ICT readiness factor scores across the school location, type and class size

The result showed that schools from large cities had much higher school ICT readiness ( M  = 0.24) than those from village ( M  = −0.24, d  = 0.47), those from small town ( M  = −0.06, d  = 0.30), and those from town ( M  = −0.05, d  = 0.29). Though school ICT readiness scores were positive for schools both from cities and large cities, there still existed difference ( M large cities  = 0.24, M cities  = 0.04, d  = 0.19). Private schools ( M  = 0.42) had a statistically significant higher school ICT readiness than those from public schools ( M  = −0.13, d  = 0.57). Class sizes that were between 16 to 30 students had much higher school ICT readiness factor scores ( M  = 0.04 to 0.07) than the ones that were “15 students or fewer” or “31 to more than 50 students” ( M  = −0.27 to −0.08). Table  5 and Fig.  2 provided both statistics and visual picture of how these groups performed in school ICT readiness.

School ICT readiness factor score and 95% confidence intervals across validation measures

5 Discussion

With the alignment method, this study examined the measurement invariance of school and teacher ICT readiness scale using PISA 2018 dataset. Using dataset from America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania, it revealed that approximate level of measurement invariance existed for school ICT readiness subscale across all 57 countries, but overall non-invariance existed for teacher ICT readiness subscale. It provided a practical example of how to apply the newly developed alignment method into ICT-related scale with an aim of measurement invariance testing across multiple groups, which was a novel approach in ICT-related area that has not been widely known, implemented and accepted by researchers. It overcomes the tendinous numerous modification indices and error-prone procedures that occurs in traditional MGCFA and should be widely implemented in measurement invariance test for multiple groups.

Measurement invariance testing are recommended to be conducted before any cross-group ICT-related mean score comparisons for researchers and practitioners. Through alignment method, researchers and practitioners could gain a large amount of nuanced knowledge on the fit index and significance testing of the intercepts and loadings of a specific ICT construct, either the scale is on the student, teacher, or school level. Moreover, researchers and practitioners may broaden their understanding of scale’s cross-country differences by focusing on only noninvariant ICT items, and further identifying the sources of noninvariance. In our study, teacher ICT readiness subscale was identified to be noninvariant across the countries overall. It would be of high value to investigate the sources of noninvariance, especially when distinct cultural factors might affect the item responses. Understanding the existence of noninvariance and what contribute to the noninvariance in ICT readiness scale will assist researchers and practitioners with developing more culturally invariant items of scales in the further item development process.

The result from alignment method indicated that factor mean scores can be compared for the school ICT readiness subscale across the countries. By comparing the factor mean scores across the countries (regions) together, it was found that there was a big difference in the mean scores. For instance, Singapore showed the highest factor mean in school infrastructure of digital devices. This could be related with the Singapore’s long-term governmental support of technology use in schools. Early back to 2008, the ministry of education (MOE) in Singapore established five “Schools of the Future”, which served as a model in not only the curriculum design, teaching and learning but also the material resources (Lim, 2015 ). The independencies of the constituent elements among the self-organizing capacity, coevolution with other systems and fitness development and policymaking in ICT reform have brought Singapore’s stable leading position of school ICT readiness (Toh & So, 2011 ). Other countries such as Sweden, B-S-J-Z (regions of China), United Arab Emirates and United States all ranked among the top league of the assessment. Though these countries reside in different continents, they shared similar characteristics regarding digital resources as reported (Ikeda, 2020 ). Regardless of the socio-economic background of their students, a higher proportion of schools from these countries had an effective online learning support platform and computers with high-speed Internet connectivity and broad bandwidth; provided guidance on the use of digital devices and had specific programs to prepare students for disciplined Internet behavior. However, Japan, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil were in the lowest rank. It is reported that less than 30% of students in these schools in these countries had similar platform as those in top ranked countries and it is mainly due to the large socio-economic disparity these counties have (Ikeda, 2020 ). The variance of the factor scores directly reflected that investment and support of school infrastructure of digital devices were treated quite differently with similar or distinct cultures and socio-economic disparities across the globe. Though development in technology infrastructure in schools is a worldwide investment, education equity is still a central issue of the education system across the world.

Notably, technology integration is a complex process, which requires cooperation from various aspects, such as teachers and school administrators work together with the classroom environment, curriculum, and everyday routines (Yang et al., 2021 ). It is a pity that teacher ICT readiness subscale could not be directly compared across the countries in our study. However, for teacher ICT readiness subscale, there was an alternative way to examine the cross-country differences in further studies. If we group the countries based on their similar characteristics or cultural background, then measurement invariant might hold. It also reflected the complexity involved in the attempt to attain cross-group invariance of both the factor loadings and item intercepts related to psychological assessment scales when multiple groups are involved and with a cross-cultural nature.

School ICT readiness factor scores were also found to be closely related with a few school background factors, such as school location, school type and class size. School locations have an impact on pattern of use and attitudes to technology (Looker & Thiessen, 2003 ). Schools from city and large cities usually have relatively sufficient financial support to develop its school digital infrastructure, therefore schools from these areas have much higher ICT readiness score. However, schools from rural areas such as village, small town or town are often lack of support from government or funding department, and their school ICT readiness scores accordingly are lower than those in the other areas. In terms of school type, there has been hot discussions of the division of responsibility between the private and public schools (Besley & Ghatak, 2001 ). A big contrast of the ICT readiness scores was found between public and private schools in our study. Another interesting finding was the differences of school ICT readiness scores across various class size. Hislop and Ellis ( 2004 ) reported that class size for on the online versions was on average 19.3 and 26 for the in-person class. In our analysis, class sizes ranged from 16 to 30 students had much higher factor means in school ICT readiness than those that were 15 students or fewer. Class size between 16 to 30 students can achieve optimal effect even in the school ICT readiness score, which was consistent with the previous research. During the COVID-19 pandemic period, most schools switched to the online teaching format, which could bring more pressure to schools and teachers in village, small town or town areas. It was also worth investigating the differences of school ICT readiness between the in-person class size and online class size.

6 Limitation

Several limitations must be acknowledged in the current study. Practically, PISA 2018 was conducted far before the eruption of COVID-19 across the world. The scale we estimated might not be able to accurately reflect the current global situation in the school and teacher ICT readiness. It is worth examining the same issue with the PISA 2021 dataset, which will better reflect the reality of global ICT readiness when facing significant change of teaching format. Methodologically, cross loadings still cannot be accommodated with the alignment method (Asparouhov & Muthén, 2014 ). Therefore, the invariance analysis was conducted separately for each subscale in our study. Lastly, although we are not able to explore possible mechanisms for non-invariance, future research should consider how external variables might explain non-invariance across cultures by using the alignment and/or alignment-within-CFA frameworks (Marsh et al., 2018 ).

7 Conclusion

With the novel alignment optimization approach in measurement invariance, this study was expected to provide researchers and other stakeholders with more nuanced knowledge of the school and teachers ICT readiness. The invariance of school ICT readiness subscale across the globe allowed the researchers to have a better understanding of how school ICT readiness performs in the participating countries. The non-invariance of teacher ICT readiness subscale encouraged the researchers to explore the substantive and methodological sources that cause the root source of non-invariance.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are publicly available from the OECD PISA 2018 official website https://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/2018database/ .

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Wu, R., Yang, W., Rifenbark, G. et al. School and Teacher Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) readiness across 57 countries: The alignment optimization method. Educ Inf Technol 28 , 1273–1297 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11233-y

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Differentiated Instruction Strategies: Tiered Assignments

Janelle cox.

• September 23, 2014

Many teachers use differentiated instruction strategies  as a way to reach all learners and accommodate each student’s learning style. One very helpful tactic to employ differentiated instruction is called tiered assignments—a technique often used within flexible groups.

Much like flexible grouping—or differentiated instruction as a whole, really—tiered assignments do not lock students into ability boxes. Instead, particular student clusters are assigned specific tasks within each group according to their readiness and comprehension without making them feel completely compartmentalized away from peers at different achievement levels.

There are six main ways to structure tiered assignments: challenge level, complexity, outcome, process, product, or resources. It is your job, based upon the specific learning tasks you’re focused on, to determine the best approach. Here we will take a brief look at these techniques.

Ways to Structure Tiered Assignments

Challenge level.

Tiering can be based on challenge level where student groups will tackle different assignments. Teachers can use Bloom’s Taxonomy as a guide to help them develop tasks of structure or questions at various levels. For example:

• Group 1:  Students who need content reinforcement or practice will complete one activity that helps  build  understanding.
• Group 2:  Students who have a firm understanding will complete another activity that  extends  what they already know.

When you tier assignments by complexity, you are addressing the needs of students who are at different levels using the same assignment. The trick here is to vary the focus of the assignment based upon whether each group is ready for more advanced work or simply trying to wrap their head around the concept for the first time. You can direct your students to create a poster on a specific issue—recycling and environmental care, for instance—but one group will focus on a singular perspective, while the other will consider several points of view and present an argument for or against each angle.

Tiering assignments by differentiated outcome is vaguely similar to complexity—all of your students will use the same materials, but depending on their readiness levels will actually have a different outcome. It may sound strange at first, but this strategy is quite beneficial to help advanced students work on more progressive applications of their student learning.

This differentiated instruction strategy is exactly what it sounds like—student groups will use different processes to achieve similar outcomes based upon readiness.

Tiered assignments can also be differentiated based on product. Teachers can use the Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences to form groups that will hone particular skills for particular learning styles . For example, one group would be bodily/kinesthetic, and their task is to create and act out a skit. Another group would be visual/spatial, and their task would be to illustrate.

Tiering resources means that you are matching project materials to student groups based on readiness or instructional need. One flexible group may use a magazine while another may use a traditional textbook. As a tip, you should assign resources based on knowledge and readiness, but also consider the group’s reading level and comprehension.

How to Make Tiering Invisible to Students

From time to time, students may question why they are working on different assignments, using varied materials, or coming to dissimilar outcomes altogether. This could be a blow to your classroom morale if you’re not tactful in making your tiers invisible.

Make it a point to tell students that each group is using different materials or completing different activities so they can share what they learned with the class. Be neutral when grouping students, use numbers or colors for group names, and be equally enthusiastic while explaining assignments to each cluster.

Also, it’s important to make each tiered assignment equally interesting, engaging, and fair in terms of student expectations. The more flexible groups and materials you use, the more students will accept that this is the norm.

Tiering assignments is a fair way to differentiate learning. It allows teachers to meet the needs of all students while using varying levels of tasks. It’s a concept that can be infused into homework assignments, small groups, or even learning centers. If done properly, it can be a very effective method to differentiate learning because it challenges all students.

• #DifferentiatedInstruction , #TieredAssignments

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30+ Awesome Career-Readiness Activities That Teach Soft Skills

Students need these skills to succeed in the workplace.

Our vision is to unlock the potential of each learner at every stage of life. At McGraw Hill, we believe that your diverse experiences enrich the way you learn, teach, and grow. See how Career Explorations  introduces students to hundreds of diverse careers and critical soft skills needed to set them on a purposeful path through high school and beyond.

When it’s time for students to start working and/or head to college, they’ll need “soft skills,” otherwise known as career-readiness or job-readiness skills, in addition to academic knowledge and vocational skills.

Soft skills are those characteristics that help you function as an individual (motivation, self-confidence, flexibility) as well as within a group (teamwork, negotiation, respect). These job-readiness skills are key for succeeding in the workplace. After all, if you can’t show up on time, speak up for yourself, or get along with your peers, chances are you’re not going to have a very smooth go of it.

Explicitly teaching students these job-readiness skills is the best way to give them valuable insight into their strengths and weaknesses. We’ve rounded up just over 30 engaging lessons and activities that are not only just right for teaching the job-readiness skills students need, they are also a lot of fun!

1. Use an engaging curriculum for career exploration and readiness

There are so many important things to teach our students before they’re ready to leave high school that it’s daunting to know where to begin. That’s why having strong, trusted resources can make such a difference. McGraw Hill’s Career Explorations program for middle and early high school is an excellent example of such a curriculum. The resources blend occupation and industry content with case studies and real-world, application-based questions and activities to grab students’ attention right from the start. And real-world, industry-specific soft-skills practice questions throughout each chapter expose students to types of challenges they’ll face regardless of what career path they pursue.

Skills they’ll practice:

Collaboration, critical thinking, problem-solving

Explore the program: McGraw Hill Career Explorations

2. Listen and recap

There are so many things competing for kids’ attention in today’s overstimulating world, so learning the simple art of listening can be a difficult task. This one-on-one communication activity will help students practice taking the time to clear their minds, focus, and really listen to what their partner is saying in a way that they can clearly and accurately repeat.

Divide students into pairs. Partner one draws a topic card from a prepared deck and talks about that topic, while partner two listens without speaking. The listener must really focus on simply receiving their partner’s words—not letting their mind wander or think about how they are going to respond. Then, without a rebuttal, partner two recaps what partner one said. Then, they switch roles.

Listening, respect, interpersonal skills, communication

Buy it: Letz Talk Conversation Cards at Amazon

3. Make a game of it

Responsibility isn’t something students develop overnight. It takes lots of practice to show self-control when things don’t go our way, to be accountable for our decisions, to finish what we start, and to keep trying even when we want to give up. Try these five super-fun games (below) that teach responsibility.

Responsibility, flexibility, patience

Learn more: 5 Great Games for Teaching Your Students About Responsibility

4. Serve others

Service-learning projects not only get kids involved in their communities, they help them develop many valuable job-readiness skills that will be assets on the job one day. Team students up to organize a book or food drive, recruit bilingual students to provide translation services, or encourage budding artists to collaborate on a community art event.

Teamwork, respect, time management, responsibility

Learn more: 30 Meaningful Service Learning Projects for Kids and Teens

5. Cultivate critical thinking

Critical thinking is the ability to examine a subject and develop an informed opinion about it. It’s about asking questions, then looking closely at the answers to form conclusions that are backed by provable facts, not just “gut feelings” and opinion. And it’s definitely on the top of most employers’ wish lists for new employees. Click the link below for fun and engaging classroom activities that’ll get your students’ gears turning.

Critical thinking, problem-solving, flexibility, self-confidence

Learn more: 5 Critical Thinking Skills Every Kid Needs To Learn and How To Teach Them

6. Human Marble Run

Working together to meet a goal takes patience and focus. This IRL version of Marble Run will help your students learn job-readiness skills like working together, and they’ll have fun doing it!

Give each member of the team a length of gutter or drainpipe. The team has to transfer a tennis ball or golf ball from one place to another by rolling the ball from one piece of gutter to the next. Make it interesting by making the team get the ball to traverse an obstacle course or to go up and down stairs.

Patience, negotiation, teamwork, communication

7. No-hands cup-stacking challenge

This hands-on group challenge is an exercise in learning job-readiness skills like patience and perseverance, not to mention it’s a total blast!

Decide how many students you want in each group, and tie that number of strings to a single rubber band. Each person in the group holds on to one of the strings attached to the rubber band. As a group, they use this device to pick up the cups (by pulling the rubber band apart and then bringing it back together over the cups) and place them on top of one another in order to build a pyramid.

Critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, patience

Learn more: Cup Stack from Ms. Sepp’s Counselor Corner

8. Paper bag skits

You never know what life is going to hand to you. This is true at work, school, and in life in general. Sometimes you’re handed a set of circumstances and have very little time to figure out what to do. This fun activity will help teens practice thinking on their feet.

Fill a few paper bags with four or five assorted classroom or household items. Break the teens into groups, and assign each group a bag without showing them what’s inside. Give them two minutes to examine the items in their bag and come up with a skit, using all of the items, for the rest of the class.

Time management, teamwork, flexibility, presentation skills

9. Nurture self-knowledge

Journaling is a powerful tool for creative expression and reflection, but did you know that it can also be an effective way to improve mental health? Recording your thoughts and feelings can be a cathartic form of stress relief, an opportunity to get to know yourself better, and a way to help you feel more grounded and authentic in your beliefs. Try these free writing prompt cards with your middle and high schoolers to help them get started.

Stress management, self-confidence, motivation

Learn more: Deep Writing Journal Prompts for Teens from Journal Buddies

10. Foster self-motivation

Self-motivation is one of the key indicators of success in the future. Conversely, lack of motivation leads to big problems not only in school but on the job later on. But how do we teach something that comes from inside? Check out the activities below for some great tips like breaking big dreams into smaller pieces, envisioning a bright future, encouraging students to share their stories, and more.

Work ethic, critical thinking, self-confidence

Learn more: How To Instill Intrinsic Motivation from 7Mindsets

11. Hold a poetry slam

Slam poetry is a unique performance art that will not only give your students the opportunity to express their thoughts, but build their confidence as well. Slam poems are specifically written to be performed in front of an audience, and topics are often diverse, political, and thought-provoking. Finding your voice and being able to move people with your words are job-readiness skills that can apply to any future endeavor.

Self-confidence, presentation skills, teamwork

Learn more: What Is Slam Poetry and How Can Teachers Use It With Students?

12. Team survival challenge

What would happen if your class went out on a pleasure cruise only to end up being lost at sea? Who would take charge? What materials would be essential for survival? If you ever saw an episode of the TV series Lost , you know that making these decisions as a group can get ugly fast. This activity is a great lesson in group decision-making, as students will undoubtedly have different ideas about what materials to add to a limited list in a limited amount of time.

Critical thinking, negotiation, communication, teamwork

Learn more: Lost at Sea from Grahame Knox

13. Start a school garden

A school garden is an amazing, hands-on way to help teach students about responsibility. From planning what to grow and organizing the supplies needed to creating a maintenance schedule and actually getting down and dirty in the garden, it’s a project that requires hard work and perseverance.

Responsibility, teamwork, problem-solving, patience

Learn more: How One School Garden Transformed a Neighborhood

14. Time-management challenge

We all have days when our list of tasks is huge, and the amount of time we have to complete them just isn’t. When time is tight and your agenda is packed, you’ve got to prioritize tasks and work efficiently! This activity gives students the opportunity to practice just that by presenting them with a long list of tasks to complete in a limited time frame.

Make a list of tasks on chart paper, assigning a point value for each job. For example: Do 25 jumping jacks (5 points); make up a nickname for each member of the group (5 points); get every person in the class to sign a piece of paper (15 points); form a conga line and conga from one end of the room to the other (5 points; 10 bonus points if anyone joins you); etc. Make sure you list enough tasks to take up more than 10 minutes.

Divide your students into groups of five or six and give them 10 minutes to collect as many points as they can by deciding which tasks to perform. A debriefing session is essential with this game. Guide your students to think about how they made decisions, which group dynamics came into play, and how they determined the value of each task.

Negotiation, critical thinking, communication, time management

15. Vision boards

Unleash your students’ creativity while simultaneously helping them set goals for the future with a vision board. We don’t frequently take the time to express who we are and what we hope for. Setting aside time to contemplate can motivate teens to think deeply about what they really want in life and also fuel their desire to do what’s necessary in order to reach their dreams.

Self-confidence, motivation, critical thinking

Learn more: Why Teachers Should Create Vision Boards With Their Students from Study All Knight

16. Collaborative contract

This exercise for middle schoolers helps them establish values-based ground rules for a team. Each student takes an index card and lists three values that they believe will promote a sense of community. Team members discuss the values, consolidating them into more precise categories. They write the finalized list on a poster board, with each student signing it. Whenever there is a dispute, the team should refer to the “contract,” which holds everyone accountable.

The purpose of this exercise is to create a safe space to explore ideas by focusing on common language and shared expectations. Additionally, this activity prepares middle-school students for the workplace by emphasizing similarities rather than differences.

Negotiation, communication, listening, respect

17. Zombie apocalypse

In this two-day lesson, students are required to identify soft skills, literary guides, and everyday objects that will help them survive a zombie apocalypse. They’ll work both cooperatively and independently and produce short pieces of persuasive writing to argue in favor of their survival.

Teamwork, interpersonal skills (collaboration), problem-solving

Learn more: Zombie Invasion Plan  from Sarah Andrasik

18. Stoke their competitive fire

According to teacher Christine Weis , there’s nothing like a little healthy competition in the classroom. “It motivates students and drives them to put forth their best effort,” she says. “It sparks interest, passion, and ignites a fire within.” Not only can healthy competition build confidence, it can encourage students to learn something new and develop new skills. Try games, puzzles, sports, quiz competitions, team presentations, etc., to motivate your students to reach a higher level.

Motivation, work ethic, problem-solving, self-confidence

Learn more: 7 Motivational Activities for Students from The Homeschool Resource Room

19. The blindfold game

Teens leading one another around in blindfolds? Are we sure this is a good idea? The answer is yes when it’s part of a structured, purposeful job-readiness skills activity like this one!

You’ll need a large space for this activity (maybe the cafeteria after lunch or the gym during an off-period), enough blindfolds for half of the participants, and furniture and other items that you can use as obstacles (cardboard boxes, pillows, chairs, tables). Scatter furniture and objects around the room before the activity begins. Your course should be challenging but safe to navigate.

Pair students and have them line up at one end of the room. One person from each pair should put on the blindfold. The sighted person must guide their partner across the room and give them clear oral instructions (without touching them) to help them avoid the obstacles. When each team reaches the far side of the room, partners can switch roles and repeat the exercise. Have just a few pairs tackle the course at a time so that the others can observe. Take some time between rounds to process what went well, what didn’t, and what could make the challenge easier.

Communication, listening, respect (taking the task and their partner’s safety seriously), flexibility

20. Take a mini crash course

Our teens may almost look like adults, but we have to remember they still have a lot to learn. And sometimes the best way to teach them what they need to know is to just spell it out. This video is a no-nonsense tutorial about some of the job-readiness skills that employers find valuable. Hold a screening, then after the video, have students form breakout groups to talk about what portion of the video they found most helpful and what they need to work on.

Communication, listening, critical thinking

21. Human knot

Nothing promotes job-readiness skills such as cooperation like getting all tangled up with your classmates — literally!

Players stand in a circle and reach out to shake hands with other players, with each hand holding that of a different person, creating a “human knot.” Then the players have to figure out how to untangle their bodies without letting go of each other’s hands. This activity lends itself to a vibrant debriefing session as students observe their communication and cooperation skills.

Teamwork, communication, problem-solving

Learn more: The Human Knot Game from Icebreaker Ideas

22. Mind your mental health

Managing stress in school (and on the job) is a timely subject. With mental health issues on the rise across the country, it’s critical to teach your students strategies that will help them stay grounded and build resilience. After all, it’s hard to do your best in any endeavor when you’re stressed to the max. Try the empowering activities below to teach students how to manage stress so they can succeed in college, on the job, and in the future.

Self-confidence, problem-solving, leadership

Learn more: 22 Empowering Mental Health Activities for Teens

23. Rope Circle Shimmy

Divide teens into two groups. Each group should have a minimum of five members. To begin play, make a big circle out of rope for each team and put it on the floor. Each member of the team stands at the edges of the circle, so the rope is taut around their ankles, while holding their hands in the air.

Team members must take turns moving to work the rope up from ankles to wrists, keeping hands in the air at all times. The team member will have to wiggle and move to slide the rope up. Other team members can help by keeping the rope as taut as possible. The team that finishes the challenge first wins!

Communication, flexibility, interpersonal skills (cooperation)

Learn more: Looped to Rope from Mom Junction

24. Four-card negotiation

Sometimes to get ahead in life, you have to know how to wheel and deal. This is entirely what this lesson is all about. The objective is for teams to trade and barter for pieces of cards to match up with the pieces they already have and ultimately end up with four complete playing cards.

Start with a pile of playing cards (four cards per team of four or five students). Cut each card diagonally into four pieces and mix all of the pieces together. Now divide the mixed-up pieces evenly among the teams. Give teams a couple of minutes to sort out their card pieces and figure out which pieces they have and which pieces are missing. Set a timer for 10 minutes. The goal of the game is for the students to use their negotiation skills with the other teams in order to gain as many complete cards as possible for their team. At the end of 10 minutes, the team with the most cards wins.

Negotiation, communication, interpersonal skills

25. Pair up with younger kids

Nothing helps teens build responsibility like pairing up with a younger buddy. Being the more mature, more experienced partner in the relationship gives teens the opportunity to share what they know and learn to be a leader. Have your students plan fun activities and special events with their buddies.

Responsibility, leadership, problem-solving, listening, patience

Learn more: 20 Activities for Big Buddy/Little Buddy Time from Create, Dream, Explore

26. Blind spelling practice

Weaving soft-skills activities into everyday curriculum is a win for everyone. Enhance your students’ interpersonal skills with this fun spelling activity. Tape letters to each student’s back. Then call out a definition of a word. Students will need to work together to assemble in the right order to spell the word correctly.

Communication, listening, negotiation, problem-solving

Learn more:  Manuel Antonio Noronha

27. Practice small talk

Teenagers aren’t exactly known for their chitchat skills. In fact, for many it is one of the most awkward situations they can imagine being put in. But small talk is considered a foundational job-readiness skill that is important for almost every job, as well as learning to network. Many teens feel awkward speaking with people they’re not used to speaking to and need practice, especially with adults. Try some free conversation starters that will help them practice the “three P’s” of small talk: being polite, positive, and professional.

Communication, listening, self-confidence, patience, respect

Learn more: Conversation Starters on the Job from Realityworks

28. Blind drawing

Try this hilarious activity with your teens. It’s kind of like “telephone” but instead of listening, each person must pay close attention to what is being drawn on their back. Each student in the line gets a blank sheet of paper taped to their back and a marker. The student at the end begins by slowly drawing an image on the person’s paper in front of them. When that person feels what’s being drawn, they try to re-create what they’re feeling on the person of front of them. When the image is complete, have the students take off their papers and compare the results. This activity is a colorful reminder that people often perceive things very differently, so communication is extremely important!

Communication, teamwork, patience

29. Mock interviews

The prospect of going on a job interview can be terrifying to a kid who’s never had a job before. Practicing job-readiness skills like interviewing can help them reduce the fear factor and build their confidence. Pair students up and assign one teen the role of interviewer and one the role of interviewee. Use a set of job interview questions to practice with.

Give each pair 15 minutes, then have them talk about how the interview went. The interviewer may have some valuable insight for the interviewee. Then have the partners switch roles and repeat. After they’ve had practice with their peers, invite a few adults into the room to conduct mock interviews.

Interview skills, critical thinking, self-confidence

Learn more: Job Interview Questions for Teens from Understood for All

30. Group storytelling

Create small groups of three to eight students. The first person makes up the first line of a story and says it out loud. The second person says, “Yes, and …,” continuing the story. Play continues around the group until everyone has contributed or until the story has come to a satisfactory ending. Since students don’t know what’s coming, they have to learn how to listen carefully and react and communicate well on the fly. As an alternative, to have students listen even more carefully, have them continue the story with the phrase, “because …”

Communication, listening, critical thinking, presentation

31. Team pen

Sometimes it takes the whole team to produce results. This fun game involves a marker with four to six strings tied to it and a blank piece of paper. The teacher calls out a word and the team has to work together to legibly print the word on the paper. Students will have to think carefully and cooperate with one another to maneuver the pen correctly to write the word.

Communication, teamwork, patience, critical thinking

Be sure to visit McGraw Hill’s Career Explorations page for more information about their career and technical education resources for middle and high school.

Also, check out these “would you rather” questions to get teens thinking about their future careers..

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