• Contact Us
• Center Projects
  • Early Childhood Meeting Place
  • Evaluating First Steps
  • Family Support and Outreach
  • Prekindergarten in Indiana
  • Promoting School Readiness
  • Universal Design
  • Archives
• Training & Outreach
• Publications

1. Determining the school readiness skills children need to successfully negotiate the social, communication, and learning demands of kindergarten settings and routines.
2. Identifying early education teaching practices that promote learning and development in important school readiness domains, including social-emotional, language and literacy, health and physical, cognition and general knowledge, and approaches to learning.
3. Identifying general early childhood program practices that contribute to successful school readiness.
4. Examining kindergarten readiness assessment practices across school districts in Indiana.

1. Beginning in 2007, we initiated a research project to determine the critical knowledge, skills, and dispositions (hereinafter referred to as "skills") that are essential for children when they enter kindergarten. From extensive reviews of the literature, we have identified a list of skills associated with success in kindergarten. Using that list, we conducted three successive waves of online surveys of kindergarten teachers to identify skills that are essential for children to haven when entering kindergarten. We have also conducted one survey and a series of informal observations in kindergarten classrooms to identify the kindergarten routines and activities in which the skills are associated. Our goal is to conduct one more series of observations in kindergarten classrooms to further validate the skills we have identified, and the kindergarten routines in which these skills are essential.

2. Over the past two years, we have worked with a handful of early education programs to develop a checklist of early education (prekindergarten) practices that are associated with successful kindergarten outcomes for all children—the School Readiness and Universal Design Program Component Checklist. This checklist looks at early education (prekindergarten) practices that are associated with successful kindergarten outcomes for all children from a universal design perspective. The Early Childhood Center is field testing this checklist in order to improve the tool’s applicability to and usability by early educators.The early education programs were part of a statewide initiative sponsored by the Indiana Department of Education and supported by researchers at Ball State University: The Ready Schools initiative. The checklist is available in draft form and further work on it is uncertain at this time.

3. In October 2006, we wrote a series of briefs identifying early education practices associated with successful school readiness for all children. Topics in this series include ready children (health and physical well-being, language and literacy, cognition and general knowledge, social-emotional skills), ready families, and ready schools.

4. In September 2006, the Early Childhood Center implemented research to identify current assessment tools and practices used by Indiana kindergarten teachers in assessing the school readiness of children and families entering kindergarten. Additionally, this study also compared and contrasted current practices with best practices identified in the literature. Two hundred and seventy-eight kindergarten teachers in public and private schools throughout Indiana participated in the survey.

1. Critical Skills for Children Entering Kindergarten: Draft

School Readiness and Universal Design Program Components Checklist

1. School Readiness Program Checklist_Draft
2. Participant Manual for Using the School Readiness Program Checklist_Draft
   

1. Overview of Briefs
   
2. Social-Emotional Development
3. Communication, Language, and Literacy
4. Approaches to Learning
5. Health and Physical Well-Being
6. Cognition and General Knowledge
7. Ready Families
8. Ready Schools
9. Bibliography for the Series