Introduction

Measures

Information in this report was collected through direct, one-on-one child assessments and parent interviews. Below is a brief description of some of the measures and characteristics used from these information sources. The variables used for the analyses in this report come from the ECLS-K Third Grade restricted-use data file, unless otherwise noted. More detailed information on the measures can be found in the Appendix B: Methodology and Technical Notes of this report or in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998?99 User?s Manuals (NCES 2001, NCES 2002, NCES 2003a).

Children?s Cognitive Knowledge and Skills

The ECLS-K cognitive assessment batteries were developed with the goal of assessing children?s cognitive status in kindergarten, first grade, and third grade, and to provide a means of measuring growth since kindergarten entry. In kindergarten and first grade, the same reading and mathematics assessment battery was used in all rounds of data collection. For third grade, a new reading and mathematics battery was developed since children?s academic skills could be expected to have advanced beyond the levels covered by the kindergarten-first grade assessment. Some of the kindergarten-first grade items were retained in the third-grade assessment to support the development of a longitudinal score scale (Pollack et al. forthcoming). In addition to calculating overall achievement scores for reading, mathematics, and science in third-grade, proficiency scores were created for specific reading and mathematics skills.⁹ These proficiency scores represent a progression of skills. No proficiency levels were developed for the science assessment, however, since the items did not follow a hierarchical pattern. This report includes information from the assessments administered in the fall and spring of kindergarten (fall 1998 and spring 1999), the spring of first grade (spring 2000), and the spring of third grade (spring 2002).¹⁰

Reading Knowledge and Skills. The ECLS-K kindergarten and first-grade reading assessment included questions designed to measure basic skills (letter recognition, beginning and ending sounds), vocabulary (receptive vocabulary, as in ?point to the picture of the cat?), and comprehension (listening comprehension, words in context). In third grade, the assessment included items designed to measure phonemic awareness, single word decoding, vocabulary, and passage comprehension. It also included some of the more difficult test items from the kindergarten-first-grade battery, such as identifying sight words and reading words in context in order to link the kindergarten and first-grade assessment and the third-grade assessment for scaling purposes.

In addition to an overall reading achievement score¹¹ at each time point, the reading assessments contained eight proficiency levels. This report focuses on the six highest proficiency levels that reflect a progression of knowledge and skills at the third grade level, including (from easiest to most difficult): (1) understanding the letter-sound relationship at the end of words (identifying the letter that represents the sound at the end of a word); (2) recognizing words by sight (reading simple words aloud); (3) understanding words in context (listening comprehension and reading simple text passages); (4) making inferences using cues that were directly stated with key words in text (literal inference); (5) identifying clues used to make inferences (deriving meaning); and (6) demonstrating understanding of author?s craft and making connections between a problem in the narrative and similar life problems (interpreting beyond text).¹²

Mathematics Knowledge and Skills. The ECLS-K kindergarten and first-grade mathematics assessment was designed to measure skills in conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and problemsolving. Approximately one-half of the mathematics assessment consisted of questions on number sense and number properties and operations. The remainder of the assessment included questions in measurement; geometry and spatial sense; data analysis, statistics, and probability; and patterns, algebra, and functions. In third grade, the mathematics assessment addressed these same content areas, with the easier forms focusing on number sense, properties and operations and the more difficult forms focusing on measurement, algebra, and geometry. Also, a greater emphasis on problemsolving was included in third grade compared with the kindergarten and first-grade battery (Pollack et al. forthcoming). Similar to the reading assessment, a subset of items from the first-grade assessment was included in the third-grade assessment in order to link the kindergarten and firstgrade assessment and the third-grade assessment for scaling purposes.

In addition to an overall mathematics achievement score at each time point, the mathematics assessment contained seven proficiency levels. This report focuses on the five highest proficiency levels that reflect a progression of knowledge and skills at the third-grade level, including (from easiest to most difficult): (1) ordinality (number sequence, reading 2-digit numerals, identifying ordinal position of an object, solving simple word problems); (2) solving simple addition and subtraction items (sums up to 10 and relationships of numbers in sequence); (3) solving simple multiplication and division problems and recognizing more complex number patterns; (4) demonstrating understanding of place value in integers to the hundreds place; and (5) using knowledge of measurement and rate to solve word problems.¹³

Science Knowledge and Skills. In the first 2 years of the ECLS-K, children were administered a general knowledge assessment that measured their knowledge of the social and physical worlds. In third grade, the general knowledge assessment was replaced by a science assessment. Due to time constraints and to the widely different content coverage of social studies in schools across the United States, social studies was not assessed directly in the ECLS-K.

The third-grade science battery placed equal emphasis on life science, earth and space science, and physical science. Similar to the kindergarten and first-grade general knowledge assessment, children were asked to demonstrate understanding of the physical and natural world, make inferences, and understand relationships. In the third grade, they were also required to interpret scientific data, form hypotheses, and develop plans to investigate a given question. Scores on the kindergarten and firstgrade general knowledge assessment battery are not linked and are not on the same scale with the thirdgrade science battery, however, since the two assessments covered different content.

Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ)

In earlier rounds of data collection, parents and teachers provided information about children?s social skills, approaches to learning, and problem behaviors. In the third-grade year, children provided information for the first time in the ECLS-K study about themselves by completing a short self-description questionnaire (SDQ). On the SDQ, children rated their perceptions of their competence and their interests in reading, mathematics, and school in general. They also rated their popularity with peers and competence in peer relationships and reported on any problem behaviors that they might exhibit.

Children were read a series of behavioral statements about their perception of themselves and asked to respond on a scale from 1 to 4, including ?not at all true,? ?a little bit true,? ?mostly true,? and ?very true.? Responses were then used to create six scales: (1) reading scale, (2) mathematics scale, (3) school scale, (4) peer scale, (5) externalizing problem behavior (anger/distractibility) scale, and (6) internalizing problem behavior (sad/lonely/anxious) scale. Children?s scale scores on each of the SDQ scales represent the mean rating of the items included in the scale. The reading and mathematics scales covered items related to children?s grades, the difficulty of work in the subject area, and their interest in and enjoyment in the subject area.¹⁴ The more general school scale reflected how well thirdgraders perceived themselves to be doing in all school subjects and how well they enjoyed school in general. The peer scale captured how easily they found it to make friends and to get along with children, as well as their perception of their popularity. The final two scales were based on responses to items that characterize externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors. For instance, the externalizing problem behavior scale was based on responses to items about fighting and arguing with other children, disturbing others, and problems with distractibility. The internalizing problem behavior scale focused on behaviors such as feeling ashamed of mistakes, worrying about school and friendships, and expressing that they often feel sad and/or lonely.

Child, Family, and School Experience Characteristics

This report builds on findings of the ECLS-K program?s earlier reports, with the main purpose to continue to examine whether differences by certain child, family, and school characteristics found in earlier reports persist, desist, widen, or narrow. Those characteristics associated with differences in children?s achievement found in earlier reports (and which are explored here) are: (1) child?s sex; (2) race/ethnicity; (3) number of family risk factors; (4) kindergarten program type (full/half day); and (5) school type across the first 4 years of the study.

Family Risk Index. Previous research has found significant differences in the academic and socioemotional skills of entering kindergartners between children from high-risk families and those with fewer family risk factors (Zill and West 2001; West, Denton, and Reaney 2001). For instance, children with one risk factor (e.g., single-parent household, primary home language other than English) had lower achievement scores in reading, mathematics, and general knowledge than children with no factors, and those with 2 or more risk factors lagged behind their peers with only one risk factor. In addition, kindergarten teachers reported that children with one or more family risk factors were more likely to fight with their classmates than children with no family risk factors. These findings indicate the need to examine children?s achievement not only in relation to whether they are at risk or not at risk but also in terms of the number of risk factors they experience in their homes.

For this report, a family risk factor composite variable was created, based on children?s household federal poverty status, family type, mother?s highest education level, and primary home language, as collected in the kindergarten year.¹⁵ Risk factors identified in previous education research include coming from a low-income family or single-parent household, having parents who did not complete high school, and having parents who speak a language other than English in the home (Croninger and Lee 2001; Natriello, McDill, and Pallas 1990; Zill and West 2001). Previous research has found associations among these family background characteristics and poor educational outcomes, including low achievement scores, grade repetition, and dropping out of high school. In this report, children receive one point on the index for each of the following risk factors: single-parent household, below federal poverty level,¹⁶ primary home language other than English, and mother?s highest education level less than a high school diploma or its equivalent, for a possible range of 0 to 4 points. For the bivariate comparisons in this report, children are grouped into three categories: no risk factors, one risk factor, or two or more risk factors, following the grouping categories for risk factors used in earlier ECLS-K reports (West, Denton, and Reaney 2001; Zill and West 2001). In the regression analyses, the continuous number of risk factors was used. The variables used to create the risk factor index come from the ECLS-K Longitudinal Kindergarten? First Grade public-use data file.

Table A-3 (in appendix) provides the distribution of risk index values for children with different characteristics, showing that certain groups of children are more likely to be at risk than other groups. For instance, three-quarters of White, non-Hispanic children had no family risk factors in kindergarten, compared with about one-third of Black, non-Hispanic children, 40 percent of Hispanic children, and almost half of Asian/Pacific Islander children.¹⁷ Furthermore, of those children who had always attended private schools, 82 percent had zero risk factors, compared with 58 percent of children who had always attended public schools. Some risk factors are also associated with each other. For instance, 55 percent of children in poverty live in single-parent households, compared with 17 percent of children who are at or above the poverty threshold (data not shown in tables).¹⁸

Kindergarten Program Type in 1998?99. In the base year, 45 percent of children attended halfday kindergarten and 55 percent attended full-day kindergarten programs (West, Denton, and Reaney 2001). Earlier analyses of the ECLS-K data have shown that full-day kindergartners in public schools made greater gains in reading and mathematics over the kindergarten year than half-day kindergartners, even after accounting for differences associated with children?s sex, race/ethnicity, federal poverty status, fall achievement level, class size, the amount of time spent in subject-area instruction, and the presence of an instructional aide in the classroom (Walston and West 2004; Denton, West and Walston 2003). This report explores whether children who attended full-day kindergarten programs continue to demonstrate higher achievement in reading and mathematics in relation to their peers who attended halfday kindergartens. The variable used to identify children?s kindergarten program type comes from the ECLS-K Longitudinal Kindergarten?First Grade public-use data file. A recent ECLS-K study showed that there were differences in children?s likelihood of attending fullor half-day kindergartens related to characteristics of children (Walston and West 2004). For example, Black kindergartners were more likely than White, Asian, or Hispanic children to attend full-day kindergarten programs, and children living below the federal poverty threshold were also more likely to be enrolled in full-day kindergarten programs than those from more affluent families. Furthermore, private schools are more likely to offer full-day kindergarten programs than public schools.

School Type Across All Waves of the Study. Previous research has indicated that private school children have higher average achievement scores than children in public school settings (West, Denton, and Reaney 2001; Denton and West 2002; Braswell et al. 2001). In this report, children are categorized into 3 groups; those who attended public school all 4 years (i.e., kindergarten through third grade), those who attended private school all 4 years, and those who attended both public and private schools between the start of kindergarten and the end of third grade. Children?s likelihood of attending certain types of schools over the course of the study was associated with their individual and family characteristics. As noted earlier, children with no risk factors were more likely to attend private schools from kindergarten through third grade. Also, 11 percent of White children and 10 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander children attended private schools for all 4 years, compared with 4 percent of Black children (data not in tables).¹⁹ The variables used to create the school type composite for this report come from the ECLS-K Longitudinal Kindergarten? First Grade public-use data file and the ECLS-K Third Grade restricted-use data file.

Differences in third-graders? achievement in relation to the type of school they attend should be interpreted with caution, as children also demonstrated differences in achievement by their school type in the fall of kindergarten, when schools had little opportunity to have an effect on children?s performance (West, Denton, and Reaney 2001). In addition, it is possible that a few students may have switched from one school to another in second grade, then switched back again to the original school at the start of third grade. Since data were not collected in second grade, it is not possible to identify when such instances occurred.