Children's Cognitive Knowledge and Skills

Summary of Findings

Overall Gains in Reading and Mathematics Skills and Knowledge From Kindergarten to Third Grade

• Children gained an average of 81 points in reading (range 16 to 125 points) and 63 points in mathematics (range 17 to 104 points) from the beginning of kindergarten to the end of third grade.
• Black children made smaller gains in reading and mathematics from the start of kindergarten to the end of third grade than White, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander children, even after controlling for sex, number of family risk factors, school types, and kindergarten program type.
• As the number of children?s family risk factors (i.e., single-parent household, below federal poverty level, primary home language other than English, and mother?s highest education level less than a high school diploma or its equivalent) increased, children made smaller gains in both subjects, after controlling for the other child, family, and school characteristics.
• Children?s reading and mathematics gains did not differ substantively by their sex, kindergarten program type (i.e., half-day or full-day), or the type of schools in which they were enrolled (i.e., public school all 4 years, private school all 4 years, mixture of public and private school attendance).

Overall Reading, Mathematics, and Science Knowledge and Skills in Third Grade

• In the spring of third grade, children?s mean reading score was 113 (range 42 to 149), their mean mathematics score was 89 (range 33 to 120), and their mean science score was 35 (range 11 to 59).
• Black third-graders had lower overall achievement scores in reading, mathematics, and science than White, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander children, even after controlling for sex, number of family risk factors, school types, and kindergarten program type.
• In bivariate comparisons, Hispanic children had lower achievement in all three subject areas than White and Asian/Pacific Islander thirdgraders. However, after controlling for children?s sex, number of family risk factors, school type, and kindergarten program type, Hispanic third-graders only had substantively lower achievement in science than White children.
• In all three subjects, those with more family risk factors had lower achievement scores at the end of third grade than those with fewer family risk factors, after controlling for the other child, family, and school characteristics.
• In bivariate comparisons, children who attended public schools from kindergarten through third grade had lower achievement scores in reading and science than those who had attended private schools for some or all of the time, and they had lower mathematics scores than those who attended private schools the whole time. However, after controlling for the other factors (i.e., sex, race/ethnicity, number of family risk factors, and kindergarten program type) the only substantive schooltype difference that persisted was that thirdgraders who had attended private schools all of their first 4 years of school had higher reading achievement than children who had always attended public school. 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).
• Third-grade reading, mathematics, and science achievement did not differ substantively by children?s sex or kindergarten program type.

Specific Reading and Mathematics Knowledge and Skills in Third Grade

• Almost all children were proficient in identifying ending sounds of words, naming sight words, and recognizing words in context, and had mastered concepts of ordinality and simple addition and subtraction. About three-quarters could make literal inferences based on text and solve simple multiplication and division problems. Forty-six percent were able to use cues to derive meaning from text and 42 percent understood place value concepts. Twentynine percent were able to make interpretations beyond what was stated in text and 16 percent could use rate and measurement to solve word problems.
• Girls were more likely than boys to demonstrate the ability to make literal inferences and derive meaning from text in reading. On the other hand, boys were more likely than girls to demonstrate an understanding of place value concepts and knowledge of rate and measurement to solve word problems, even after controlling for the other child, family, and school characteristics.
• In bivariate comparisons, Black and Hispanic third-graders were less likely than White and Asian/Pacific Islander children to reach the three highest reading proficiency levels (i.e., making literal inferences, deriving meaning from text, and making interpretations beyond text) and the three highest mathematics proficiency levels (i.e., multiplication and division, place value, and rate and measurement). Black third-graders were also less likely to reach each of these proficiency levels than Hispanic children.
• After controlling for the other characteristics, however, Hispanic children were not substantively less likely than White or Asian/Pacific Islander children to make literal inferences, and were not substantively less likely than Asian/ Pacific Islander children to be able to derive meaning based on textual cues. In addition, the percentage of Hispanic third-graders reaching the multiplication/division proficiency level did not differ substantively from the percentage of White children reaching the same level, after accounting for the other factors.
• Children with more family risk factors were less likely to have reached the three highest reading and mathematics proficiency levels than their peers with fewer family risk factors, overall and after taking into account the other characteristics.
• In bivariate comparisons, children who attended public school from kindergarten through third grade were less likely than those who had attended private schools for some or all of their first 4 years of school to demonstrate proficiency in making literal inferences and deriving meaning from text in reading and proficiency in multiplication and division, place value, and rate and measurement in mathematics.
• After controlling for the other factors (e.g., number of family risk factors), some of the differences associated with school type did not persist. For example, children who had exclusively attended public schools were no longer substantively less likely to make literal inferences than those who had attended both public and private schools. Also, those who attended public schools for all 4 years were no longer substantively less likely to be proficient in using rate and measurement to solve word problems than children who had exclusively attended private schools.