Table 5. Average children's mathematics knowledge and skills scores, by child and family characteristics for children 48 through 57 months of age at time of assessment: 2005

Preschool: First Findings From the Third Follow-up of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B)

NCES 2008-025
October 2007

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Table 5. Average children's mathematics knowledge and skills scores, by child and family characteristics for children 48 through 57 months of age at time of assessment: 2005–06
	Mathematics knowledge and skills
Characteristic	Average overall mathematics score	Percent of children demonstrating proficiency in numbers and shapes
Total	22.8	65.4

Child's sex
Male	22.3	62.3
Female	23.3	68.7

Child's race/ethnicity¹
White, non-Hispanic	24.2	73.1
Black, non-Hispanic	20.6	54.7
Hispanic	20.1	51.4
Asian, non-Hispanic	26.3	81.2
American Indian and Alaska Native, non-Hispanic	17.6	39.9
Other, non-Hispanic	22.9	64.9

Plurality²
Singleton	22.8	65.6
Twin	21.8	61.5
Higher order (e.g., triplet)

Birth weight
Normal birth weight (more than 5.5 pounds)	23.0	66.4
Moderately low birth weight (more than 3.3 to 5.5 pounds)	20.6	54.2
Very low birth weight (3.3 pounds or less)	19.1	46.6

Family type, preschool round³
Two parent	23.5	69.1
Single parent	20.6	53.9
Other	19.1	45.4

Socioeconomic status, preschool round⁴
Lowest 20 percent	18.0	40.1
Middle 60 percent	22.6	65.3
Highest 20 percent	27.5	87.1
¹ Black, non-Hispanic includes African American. Hispanic includes Latino. Other, non-Hispanic includes Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islanders and children of more than one race. ² Plurality is divided into singletons (one baby), twins (two babies), and higher order births (three or more babies). Since higher order births comprise about 0.2 percent of the ECLS-B sample, estimates for higher order births are not presented in this table. ³ Two parent includes biological mother and biological father; biological mother and other father; biological father and other mother; and two adoptive parents. Single parent refers to biological mother only; biological father only; and single adoptive parent. Other refers to related and/or unrelated guardians. ⁴ Socioeconomic status (SES) is a measure of social standing. This SES variable reflects the socioeconomic status of the household at the time of the preschool parent interview, in 2005. The components used to create the measure of SES were as follows: father/male guardian’s education; mother/female guardian’s education; father/male guardian’s occupation; mother/female guardian’s occupation; and household income. In this report, SES was collapsed first into quintiles, then into a 20 percent/60 percent/20 percent distribution by collapsing the middle three quintiles. NOTE: Estimates weighted by W3R0. The overall mathematics score has a potential range of 0 to 44, and the numbers and shape score has a potential range of 0 to 100. For children 48 through 57 months of age at the time of assessment, the overall mathematics score ranges from 6 to 42 with a standard deviation of 7, and the numbers and shapes score ranges from 0 to 100 with a standard deviation of 39. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), Longitudinal 9-Month-Preschool Restricted-Use Data File (NCES 2008-024).

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