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Overview

A recent review of the literature, including over 150 studies, indicates that we are missing the mark in preparing our children for learning and achievement by equating “school readiness” with a finite checklist of academic skills to be mastered by age five. Instead we should think about school readiness as a robust developmental process that spans the early childhood years through age eight.

By age eight, children need to have developed complex thinking skills, as best evidenced by their grasp of conceptual mathematics; they should be effective at self-regulation and control and should be able to independently make and carry out plans; and they should know how to get along with peers and adults.

All children are capable of developing these skills if the adults in their lives provide developmentallyappropriate and rich experiences to boost learning and cognitive development. The six key findings in this paper provide a research-backed roadmap.