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The impact of pre‐school on young children's cognitive attainments at entry to reception
Author(s) -
Sammons Pam,
Elliot Karen,
Sylva Kathy,
Melhuish Edward,
SirajBlatchford Iram,
Taggart Brenda
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
british educational research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1469-3518
pISSN - 0141-1926
DOI - 10.1080/0141192042000234656
Subject(s) - disadvantaged , psychology , ethnic group , developmental psychology , longitudinal study , sample (material) , cognition , reading (process) , sociology , medicine , neuroscience , chemistry , pathology , chromatography , political science , anthropology , law
This article explores the impact of pre‐school experience on young children's cognitive attainments at entry to primary school and analyses data collected as part of a wider longitudinal study, the Effective Provision of Pre‐school Education (EPPE) project, which followed a large sample of young children attending 141 pre‐school centres drawn from six types of provider in five English regions. The article compares the characteristics and attainments of the pre‐school sample with those of an additional ‘home’ sample (children who had not attended pre‐school) recruited at entry to reception. Multilevel analyses of relationships between child, parent and home environment characteristics and children's attainments in pre‐reading, early number concepts and language skills are presented. Duration of time in pre‐school is found to have a significant and positive impact on attainment over and above important influences such as family socio‐economic status, income, mother's qualification level, ethnic and language background. The research also points to the separate and significant influence of the home learning environment. It is concluded that pre‐school can play an important part in combating social exclusion by offering disadvantaged children, in particular, a better start to primary school.