Kindergarten school readiness and fourth‐grade literacy and numeracy outcomes of children with special needs: a population‐based study

Abstract

In British Columbia, Canada, two population‐based databases have been linked at the level of the individual child: the Early Development Instrument, a Kindergarten school readiness measure; and the Foundation Skills Assessment, a Grade Four academic assessment. Utilising these linked data, we explored the early school readiness, literacy, and numeracy outcomes of a province‐wide study population of children with special needs (N = 3677) followed longitudinally from Kindergarten to Grade Four. In particular, we explored the categories of special needs among our study population. In addition, we investigated the Kindergarten school readiness and Grade Four literacy and numeracy outcomes of children with special needs. We also explored the Grade Four literacy and numeracy outcomes of children with special needs who were ‘not school ready’ at Kindergarten. Finally, we identified the categories of special needs of children who participated in the Kindergarten data collection, but were missing literacy and numeracy scores at Grade Four. Future directions are discussed.

Keywords:

• special education
• primary
• kindergarten
• special needs
• assessment outcomes

Acknowledgements

We thank the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR) for supporting this research. Thanks also to Dr. Brenda Poon, Dr. Hillel Goelman, Alex Mann, Dr. Mari Pighini, Bill Standeven, and the members of HELP's Child & Youth Developmental Trajectories Research Unit for their guidance on earlier drafts. We also thank the British Columbia Ministry of Education (Alex Mann, Brent Munro) for approving use of their data in this study, and Edudata Canada (Dr. Maria Trache) for facilitating access to the Ministry data.

Notes

1. Cohort 4 captured more children because 2002/03 was the school year in which the EDI transformed from a pilot project into a systemic program in BC.

2. Ninety‐three (2.5%) records were missing gender, Aboriginal status, and English as a second language flags.