Assessing the School Readiness of Children in Jordan

Abstract

In 2003, Jordan initiated a period of education reform, one component of which was an effort to improve readiness for first grade by opening public kindergartens. This study had three goals: (a) To describe the school readiness of Jordanian children; (b) To compare the first grade readiness of children who had and had not attended kindergarten; and (c) To compare the 2004 and 2007 readiness of children in areas that instituted kindergartens during that time period. Trained observers directly assessed 4,681 children’s readiness, and teachers reported on children’s social skills and behavioral readiness. At least 80% of children were rated as being almost or fully ready for first grade in each domain assessed. Children who had attended kindergarten were more ready for first grade than were children who had not attended kindergarten. In communities with newly established kindergartens, children were more ready for first grade in 2007 than in 2004.

During the dynamic years from age one to five, children develop a sense of themselves in relation to family and community. They are exploring the world through play and seemingly endless questions that require caregivers’ validating responses. They are ready to learn a healthy lifestyle from powerful adult role models with whom they identify strongly. The quality of nurturing and stimulation that a child receives in the first few years of life can have effects on development that last a lifetime (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000).

Although the importance of early experience in shaping school readiness and the importance of school readiness in setting the stage for future success in school are well documented in the literature, most of this research has been conducted using North American samples. Much of this research has examined how particular preschool experiences (e.g., attending the American Head Start program) are related to students’ school readiness (e.g., Henry, Gordon, & Rickman, 2006). A limitation of this research is that it does not document how prepared for school children in other countries are and does not consider how well programs in other countries are doing at preparing their respective children for school.

To address these limitations, we sought to document the school readiness of Jordanian children in relation to a major education reform currently underway in Jordan: the implementation of public kindergartens. This education reform afforded an important opportunity to evaluate whether school readiness improved over time in communities where public kindergartens were implemented and whether children who attended kindergarten had higher levels of school readiness in first grade than did children who did not attend kindergarten.

School Readiness

Quality early education experiences in families, childcare, preschool, and early elementary settings help prepare children to succeed later in school (Meisels, 1999; National Research Council, 2001; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). Pianta (2002) has described school readiness as a multifaceted, complex, and systemic combination of children’s experiences and resources at home, experiences and resources in childcare and preschool settings attended by the child, community resources that support high-quality parenting and child care, the extent to which the elementary school is well linked to these family and child care resources, and the degree to which classroom experiences provided for children in kindergarten and first grade effectively build on competencies they bring to school (see also Love, Aber, & Brooks-Gunn, 1992; Meisels, 1999; Pianta & Walsh, 1996). All of these experiences prepare a child (or not) to be ready for school in a number of different social, behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and physical domains.

Comprehensive efforts to promote school readiness require an adequate understanding and assessment of children’s skills (Meisels, 1999). Such assessments, when repeated at regular intervals over time, are like taking the temperature of the community with regard to its efforts to enhance children’s development (Love et al., 1992). Attention to school readiness, in particular, is based on the literature showing that when children demonstrate or fail to demonstrate certain skills early in their school careers, they are more or less likely to succeed later in school (Entwisle & Alexander, 1999; Pianta & McCoy, 1997). School readiness includes several dimensions. For example, children must be physically ready for school (Sassu, 2007); this dimension includes children’s health status, growth, and disabilities as well as gross and fine motor skills. Children must also be socially and emotionally ready for school (Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Stoolmiller, 2008). Readiness in this domain includes social skills such as the ability to take turns and to cooperate, the ability to understand the emotions of other people, and the ability to interpret and express one’s own feelings. Approaches to learning, including enthusiasm, curiosity, and persistence on tasks, are also critical to school readiness (Denham, 2006). Language development is another important domain for school readiness (Lunkenheimer et al., 2008). This dimension includes both verbal language (e.g., listening, speaking, vocabulary) and emerging literacy (e.g., print awareness, understanding the components of stories, representing ideas through drawing, letter-like shapes, or letters). Cognition and general knowledge are also important dimensions of school readiness (La Paro & Pianta, 2000; Scott-Little, Kagan, & Frelow, 2006). This includes academic knowledge such as shapes, spatial relations, and number concepts as well as knowledge about social conventions.

Education in Jordan

Although many elements of school readiness are likely to be similar across cultural contexts, education systems themselves are largely dependent on national and local policies and practices. In Jordan, first grade is mandatory, but kindergarten is not. Until recently, kindergartens were either not available to most children or were available only in the private rather than public sector. However, Jordan is now in a period of education reform. Since 2003, the Ministry of Education has established 532 public kindergartens in Jordan. The expansion of kindergarten into the public sector is being implemented as part of a larger reform to address the vision of King Abdullah in making Jordan the information technology hub in the Middle East and in developing human capital for the knowledge economy. In July 2003 the Ministry of Education launched a five year project called Education Reform for the Knowledge Economy (ERfKE). The initial phase of the project is now complete, and a second phase of ERfKE will be launched in 2009. Substantial funding is being secured to enable the Ministry of Education to undertake education reform at the governance, program, and facility quality levels, in order to achieve sustainable learning outcomes relevant to a knowledge economy. This project is the first of its kind in the Middle East. Four major components are part of this broad reform: (1) Reorienting education policy objectives and strategies and reforming governance and administrative systems; (2) Transforming education programs and practices to achieve learning outcomes relevant to a knowledge economy; (3) Supporting the provision of quality physical learning environments; and (4) Promoting school readiness through expanded early childhood education (Ministry of Education, 2002). The fourth component is of particular relevance to the present study.

With the increasing demand for accountability and improved student performance that has swept the nation, policy makers and educators have struggled to find ways to assess children when they enter school. Understanding children’s level of readiness as they enter school can help teachers know where to focus their efforts on enhancing children’s readiness and can provide clues to help parents and teachers understand children’s performance later in their school career. Furthermore, this knowledge can provide teachers with essential information for individualizing the curriculum to help children learn more effectively. Finally, assessment of children’s readiness at school entrance may play an important role in accountability measurement, because this information can provide baseline data against which future data on children can be compared.

The Present Study

The long-term objective behind the present work is to launch a standard for national assessment of school readiness in order to assess the efficacy of national and community-based interventions and social policies aimed at improving early childhood outcomes in Jordan. This involves the measurement of early childhood outcomes over time to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. The short-term objective was to assess the school readiness of Jordanian children in five key domains: social skills and behavior, awareness of self and environment, cognitive skills, language and communication skills, and physical development.

The present study had three specific goals: (a) To describe the school readiness of Jordanian children in the five domains; (b) To compare the first grade school readiness of children who had and had not attended kindergarten; and (c) To compare the 2004 and 2007 school readiness of children in areas that instituted public kindergartens during that time period. Consistent with a large body of research attesting to the importance of early childhood programs in enhancing school readiness (e.g., Gilliam & Zigler, 2000), we hypothesized that children who had attended kindergarten would have higher levels of school readiness than would children who had not attended kindergarten. We hypothesized that children would have higher levels of school readiness in 2007 than in 2004 in communities that instituted public kindergartens across that time period.

Method

Participants

The present sample included 4,681 grade one students (46% girls, 54% boys) who were identified by the National Center for Human Resources Development (NCHRD) from the Ministry of Education’s database. Most of the sample (n = 3,657) was selected to represent the national population. A nationally representative stratified random sample of 144 schools from a defined population of schools with first grade enrolment of more than 9 children was selected. Twenty-four children were selected from each school that had 24 or more grade one children. The remainder of the sample (n = 1,024) was a stratified over-sample that was selected from 47 schools where public kindergartens were newly established as part of the national education reform; these schools served several towns, were located in rural poor areas, and were not previously served by the public sector.

Procedure and Measures

Data were collected by 63 field researchers at the Ministry of Education. They were chosen by the directorate of Early Childhood Education at the Ministry of Education as qualified personnel to carry out research. All of them had a university degree in education or a related field. In addition, they had specialized training in early childhood education and participated in a workshop that was held in the NCHRD for the purpose of preparing them for the research tasks.

Each field researcher was assigned a number of schools and was trained how to select the sample. In schools where there was more than one section of first grade, one section was randomly selected. In the sections where there were more than 24 students, 24 students were randomly selected. In small schools where there were fewer than 24 students in first grade, all of the students were selected. In first grades where there were both genders, approximately equal numbers of males and females were selected.

The instrument that was used in this research was developed in Canada as part of a five-year research project called Understanding the Early Years (UEY). The Early Development Instrument used in UEY (Janus & Offord, 2007) was adapted and validated with Jordanian children, resulting in the Early Years Evaluation Tool (EYE). The EYE assessment/evaluation tool has been identified as a useful measure in cross-cultural comparisons of developing countries. The World Bank intends to use the EYE in developing countries to compare children’s readiness to enter school; countries in the first phase of the World Bank’s work are Jordan, India, and Turkey.

The EYE assesses children’s performance in five domains: Social Skills and Behavior, Awareness of Self and Environment, Cognitive Skills, Language and Communication, and Physical Development. The tool is composed of a total of 49 items (α = .94) distributed among the domains as follows: (a) 14 items in the social skills and behavior domain (α = .93); (b) 9 items in the awareness of self and environment domain (α = .81); (c) 12 items in the cognitive skills domain (α = .85); (d) 7 items in the language and communication domain (α = .80); and (e) 7 items in the physical development domain (α = .72). In the social skills and behavior domain, each item was rated by teachers on a 4-point scale with 1 = This trait is never present and has not been observed, 2 = This trait is seldom present and rarely observed, 3 = This trait is frequently present and is usually observed, or 4 = This trait is consistently present and is always observed. In the remaining domains, a trained researcher observed the child’s performance on specific tasks and rated the child’s performance on each item with 1 = Child is unable to do this and appears not to have any of the skills required for this task, 2 = Child has some of the skills required for this task but was unable to do it at this time, 3 = Child can do this partially but not consistently. It appears that he/she will soon master this task, 4 = Child can do this confidently and consistently; It is clear that he/she could do it correctly whenever asked.

Scale averages in each domain and for the total measure were used in analyses. On the basis of the teacher and observer ratings, four levels of school readiness were defined. Level 1 (mean score < 1.5) indicated that children were developing readiness slowly and were not yet ready for school; the skills, knowledge, or behaviors necessary for readiness were absent or rarely demonstrated by children at this level. Level 2 (mean score ≥ 1.5 and < 2.5) indicated that children were approaching readiness; skills, knowledge, or behaviors were emerging but not yet demonstrated consistently. Level 3 (mean score ≥ 2.5 and < 3.5) indicated that children were ready for school and almost proficient; the skills, knowledge, or behaviors were partially demonstrated, and children were on the verge of mastery. Level 4 (mean score ≥ 3.5) indicated that children were fully ready for school and proficient; the skills, knowledge, or behaviors were firmly within the children’s range of performance.

Results

Table 1 shows the percent of children who were classified at each level of school readiness overall and for each of the five subdomains. It is notable that in every domain, at least 80% of children were deemed to be at Level 3 or higher, indicating that they were almost ready or fully ready for school. Less than 2% of children were classified in the not ready category for all five domains. As shown in Table 1, overall 39.7% of children can be described as fully ready for school, and 54.2% can be described as almost ready for school. Six percent of the children were emerging in readiness, and only .2% of the children were not ready for school.

Table 1.

Frequency and Percent of Children at Each Level of School Readiness

Level	Total	Social and Behavioral	Awareness of Self and Environment	Cognitive	Language and Communication	Physical
1	6 (.2)	56 (1.5)	27 (.7)	39 (1.1)	55 (1.5)	8 (.2)
2	219 (6.0)	381 (10.4)	428 (11.7)	286 (7.8)	639 (17.4)	102 (2.8)
3	1,989 (54.2)	1,654 (45.0)	1,586 (43.2)	1,529 (41.6)	1,833 (49.9)	1,054 (28.7)
4	1,458 (39.7)	1,581 (43.1)	1,631 (44.4)	1,818 (49.5)	1,145 (31.2)	2,508 (68.3)

Note. Tabled values are frequencies of children at each level, with percents of children in parentheses. Level 1 = not ready. Level 2 = emerging readiness. Level 3 = almost ready. Level 4 = fully ready.

Table 1 also summarizes Jordanian children’s school readiness in five specific domains. With respect to social skills and behavior, 45% of Jordanian children are almost ready for school, and 43.1% are fully ready for school. In terms of awareness of self and environment, 43.2% of the children are almost ready for school, and 44.4% are fully ready for school. For cognitive skills, 41.6% of the children are almost ready for school, and 49.5% are fully ready for school. In the domain of language and communication skills, 49.9% are almost ready for school, and 31.2% of the children are fully ready for school. With respect to physical development, 28.7% of the children are almost ready for school, and 68.3% are fully ready for school.

We next turned to the question of whether children who had attended kindergarten were more ready for first grade than were children who had not attended kindergarten. Using the continuous measure of overall readiness, children who had attended kindergarten (M = 3.36, SD = .42) were found to be significantly more ready for first grade than were children who had not attended kindergarten (M = 3.05, SD = .51), t(3,632) = 16.98, p < .001. Forty-five percent of children who had attended kindergarten were at Level 4 of school readiness, compared to 22% of children who had not attended kindergarten. Fifty-two percent of children who had attended kindergarten were at Level 3 of school readiness, compared to 63% of children who had not attended kindergarten. Four percent of children who had attended kindergarten were at Level 2 of school readiness, compared to 15% of children who had not attended kindergarten. Finally, .1% of children who had attended kindergarten were at Level 1 of school readiness, compared to .4% of children who had not attended kindergarten.

Given the particular importance of the communities in which kindergartens had recently been established as part of the education reform, the next set of analyses compared the school readiness of children in these communities at the beginning of education reform in 2004 (n = 955) with the school readiness of children in these communities in 2007 (n = 1,024). Using the continuous measure of school readiness, children in 2007 (M = 3.31, SD = .44) were significantly more ready for school than were children in 2004 (M = 3.21, SD = .45), t(1,977) = 4.97, p < .001. Overall, 39.3% of children in these communities were observed to be fully ready for school (Level 4 of school readiness) in 2007, compared to 29.1% in 2004. In these communities, 55.7% of children were observed to be almost ready for school (Level 3 of school readiness) in 2007, compared to 63.2% in 2004. Thus, one of the main effects of introducing public kindergartens appears to have been moving children from being almost ready to fully ready for school. Only .1% of the children in these communities were observed not to be ready for school (Level 1 of school readiness) in 2007, compared to .3% in 2004. Table 2 shows school readiness in 2004 compared to 2007 in each of the five domains of readiness. In communities with newly introduced kindergartens, children in 2007 were significantly more ready for school than were children in 2004 with respect to their social skills and behavior, t(1,977) = −4.69, p < .001, language and communication, t(1,977) = −4.95, p < .001, and physical development, t(1,977) = −6.49, p < .001. There were no significant differences between 2004 and 2007 in children’s awareness of self and environment or cognitive readiness.

Table 2.

Children at Each Level of School Readiness in 2004 and 2007 in Communities with Newly Implemented Kindergartens

Level	Total	Social and Behavioral	Awareness of Self and Environment	Cognitive	Language and Communication	Physical
2004
1	3 (.3)	24 (2.4)	10 (1.0)	6 (.6)	18 (1.9)	4 (.4)
2	70 (7.3)	137 (14.3)	138 (14.5)	66 (6.9)	204 (21.4)	51 (5.3)
3	604 (63.2)	499 (52.3)	434 (45.4)	333 (34.9)	514 (53.8)	331 (34.7)
4	278 (29.1)	295 (30.9)	373 (39.1)	550 (57.6)	219 (22.9)	569 (59.6)
2007
1	1 (.1)	23 (2.2)	10 (1.0)	8 (.8)	15 (1.5)	2 (.2)
2	51 (5.0)	104 (10.2)	116 (11.3)	66 (6.4)	168 (16.4)	18 (1.8)
3	570 (55.7)	482 (47.1)	434 (42.4)	402 (39.3)	515 (50.3)	277 (27.1)
4	402 (39.3)	415 (40.5)	464 (45.3)	548 (53.5)	326 (31.8)	727 (71.0)

Note. Tabled values are frequencies of children at each level, with percents of children in parentheses. Level 1 = not ready. Level 2 = emerging readiness. Level 3 = almost ready. Level 4 = fully ready.

Discussion

The present study had three goals: (a) To describe the school readiness of Jordanian children in five domains; (b) To compare the first grade school readiness of children who had and had not attended kindergarten; and (c) To compare the 2004 and 2007 school readiness of children in areas that instituted public kindergartens during that time period. Overall, results revealed that over 80% of Jordanian children were almost ready or fully ready for first grade in each of the five domains. Less than 2% of children were rated as being not ready for first grade in each of the five domains. Children who had attended kindergarten were significantly more ready for first grade than were children who had not attended kindergarten. In communities with newly established kindergartens, children were significantly more ready for first grade in 2007 than in 2004.

The results are encouraging in that most Jordanian children were either nearly ready or fully ready for first grade (the first year of mandatory schooling). For the children whose school readiness is just beginning to emerge and for those children who are not yet ready for school, the quality of kindergarten and other early childhood programs is likely to be especially important in helping these children prepare for school (Henry et al., 2006). Individualized instruction in addition to a high quality school curriculum may be necessary for the small percent of children who are at the lowest level of school readiness to help them advance to the level of their peers (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1995).

As expected and consistent with previous research regarding early childhood education in other countries (Gilliam & Zigler, 2000), children who had attended kindergarten were significantly more prepared for first grade than were children who had not attended kindergarten. These findings lend support to the national objectives in education reform being implemented by the Ministry of Education in a long-term plan to establish public kindergartens that will eventually be available to all Jordanian children. The establishment of public kindergartens is especially important for children in rural areas who are not typically served by the private sector. In the context of this reform, a national kindergarten curriculum was prepared by a team of national experts in early childhood education and was finalized and launched by her Majesty Queen Rania in the beginning of the 2004–2005 school year. The findings are encouraging in suggesting that the quality of the newly implemented kindergartens is high enough to be improving children’s school readiness in several domains important to later school success, as indicated by the higher levels of school readiness of children in 2007 than in 2004 in communities with newly launched kindergartens.

Despite these encouraging results, there is still room for improvement in enhancing Jordanian children’s school readiness. For example, although 43% of Jordanian children were fully ready for school in terms of their social skills and behaviors, almost half of Jordanian children were rated as nearly (but not fully) ready for school, indicating minor difficulties coping with school in terms of their social abilities. Social skills at school entry are importantly related to later school success (Webster-Stratton et al., 2008), therefore, additional efforts should be implemented in kindergarten to help students learn to get along with other children, accept responsibility for their own actions, follow rules and class routines, respect adults, gain self-confidence and self-control, adjust to change, and work independently. Similarly, additional efforts should be made to improve the school readiness of children by working through kindergartens to enhance children’s awareness of themselves and their environment, cognitive skills, language and communication skills, and physical development. Language and communication skills appear to be in need of particular attention because 17% of children were observed to be only beginning to show school readiness in this domain.

Recommendations for Policy and Practice

Within Jordan, the Ministry of Education should continue to expand kindergarten coverage. It should aim at increasing kindergarten enrollment rates by expanding the reach of quality kindergarten programs, especially to poor, remote, and underserved areas in order to ensure equitable access of sufficient quality to prepare all children for school. The private sector also should be encouraged to establish and run kindergartens under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, especially in poor and rural areas. When public kindergartens are not available in a particular geographic area, the Ministry of Education could provide economic support for low-income families to enable them to send their children to private kindergartens. The Ministry of Education should make sure that the kindergarten curriculum is responsive to the varying needs of children and the different developmental strengths and weaknesses they bring to kindergarten. The school curriculum also should be responsive to the unique needs of children who are considered at-risk and with developmental delays.

More broadly, investment and commitment are needed to ensure that every child enters school ready to succeed and that schools are effective in educating every child. Every child must be provided with a basic foundation that is critical to learning in school, and schools must be prepared to meet the needs of individual children as they enter school. It is important that kindergarten teachers be aware that by the end of kindergarten children should be able to adjust socially and be emotionally secure in school, communicate with adults and other children, be aware of print and letter-sound relationships, understand stories, recognize and understand basic mathematical concepts including the ability to identify patterns and place items in a certain order, have a basic understanding of their environment and the roles of people in their families and communities, and be physically strong and coordinated. Being equipped with this diverse set of skills early in their school careers will prepare children for future academic success.