SCHOOL READENESS: A STUDY COMPARlNG THE ATTi-‘TUDES 0F SCHOOL FSYCHOLGGiSTS AND KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS Thesis for the Degree czf Ed. D. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSRTY Eugene Alvin Schoifen I965 M‘W LIBR.LR)"? Michigan Saw: ‘JhuVCEQQy WWW”will « y This is to certify with}; thesis entitled . SCHOOL READINESS: A STUDY COMPARING THE ATTITUDES OF SCHOOL HSYCHOLOGISTS AND KINDERGAR€F§ TEACHERS 9 presente Eugene Alvin Scholten has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ed: D: degree in Education Date Ma y ( \ 0-169 \ ABSTRACT SCHOOL READINESS: A STUDY COMPARING THE ATTITUDES OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS AND KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS By Eugene A. Scholten The Problem. The purpose of this study is to ex— plore and describe differences between kindergarten teach- ers and school psychologists in their attitudes and concepts towards school readiness. The Procedure. An attitude survey called the School Readiness Survey_was given to a national population of 100 kindergarten teachers and 100 school psychologists. Various approaches (consisting of five sections) were used towards several kindergarten entrance issues,_towards the general appraisal of the spending of time in kindergarten, and as to the relative importance of kindergarten activities, atti- tudes and experiences. The Results. In Section I of the survey which probed attitudes towards several entrance and readiness issues, there is agreement on one issue; that chronological age is not a satisfactory criterion for the admission of kinder- garten pupils. School psychologists are agreed that re- search favors the early admission of advanced pupils whereas kindergarten teachers are undecided. Kindergarten teachers favor an earlier admission of girls; school psychologists are undecided. School psychologists feel that adequate Eugene A. Scholten measures of school readiness are available; kindergarten teachers are undecided. In Section II, kindergarten teachers and school psychologists agreed that the development of social skills takes the most time during the school day in kindergarten. Both groups agreed that relatively little time is spent on academic work. In Section III, the respondents were asked to judge the qualifications of a "ready" child as to some factors necessary for school admission. In this frame of reference, the social factor is regarded as only moderately important by both groups. The kindergarten teachers ranked the mental factor as more important and the school psychologists ranked mental and emotional factors as more important. Section IV probed the relative importance of attitudes and activities for kindergarten success and little agree- ment is seen between these groups. Kindergarten teachers regard listening to directions, the ability to work in a group or independently, and to care for his person as major activities contributing to success. School psychologists regard intellectual curiosity, tolerance of situations, ready verbalization, and general knowledge as important. Section V asked for evaluations of kindergarten exper- iences. School psychologists regard verbal experiences as most important. Kindergarten teachers regard experience Eugene A. Scholten with peers and teachers as most important and verbal experiences as least important. Kindergarten teachers and school psychologists do not agree as to the meaning of the term "social". To the kin- dergarten teacher, it appears that the socialization pro- cess means conforming to behavior standards and directed activities which are determined by the teacher and incor- porated into the child's behavior. This is in marked conflict to basic kindergarten theory of Froebel regarding the social function of play which kindergarten teachers explicitly accept in their literature. School psycho- logists are aware of this usage of the term as a social- izing effort to control and have turned instead to emotional references in their discussions of deveIOpmental maturity. The most marked differences between these groups in relation to the relative importance of attitudes, activities and experiences of the kindergarten child seem to be in relation to intellectual and verbal development. The kinder- garten teacher prefers the child who listens to directions and who works well independently or with a group whereas the school psychologisqkates highest such qualities as intellectual curiosity and ready verbalization. Régarding the relative importance of experiences, school psychologists rate verbal experiences highest and kindergarten teachers rate this kind of experience lowest. SCHOOL READINESS: A STUDY COMPARING THE ATTITUDES OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS AND KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS By Eugene Alvin Scholten A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fu fillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION College of Education 1965 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writer wishes to eXpress his appreciation first to the members of the committee - - Dr. Cole S. Brembeck, Dr. William K. Durr, and Dr. William Marshall, all of whom have contributed ideas and suggestions. Their help- fulness and patience over the years of investigation and research is particularly appreciated. The continual counsel of the committee chairman, Dr. Elizabeth M. Drews, was most encouraging. Special acknowledgment also should be given to four people whose encouragement and inspiration was constant: the late Dr. John R. Mulder, Walter W. Scott, Margaret Van Vyven, and most certainly Dr. Elizabeth M. Drews. Credit is also due several others: Mr. Jack Gordon and Dr. Philip Van Eyl for their aid in statistical analyses and to Dr. Robert F. De Haan for his editorial assistance. Appreciation is due several specialists throughout the country for their willingness to help the writer: Dr. Jack Birch, Dr. James R. Hobson, Dr. Anton Brenner, Mr. Milton Wilson, and the Division Sixteen (School Psych- ologists) Offices of the American Psychological Associa- tion. To my wife, Joyce, and children, John R., David, and Nancy, go eternal gratitude for their patience and faith. ********** ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acm UNLEDGbiENTS O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O i 1 LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v LIST OF APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi Chapter I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Personal Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . Initial Statement of Purpose . . . . . . . . O‘C‘apl-‘H Plan Of Study 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND STATEMENTS OF POSITIWS O O O O C O O O O O O O I O O O O 10 Development of the Kindergarten Position . . 10 The Kindergarten Movement . . . . . . . . . 11 The Typical American Kindergarten . . . . . 17 Development of the School Psychologist Position. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .' 22 Chapter Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 III. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SURVEY AND HYPOTHESES . . 39 Background and Development of the School. Readiness Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Pretesting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Survey Sample Selection . . . . . . . . . . 47 Statistical Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Chapter Summary and Statement of Hypotheses. 52 IV 0 SURVEY RESULTS 0 O O O O O O O O O 0 0 O 0 O 54 Summary of General Results . . . . . . . . . 55 iii Chapter IV. Survey Section Survey Section Survey Section Survey Section Survey Section V . . . Chapter Summary . . . V. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS . . . . . General Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social Implications and Discussion . . . . . The Role of Activities . Page 58 64 7O 73 83 87 89 . 89 94 99 Assessing School Readiness . . . . . . . . . . 102 Implications for Further Research . BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . APPENDICES . . . . . iv .107 Ill Table 10 LIST OF TABLES Page Survey Section I Summary: Major School Readiness Issues 0 o o o e o o o o 0'. o o o o 56 General Results: Survey Sections II, III, IV, and V O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 57 Survey Section I-A: Chronological Age as an Entrance Criterion . . . . . .-. . . . . . . . 58 Survey Section I-B: Judgments as to the Value of Early Admissions Research . . . . . . . . . 60 Survey Section I-C: Judgments Regarding the Earlier Admission of Girls . . . . . . . . . . 61 Survey Section I-D: Judgments Regarding the Adequacy of School Readiness Measures . . . . 63 Survey Section II: Judgments of Time Spent in Kindergarten O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 65 Survey Section III: Judgments Regarding the Relative Importance of Admission Factors . . . 71 Survey Section IV: Judgments Regarding the, Relative Importance of Activities and AttitUdeS O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 74 Survey Section V: Judgments Regarding the Relative Importance of Experiences . . . . . . 84 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix Page A COpy: School Readiness Survey . . . . . 123 B Related Literature Review: Early School Admissions and Preschool Testing . . . . 127 vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The meaning of education is variously defined and the many points of view are often incompatible. Similarly, there seems to be a basic conflict of viewpoints as to when children are ready for kindergarten and what the school should expect of kindergarten pupils. Therefore, school readiness too, has come to mean different things. This apparent conflicting point of view is expressed by two groups, both in active contact with kindergarten pupils; namely the kindergarten teachers and the school psycholo- gists and has long been the concern of the investigator and is the focus of the present study. In other words, although there seems to be superficial agreement, an investigation of interpretations might read- ily reveal some differing points of view which result in kindergarten teachers and school psychologists often work- ing at cross purposes rather than together. The question may be asked whether these differences are of such a ser- ious and fundamental nature that they might cause poor communication and coordination of efforts between these two groups in the schools. This situation, resulting from these different views as to qualities needed to ensure the success of a child entering kindergarten needs to be studied with care. There also seems to be misunderstanding as to l. 2. the task of kindergarten. The study was designed to clarify these issues. Although the primary focus of this study will be school readiness, the broader issues regarding the task of kindergarten and the activities and program of kinder- garten classrooms will necessarily be involved because it is important to know what preschoolers are getting ready Egg. Readiness cannot be determined nor can a criterion for school readiness be developed without the program for which one is to determine and develop readiness clearly in mind. For these reasons, the various facets of kinder- garten situations will be studied. As mentioned above, a basic concern of this study is to determine the extent to which there are important diff- erences in viewpoint of kindergarten teachers and school psychologists on the matter of when children are ready for kindergarten and what the kindergarten teacher should ex- pect of children when they arrive. The investigator, a school psychologist, has observed, in working with kinder- garten teachers, that they typically used a frame of refer- ence and a vocabulary which emphasizes doing things -- especially as this doing relates to kindergarten activities. When the term school readiness was used by kindergarten teachers, it had both general and Specific meaning indi- cating developmental or maturational levels which children should reach as well as the expectancy that children should 3. perform Specific tasks such as cutting, writing, or skip- ping. As a result, it seemed to the investigator, that the kindergarten had become a series of activities through which children were guided and that the typical kinder- garten teacher made the assumption that such guiding would foster deve10pment and maturation. In contrast to this vieWpoint found among kindergarten teachers, the investigator had observed that school psych- ologists used a different frame of reference, one which might be called a mental health approach.1 Psychologists in general and school psychologists in particular usually have accepted the objectives and philoSOphy which underlies this approach, i.e., they place the primary focus on the child and not on the school program. The psychologists have seen their main task as making psychological assess- ments and conducting conferences with parents and school personnel. They have not been primarily concerned with activities or curriculum. However, school psychologists have had to make recommendations for school admission and it is here that a conflict in point of view with the kinder- garten teachers may come about. For example, school psychO- logists may believe that learning experiences should be tailored to the child rather than consisting of a set of activities that are imposed upon all children. Such child- 1 "Mental health approach" will be specifically defined in Chapter II. 4. centered objectives are typically held by many mental health workers and for school psychologists these have become the desirable objectives of the school as well.2 As has been suggested, the primary concern of the kindergarten teachers appears to have been with the acti- vities of the classroom; what is to be taught and how it is to be taught. The mental health approach has been represented mainly by school psychologists who were brought to the scene as specialists to help determine readiness of individual children for kindergarten. In many respects, these two ways of looking at school admission criteria result in misunderstanding or open differences between the members of these two groups who are most concerned with admission practices in the schools. Personal Igterest. As has already been indicated, the interest of the writer stemmed initially from his ex- periences as a school psychologist. As the research and literature were searched in an attempt to gain further understandings and insights, he became increasingly aware of the conflicts and.discrepancies. In psychological lit- erature, the differences between the "ideal" and the "actual" assessment procedures were most obvious. In educational literature and research, the differences between theory and 7 . See Chapter III of Paul E. Eiserer, The School Psych- logist, Washington D.C.: The Center for Applied Research in Education, Inc., 1963. 5. practice were impressive. The problem of terminology became serious since operational definitions of school readiness and descriptions of the "ready" child were lacking. All of this led the writer to look more care- fully at the situation as it existed in the schools. Conferences were held with kindergarten teachers with reSpect to their theories of education, the connota- tions they were giving to various words, and their actual school practices. Problems and issues pertaining to school readiness were discussed. The writer was seeking greater understandings so that school readiness could be assessed more adequately, i.e., with greater satisfaction for all involved -- teacher, parent and school psychologist. In addition to these informal discussions with kinder- garten teachers, the writer made an effort to find out what school psychologists had to say on the problem. He initiated correspondence with many Specialists on subjects related to school readiness which, over the past five years, has be- come extensive and has contributed to his understandings. The fact that there were basic conflicts in viewpoint be- tween school psychologists and kindergarten teachers became more and more apparent. Each year, as the writer returned to the task of assessing the readiness of preschoolers and became more sensitized to the differences between school psychologists and kindergarten teachers interpretations of the matter, 6. he became more determined to investigate and try to clarify some of the issues involved. The efforts of this concern have culminated in the study which is the basis of this dissertation. In order to carry out this study, the writer developed a survey instrument called the School gggdiness Survey which was completed by groups of kinder- garten teachers and school psychologists. The results of this survey comprise the major portion of this study. Initial Statement of Purpose. The purpose of this study is to explore and describe the observed differences by means of a survey of kindergarten teachers and school psychologists in their attitudes and concepts towards school readiness. Plan of Study. In Chapter II, the basic positions of kindergarten teachers and school psychologists_will be further stated and defined. Influences pertaining to kindergarten teacher attitudes and concepts will be examined. A brief history of the kindergarten movement will trace developments from Froebel to the present day and a survey of the current kindergarten scene will reveal some of the complexities of the problem. In addition, the typical kindergarten will be discussed in terms of present practices. Influences pertaining to the attitudes and concepts of school psychologists also will be examined from several vantage points. The mental health criterion for psychological 7. maturity as well as viewpoints on education will be ex- amined in some detail. Much of the research pertaining to school readiness has come from early school admission studies which frequently have been conducted by psycho- logists. This literature will be summarized briefly. Preschool testing, in which school psychologists have focused directly on school readiness, will be discussed as it pertains to their position. From these examples of the literature, the two differing positions will be speci- fied and comparisons will be made rdating to the problem under examination. Chapter III will be concerned with specific efforts of the writer to understand the problem more thoroughly by making a direct study of the situation. His decision was to develop and use a survey instrument for this purpose. The development of this instrument, the School Readiness Surve , will be reviewed. The questions which the survey was designed to eXplore will be set forth. The selection of the two population samples (100 kindergarten teachers and 100 school psychologists) used in the study will be described. Finally, the statistical procedures will be discussed. In Chapter IV, the hypotheses which the survey was designed to test are stated. In the remainder of the Chapter, the results ofthe School Readiness Surve , Sections I through V will be presented and discussed. In 8. Section I, opinions are sought on four major school readi- ness issues. The respondents were asked to express them- selves on these issues so that comparisons with other problems which were to be probed by the survey could be made. These issues included: i l. Chronological age as a sole admission criterion. 2. The evaluation of early admissions research. 3. A differential admission to kindergarten based on sex (the earlier admission of girls). 4. The adequacy of school readiness measures. Section II of the survey asked that kindergarten teachers and school psychologists indicate, by rating a series of items in order of importance, how children typically spend their time in kindergarten. Following this, Section III asked for judgments of the relative importance of a series of indicators of school readiness. In the next section, Section IV, it was requested that the reSpondents rate a series of ten activities and attitudes of the kindergarten classroom in order of importance. Section V completed the survey with the request that the usefulness of a series of kindergarten experiences be evaluated. In summary, images of the "ready" child as viewed by kindergarten teachers and school psychologists will be presented as derived from re- sults and comments made on the SchoolReadiness Survey. In the final chpater, general conclusions regarding differences of opinion will be drawn. The implications of 9. these results in terms of the questions and issues raised about school readiness in Chapter III will be discussed. Finally, implications for further research will be suggested. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND STATEMENTS OF POSITIONS In the preceding chapter, it has been noted that the investigator had become aware of two conflicting positions relative to attitudes towards school readiness. In this chapter, these positions will be stated more explicifly, and historical origins and philosophies which seem to underlie these positions will be examined. First, the position of the kindergarten teacher and its apparent origins will be examined. Following this, the position of the school psychologist and the mental health and the psychological literature out of which it apparently came will be delineated. Development of the Kindergarten Teacher Position. American kindergartens have a unique development which started in Europe with the ideas of Friedrich Froebel. The modern kindergarten still claims to embrace these ideas, thus Froebel's theories will be reviewed and the "new" interpretations placed on them by American practitioners -- the kindergarten teachers -- will be examined. Other as- pects of the American kindergarten scene will be studied, particularly with respect to the variety of influences and forces which effect it. The typical kindergarten will be described so that when school readiness is discussed, the reader will have in mind a meaningful criterion for the activities and expectancies. 10. h“. I up. (\. fl . l r Q ‘1: ‘C' Vs E)‘ 51 n“ W '3 C I" \ 11. The Kindergarten Movement. Froebel initiated the 1 His concepts of kindergarten movement in Europe in 1837. the kindergarten and early learning eXperiences, although widely known, warrant restating; . Kindergarten is to make use of play for meaningful experiences .2. . kindergarten is the free republic of childhood. Play is the first creative utterance of man . . . the playing of children is an expression of serious activity. Play is the highest phase of human develop— ment at this period. Plgy is the only true bridge of control and spontaneity. The inner symbolism of the child's play should not be brought into the child's consciousness by any formal explanations or moralizing by the teacher. Self discovery is the only true learning. There should be free obedience in the place of blind obedience and children need to develOp this freedom within through experiences. This is not lawlessness. In Froebel's kindergarten, these theories were translated into teaching practices and procedures. Suggested materials (Froebel called them gifts) were presented to children to explore and discover with little comment or supervision from the teacher. The gifts themselves had little objective significance; the purpose of the presentation of these tasks was to permit children to gain social experiences and to give them Opportunities to make independent discoveries. There is no question but that Froebel‘s approach and emphasis 1 N. C. Vandewalter, The Kinder arten in American Education, New York: The Macmillan Co., 1908, gives a comp- rehensive history of early kindergartens. 2 Friedrich Froebel, Education of Man, New York: Apple- ton and Co., 1887, p. 26. 3 Ibid., p. 28. 4 Ibid., p. 68. 5 Ibid., p. 83. 12. involved considerable freedom and self direction for the child. When kindergartens were introduced into American schools just over one hundred years ago, the basic public educational structure of grades and curriculum was already firmly entrenched. Exponents of the kindergarten indicated that this new educational venture would help counteract the rigidity of the grades. However, it would appear that Froebel's kindergarten theories were changed rather quickly when they reached America. Both Blow and Hill? who were trained by Froebel and were America's foremost proponents of kindergartens in the late nineteenth century, became more concerned with the tasks and activities which were presented to the children than they were with the social and free play experiences which allowed the child to choose. By the turn of the century, kindergartens were preocCupied with activities which were prescribed for all children and the principle of free choice seemed to have been forgotten. Out of the original kindergarten movement and philosophy, it appears that only the activities were extracted and remained. However, general statements about the aims of kindergarten, i.e., the social intent, still continued to reflect Froebel's philosophy and sometimes to borrow his words. In a National Education Association report in 1925, 5 See Isle Forest, Early Years at School, New York: Mc-Graw Hill, 1949, Chapter II. 13. ‘Davis reports that "social experiences accomplished by play activities" are the "actual objectives of kindergart- en"? However, listening to stories, coloring and skipping were listed as typical play activities. The amount of self-directed social experience connected with most of these activities is seriously open to question; certainly, there seems to be little provision for what Froebel said was the only true learning -- self discovery. Teacher- directed activities appear to have been accepted, almost without question, as meeting the "social" objectives of kindergarten. There was little effort made to show how these activities would meet the intellectual or the socio- emotional needs of chfldren as suggested by Froebel's theories. Instead, their value in these terms seemed to be accepted without critical examination. Yet the discerning reader may ask how such activities can promote "self dis- covery through free play" or develop independent control or allow for free obedience. The emphasis of the American Association for Childhood Education's Centennial Report - 19377 is similar to the earlier Davis report. Again, Froebel is quoted as to the importance of play as it relates to social learnings and the development of the child. These references are followed 6 Mary Dabney Davis, General Practice in Kinder arten, Washington D.C.: National Education Association, 192%, p. 155. 7 American Association for Curriculum Development, Centennial Re ort - 1937, New York: American Association for Chi dhood Education, 1 7. l) u:_ (7‘? D“! (—O II P! rn‘ 14. 1:37 a lengthy listing of typical kindergarten activities with no mention as to what such activities are intended to accomplish in terms of the stated aim5 which clearly Eiad been adopted from Froebel. The contribution of Gertrude Hildreth is a more in- sightful one although she does not, if she is aware of the conflict between theory and practice, bring this to the reader's attention. In Readiness for School Be inners, she states the philosophical intent of kindergartens and attempts to reassess kindergarten objectives in terms of what she refers to as "new goals". In essence, her "new goals" are quite similar to Froebel's theories as well as sounding quite like the mental health theorists. 0n phil- o sophical grounds, she defends play as legitimate education in a framework reminiscent of Froebel. She alludes to the repressive atmOSphere in the elementary school. However, the kindergarten practices which Hildreth accepts rather uncritically and holds to be superior to education in gene- re. 1 are generally restrictive and controlling activities and it is her contention that kindergartens should primar- ily prepare children for first grade (the doorway to the reIbressive school). Hildreth does not seem to recognize the disparity batween her theories and the practices she is suggesting. The exploratory experiences, the freedom of choice and the 8 Gertrude Hildreth, Readiness for School Beginners, New York: World Book Co., 0. 15. social interaction stated in Froebel's theories, reiterated by Hildreth's new goals and implied by the term M seem to be generally ignored in the discussion of kindergarten activities. However, it is to these activities that the major portion of her books are devoted. Activities assume such importance in kindergarten prac- tices and procedures that Hildreth suggests that adjustment be defined as "conforming to activities".9 She further suggests that pupil evaluation should be based on an activity oriented criterion. It is the child's ability to perform the activities which is assessed with little or no effort to assess the psychological growth of the child. In a literal application of Hildreth's suggested practices (as distinct from the aims), one might anticipate that in kindergarten a child is already expected to stand and sit straight, stay in line, keep quiet and keep his discoveries to himself. And, of course, it must be granted that it is not known how num- be rs of children can be managed without repressive sociali- zation. ' The fact that Hildreth limited the term school readi- ne$3 to the kinds of specific activities which were already cort‘iunon practices with the teachers of school beginners might explain the universal acceptance by kindergarten teachers of this narrow frame of reference or it could simply indicate that Hildreth was a knowledgeable reporter. 9 Hildreth, pp. cit., p. 38. 16. In any event, there is no doubt that Hildreth has contributed importantly to the present kindergarten orientation in which activities are the objective, the program and the method as well as the end result of kindergartens. This is underscored 10 11 by both Forest and Kellogg who refer to Hildreth's books cxn kindergarten as classics. Even a newer and supposedly research-centered approach c>f Fuller12 appears to be activity-oriented. The research portion of this report consists of descriptive evidence per- taining to the teaching of kindergarten activities. There is r1<3 reference to experimental studies. Further, the learning aixnd social aSpects of kindergarten aims or objectives as preall as any attempted translation into self-directed learning experiences, are conspicuously absent. It is the impression and conclusion of the writer that title kindergarten theories of Froebel, deSpite almost univer- 5353.1 acceptance at a verbal level, have been largely ignored in terms of kindergarten practices. Instead of a translation OE Froebel's aims into practices of the nature which had been Suggested, there has been a pre-occupation with practices of a Very different nature, i.e., teacher-directed and teacher- Gen tered activities. 10 Forest, pp. cit., p. 32. 11 Rhoda Kellogg, Nursery School Guide, Boston: houghton Mifflin Co., 1949, p. vi. 12 C. D. Fuller, What Research Sa 3 to the Teacher (No. 22), Washington D. C.: National Education Association, 1961.. 17. The Typical American Kindergarten. (The second part of the development of the kindergarten position.) School readiness is obviously influenced by the educational structure of which the kindergarten program is a part. The school readiness problem is very much involved, as was previously noted, by the compromising of social experience and self discovery goals. In their place, the omnipresence of activity programs is seen. (In the subsequent examina- tion of the comments of the mental health theorists, their concern with conforming to activities is not limited to kindergarten, but is regarded as a charactristic of most school classrooms.) By social experience goals, a first year school exper- ience can mean a direct application of Froebel's principles only with appropriate school practices. However, it has been noted that his ideas have been difficult to put into effect, perhaps because the effort has been limited. The American school situation undoubtedly effected the inter- pretation of Froebel. Operating a kindergarten in a one- room school, or with several grades in one room is difficult, if not impossible. In many instances, a "beginners" class prior to the first grade took the place of kindergarten and often became a watered-down first grade experience. This has added to the misinterpraation and confusion between present day "beginners" and kindergarten classrooms. A twentieth century innovation further usurped some of 18. the function of kindergarten. ‘Nursery schools claimed social experience through play as their goal as well. They have appeared to be able to accomplish Froebel's objectives more readily than have the kindergartens possibly because of their independence from organized educational structure. An eval- uation of nursery school education is beyond the scope of this study. However, a closer examination of nursery school might show more provision for individual differences, more parent involvement, typically smaller classes and less teach- er centering and direction.13 Further, there appear to be fewer controlled group activities and greater Opportunity for both independent play and free social interaction. Fin- ally, the place of the nursery school in American education and their continued growth serves as an example and a rather constant reminder of the objectives which were once thought to belong exclusively to the kindergarten. Several modifications of kindergartens are appearing which also involve school readiness. There are spring trial kindergartens, kindergartens for four-year olds, third se- mester kindergartens, day care centers as well as Montessori schools. Teaching reading to five-year olds by television and neWSpapers appears to influence kindergartens in areas in which they appear.14 The nongraded primary school implies 13 See K. Read, The Nursegy School: A Human Relations Laborator , Philadelphia: Saunders Co., 1960, for a compre- Eensive look at nursery schools. 14 B. M. Levinson, "Teaching Readin to Five Year Olds", Colorado Education Journal, October, 196 , p. 17. 19. definite modification of kindergarten standards. Recent programs for culturally deprived or impoverished children have also tended to emphasize a concern with readiness for school. A survey of the national kindergarten scene does not reveal a uniform picture of programs and procedures. Atten- dance 1aws vary considerably (70.4 percent of eligible pub- lic school children attend kindergartens)15 and the finan- cial structure of kindergartens throughout American is most complicated. State aid for kindergartens, optional atten- dance, private kindergartens, states ignoring kindergartens; all of these factors and varying policies and inconsistent practices have alarmed the ardent kindergarten enthusiast but also have provided for some flexibility and variation which otherwise might not have been possible. A case in point pertains to the relationship between school readiness and the chronological age criteria for kindergarten admission. Entrance dates for kindergartens have varied as much as nine months between various states and school districts. Most entrance dates run from the first of June to the last day of December as the latest date a child may be accepted if he is five years old. The average entrance cutoff throughout the united States is 16 tour years and nine months. Some of the problems in- .— 13 National Education Association, Kindergarten Research Bulletin, Washington D.C., 1962, p. 5. l6 Kindergarten Research Bulletin, pp. cit., p. 12. 20. volved in these differences as they pertain to school readi- ness are more specifically discussed in Section I of Chapter IV. The matter of school readiness, then, becomes a problem which needs to be Specified in terms of the typical kinder- garten. A It has been noted repeatedly that kindergarten teachers are much concerned with the activities of the classroom. Actually, these activities appear in classrooms in a continuum like fashion in terms of the emphasis of activities. One might also refer to the extent of structuring the classroom in terms of these activities. Toward one end of the continuum a highly structured academic program involving reading, numbers and writing for all children is seen. Toward the opposite end of the continuum would be a less structured situation involving more selection of activity, greater variation in involvement with an activity and considerably more and different kinds of activities going on in the classroom at the same time. The usual or typical kindergarten is a combination of these extremes. Memorization exercises and such academic work as printing names and numbers as well as the alphabet are common and required for all children. Even listening to stories, sharing experiences and the various art and music activities represent mandatory participation involving the entire class. Choice of activities is usually confined to independent games or projects such as allowing children to play in a sandbox, others to paint, and still others to play 21. with playhouses. It is particularly noteworthy that many of the activities listed by several sources are characterized by a lack of freedom as well as a lack of social experience connected with the various activities. These latter are, of course, the precise characteristics emphasized by Froebel. School readiness cannot be taken to mean only kinder- garten readiness because of entrance criteria of first grades. In general, first grade standards appear to be rather rigidly academic. To most kindergarten teachers, this fact means that their programs must be partially academic or preparatory to academics. To most kindergarten teachers, however, there is recognition of a theoretical indepéndence of their own standards in the form of grading systems and report cards, in regards to promotion questions as well as the evaluation of the kindergarten child which have been based on an activity criteria which is partially academic. The typical kindergarten on the national scene is seen as a classroom preoccupied with activities which are largely of a conforming, academic preparatory nature. While there may be social activities of a group nature, the social inter- action and self discovery involving relationships between individual pupils is negligible. At a theoretical level, Froebel's ideas are recognized. At a realistic level, it appears that play and creative self discovery are not used in the sense Froebel suggested. 22. As was noted in Chapter I, the school psychologist was brought to the educational scene and the school readiness problem as a specialist. It was also suggested that the influences pertaining to school psychologists are unique, particularly in terms of their frame of reference. Qevelppment of the Sphool Psycholpgist Positipp. School psychologists operate in a frame of reference or by a criterion which will be referred to as a mental health 17 This point of view probably develops because criterion. of their training and appears to be further enhanced by their experiences with schools and children. Many of the psychologists who work in schools also have sharpened their focus on school readiness by their own research efforts. Some of the authorities commonly studied by the school psychologists are cited below. Following this, there will be a review of some of the research efforts involving early school admissions studies of school psychologists. Mental Health Cpitepipp. Writers who accept a mental health frame of reference are generally critical of educa- tion, particularly the activities of the typical classroom. Their criticisms can readily be applied to kindergarten. The kinds of questions which the mental health theorists often raise and the concerns which they voice are similar 17 See Chapter III of Robert Valett, The Practice of School Ps cholo , New York: Rinehart Co., 1964, and Chapter III of Susan Gray, The Ps cholo ist in the Schools, New York: Holt and Co., 196 , or relevant discussion. :8 3‘: db 1‘6 A I A .C 56 23. to the criticism of certain educational practices made by Bruner: These activities . . . represent the precise details of learning in highly simplified short term situations which have lost contigt with the long term educational effects of learning. ‘ Bruner indicates that today, the emphasis of the psychology of learning is on understanding the social and the motiva- tional aSpects of the education of the self. Since school psychologists ascribe to the education of the self, the purpose and intellectual structure of activities (which Bruner notes that no one seems directly concerned with) as they affect the cognitive and affective growth of the child become a matter of vital concern. The more general mental health frame of reference is well stated in the works of Maslow, Rogers and Allport.19 Maslow indicates that the goal of life and education is in self-actualization. By this, it is hoped that an efficient perception of reality . . . and an increased awareness, integration, Spontaneity and objectivity . . . which will lead tpothe recovery of creative- ness will be realized. Rogers adds openness to experience to his listing of goals.21 Allport places self-identity at the top of the list of objec- tives of effective mental health.22 18 J. S. Bruner, Process of Education, Cambridge? Harvard university Press, 1960, p. 4. 19 War. Washington 0.0-: American Psychological Association, Summer, 1960. 20 A. H. Maslow, Toward A Ps cholo of Bein , Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1962, p. 128. 21 Carl Rogets, "The Place of the Person in the Behav- ioral Sciences", The Personnel and Guidance Journal XXXXIX, No. 1, p. 442.. .1115 “d. n. ... 24. If such objectives, referred to here as the mental health criterion are accepted, then one has to ask if educational practices further these aims. To do this, opinions of some social scientists as to the effectiveness of the schools will be examined as to their meaning and meeting of the total growth needs of the child. Maslow says that "schools add to the splits within a person -- a setting of one part of the person against another part".23 In general, his position is that schools do not, in terms of current emphases, foster growth and motivation in the child. Friedenberg, a teacher and social critic, is even more specific in his criticism and reminds us that . . . there are no studies to suggest that in school- work or school activities are there sufficient intellectual satisfactions to supply is own motivation. 24 His case for asking that goals of education be brought into a mental health frame of reference is stated in these terms; . . . pplf—identity is the crucial problem in our schools. Schools have taught children that they can win identity and esteem only by how they look and behave, not for what they are or how they think. This is a severe form of alienation.25 2 . 2 Gordon Allport, Becoming, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955, p. 41. 23 Maslow, pp. pip., p. 136. 24 Edgar Friedenberg, The Vanishin Adolescent, Boston: The Beacon Press, 1960, p. 65. 25 Friedenberg, pp. cit., p. 71. 25. Kelley, from an educafional psychologist's frame of reference, is also alarmed at what goes on and feels that there is great need to change the schools. He contends; The schools are too busy teaching such matters as adverbial clauses that we have notime to teach attitudes. Elementary schools have a long way to go before it can be said that they are really good places for children. By the very definition of the word, schools use progedures designed to train rather than educate.2 Kelley blames the adults who "have worked out a complicated and effective system of rejection of children which runs throughout our social structure". He points Specifically to "courses of study, grading systems and all the so-called learning activities which help reject children" and says that "conformity is for those who don't fight.‘ Where is the love of learning? Where are they taught the beauty of humanity?"27 Henry, an anthropologist who has made extensive studies within classrooms, is also critical of how children are taught. It is his observation that . . . schools mainly criticize and tear down children. School metamorphases the child, giving it the kind of self it can manage and then proceeds to minister to the self it has just made. Schools give traifing in Skills. It can do nothing else. It must train the children as it is. It cannot teach creativity. The child must accept alienation as the rule of life. 28 26 Earl C. Kelley, In Defense of Yoppp, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1962, p. 67. 27 28 Jules Henry, Culture Agaipst Man, New York: Random House, 1963, p. 82. Kelley, _p. cit., p. 84. 26. These comments are Specifically taken to mean that schools are activity conscious and force children rather ruthlessly into patterns of conformity without the careful weighing of these activities against good mental health criterion. Translating mental health goals into suggestions for actual educational practice has received considerable attention in recent years. Lindner, a psychiatrist who was much concerned with mental health, devotes the last chapter of Must We Conform to the schools and suggested needed 29 After being critical of current practices in changes. education, he set forth goals which he considered apprOp- riate for today's children. Considering the aim of educa- 30 tion as "self maturity" , he suggested certain qualities that should be fostered by the education process. These gaols (working toward the development of desirable human qualities) are much the same as those suggested by Allport, Rogers and Maslow. Awareness, openness to experience, search for identity or self discovery, and an opportunity for unifying or relating learning experiences are regarded as the most important. Skepticism is added to these in order that the child can effectively test reality. The opportunity of questioning and selecting fram varied assign- ments or choices puts Skepticism into practice. Tension 29 Robert Lindner, Must We Conform, New York: Rine- hart and Co., 1956. 30 Lindner, pp. cit., p. 286. 27. should create dissatisfaction with things as they are. Lindner feels that a conforming, unthinking adjustment destroys the individual. Thinking and searching for solutions are indicated as desirable. Note this in con- trast to Hildreth, who, as a spokesman for the kinder- garten teacher point of view, defines adjustment as con- forming to required activities and seems to willingly accept such educational patterns. Barron?l reporting on a number of psychological studies, draws certain conclusions about mental health goals and how these might be translated into appropriate educational usage. In the language and terminology of the Maslow, Rogers and Allport frame of reference, Barron re- fers to process, i.e., ". . . perceiving, planning, syn- thesizing, and the adaptive relationship to reality"32 as all important. He also illustrates how planning and per- ceiving in independent ways helps to build the ego and how success in the meaningful application of skills (in con- trast to the frequently meaningless activities currently found) might develop a strong sense of reality. He describes how feelings of personal adequacy are gained by free and self determined social interactions of the type Froebel suggested at the kindergarten level. Barron's examples which are of a more general nature suggest that classroom 31 32 Barron, pp. cit., p. 126. Barron, pp.cit., p. 66. 28. activities might be one part of the intra-individual learning objectives and experiences. Hunt, in a review which evaluates current learning theory, suggests that it is of the activity-oriented vint- 33 All learning skills, he insists, age and quite outdated. are still dependent on the State of the organism. And he goes on to make the point that the human organism is ener- gized by the criterion under discussion, namely good mental health. Gordon, in a critical review of literature relating to psychological research and theory, arrives at a dynamic description of a new human being controlled by an open energy system with a dynamic "feedback motivation" suggest- ing that our learning theory model of man is quite outdated.34 Hughes, in a report of extensive and well-planned research in which she studied classroom teaching practices, has discussed the inadequacies of present approaches and has set forth a model of good teaching commensorate with good mental health criterion.35 Some of her suggestions for a kind of teaching that will meet the needs of children follow: a change in attitude toward the authority of so- called facts, an ability to deal constructively with tension 33 . J. McV. Hunt, Intelligence and pxperience, New York: Ronald Press Co., 1961, p. 126. 34 Ira Gordon, (From a mimeographed pre-publication copy of a chapter for the 1966 ASCD Yearbook). 35 Marie M. Hughes, Development of the Means for the Assessment of Teaching, Salt Lake City: university of Utah, 1 59. 29. and anxiety, and, to note that the world is also human wherein the unit is man and that it is educationally de- sirable to deal with his personal attitudes as well as political or scientific knowledge. These suggestions indicate that changes in both what is taught and how it is taught are needed. For kindergarten, it is her view that there Should be a return to not only Froebel's theories but his practices as well. Barron's and Hughes' research tend to be both critical of current educational patterns and to represent attempts to translate mental health principles into educational practices. The studies are well executed at both the reG search and theoretical levels. The research involved con- sists of attitude surveys, personal interviews and class- room observations. lts relevance to this study is that the overemphasis of activities in education in general is Simi- lar to prevailing patterns in kindergarten. As an example, Henry's comment that "schools give training in skills" can be interpreted at the kindergarten level as activity train- ing. In general the skills and activities which demand conforming behaviors on the part of the child and which tend to be largely teacher-centered and teacher-assigned, have been criticized extensively by these writers and re- searchers and also by those writers more generally concerned with educational philosophy and psychological theory. They would suggest, instead, the develOpment of a setting where 30. freedom of inquiry, discovery, individualized activities and creative behaviors are encouraged. And, as has been noted previously, school psychologists function within the framework of the mental health criterion and generally accept such educational patterns as desirable. AS a result of such an outlook, school psychologists may be critical of much that happens in schools. They were brought to the educational scene as Specialists. De- Spit their broad concerns, the issues to which their atten- tion was directed were usually problem areas, such as learn- ing, behavior and personality problems and habit or conduct disorders. The need for study and research of these pro- blem areas was one to which school psychologists reSponded. However, in the area of school readiness (testing for ad- mission to kindergarten) they were able to work more directly within the mental health framework. Here was a normal pop- ulation and, if intellectual and affective growth problems were encountered by the children, many of these might easily be seen as stemming from restrictive patterns in education. In the further development of the position of school psychologists and the purposes of this study, it is noted that study and research have been of vital concern to school psychologists where learning problems and their prevention were involved. In the matter of school readiness, much of the research pertaining to the issues has been done in the areas of early school admissions of intellectually advanced 31. pupils and in the development of psychological testing instruments for the assessment of school readiness. As will be noted later, school psychologists appear to be familiar with this research, have often engaged in carry- ing it out and in general, can be assumed to agree with its findings. Preschool Readiness Testing andgphool Entrance. Much of the attention pertaining to the psychological assessment of school readiness in the preschooler has been focused on a somewhat controversial issue usually referred to as "early school admission". Because these experimental studies and literature are extensive and not directly rel- evant to the present research, they are summarized and reviewed in Appendix B. However, there are certain Signi- ficant contributions in understandings about school readi- ness as well as the position of the school psychologists which will be reviewed. A basic issue in the area of school entrance pertains to dissatisfactions with chronological age as the sole en- trance criterion. Hildreth indicates that this has been an area of controversy for most of this century.35 A recent issue of the priew pngdpcatipnal Research lists seventy references to articles on this problem in the last five years. The majority of the writers suggest that a better criterion for school entrance is available. School psych- § . . 5 Hildreth, pp. c1t., Chapter IV. 32. ologists have favored flexible school admission over rigid age policies for quite some time.36 As was noted, school psychologists have been largely responsible for leadership in research in early school admissions and in calling attention to the problem. AS a further indication of the intensity of the issue, school superintendents, usually regarded as educationally conservative, indicated that eighty-five percent of their group were dissatisfied 36 with chronological age as the sole entrance criteria. AS of that time, sixty-eight were willing to accept the re- commendation of the school psychologists regarding a child's readiness for school. Up to this time, there has been no survey of kindergarten teacher opinion on this issue.38 (For this reason, opinion is sought regarding chronological age as the sole entrance criteria on the School Readiness Survey.) Considerable agitation directed against rigid school entrance procedures came from the "gifted child" move- ment. Gifted child programs were on the scene by 1920 3 . . . . . 6 American Psychological Association, DiViSion Sixteen Newsletter, Washington D.C.: American Psycho- logical Association, 1962, p. 8. 37 38 Differential or delayed admission has been allowed for Slow and retarded pupils for some time. With the advent of Special Education programs came an emphasis on early identification and placement, frequently at preschool levels. Marked concern for the slow and the retarded were apparent in educational literature by 1920 although large numbers of children were not involved until 1950 when legislation at State and national levels provided funds for programs. J. J. Porter, School Executive 74 (March, 1955), p.80. 33. but have developed rather sporadically. Some of the more recent studies have directed attention towards curriculum enrichment and later elementary grade acceleration as well as the early entrance of intellectually advanced pupils. However, it was through these kinds of programs that school readiness testing was actually initiated (A question relating to the early admiséon of intellectually advanced pupils is also asked on the survey.) At first, the issue in the early entrance of intell- ectually advanced pupils seemed to be that mental age should Simply be substituted for chronological age as the deter- mining entrance criterion. Some highly respected educators and psychologists Still insist that mental age is the best 38 The early available Single indicator of school readiness. emphasis on mental age and the IQ encouraged the building of a better intelligence test. While on the other hand, the concern with limitations of typical IQ measures lead to considerations of other facets of child development. The multi-factor approach was emphasized in wnicn the physical, soc1al and emotional factors (as well as the intellectual) received attention and resulted in new, broader approaches to the assessment of children for school readiness. (On the School Readiness Survey, the respondents were asked to comment on the adequacy of current readinessmeasures.) 38 James R. Hobson, "Mental A e as a Workable Criterion for School Admission", §_ementary School Journal 48: (1940), p. 48. 34. AS indicated above, the initial concern in preschool testing was simply in finding a better intelligence test. Later efforts at building a distinctive perschool readi- ness test attempted to account for emotional and social factors in the measurement of a child's development as well. The earliest of these, the Merpill-Pplmer Pppschool ppppp?9 seemed to meet test-making specifications. How- ever, those who had to administer this instrument found it hOpelessly cumbersome -- lengthy and complicated. It had an even more serious flaw in the eyes of the psychologists in that it seemed to measure rather generally the kind of maturity Which a child who had learned to follow directions might have achieved. In contrast to other later measures, this scale seems to fall within the narrow frame of ref- erence towards school readiness which kindergarten teachers were holding. In preschool testing as in their general outlook on educational problems, a rather broad orientation is apparent among school psychologists. Emotional and social behavior as well as the clinical and school orientations are held to be appropriate aspects of preschool testing. School readiness, too, is weighed against these criteria. And again, this is largely within what is regarded as the mental health frame of reference. (The field of preschool testing 39 The Merrill-Palmer Preschool Scale, Detroit: The Merrill-Palmer Institute, 1937. 35. remains highly Specialized and demanding of Skills in working with traditional psychological testing instru- ments as well as Specific training with school readiness measures, observations and conferences with parents.) For the purposes of this study, the relative import- ance of various series of factors, i.e., the intellectual, the social, the emotional and the motor are extensively probed by the SchooliReadiness Sugvev. A major portion of the survey is concerned with these differences. Opinions as the importance of various school activities, admission factors and certain kinds of kindergarten experiences are sought. The purpose of this survey will be to clarify and specify Similarities and differences between kindergarten teachers and school psychologists. Today, preschool testing de-emphasizes quantitative testing. An assessment study based on Simply academic or mental skills for school readiness purposes is regarded as inadequate. However, single "school readiness tests" con- tinue to appear and will undoubtedly continue to receive limited use. Their greater use will be as part of a bat- tery of tests brought to the readiness assessment scene. There are few clear-cut answers to many of the issues which are discussed and have been researched. AS an ex- ample, research on developmental differences between boys and girls at the five-year level has produced conflicting results. However, the recognition that children will be 36. best understood by looking at a number of aspects of their development rather than one, and that the great range of differences revealed by psychological assessment should be taken into account in school admissions does not exhaust the problem. It was found that on the basis of careful social, physical and intellectual measures that there were rather consistent mean differences between populations of girls and boys who were the same age and who came from similar socio-economic backgrounds.40 (The School Readiness Survey sought opinions on this issue too.) In reviewing the literature and evaluating early school admissions practices, there appears to be confusion and misunderstanding among the personnel involved. Some of the problem may stem from differences in perceptions between the groups involved. The success or failure of early admission programs in the past depended largely on whether the selec- tion criteria was relevant to the school expectancies. Kindergarten teachers and others who represented an activity- oriented approach tended to measure success in school strict- ly by adjustment andconforming criterion. Studies which use this evaluation approach consistently report negative re- sults concerning early school admissions.41 Studies which use other evaluation approaches, such as standardized tests, 40 Frank R. Pauly, "Sex Differences and Le a1 School Entrance Age", Journal of Educatinnal Research I45: 1950), pp. 1 " 90 41 See Irene M. Oliviari, The Relatpph to School Entrance A e, New York: Fordham University Publications, 1957, as an example of this viewpoint. 37. measures of academic success such as grade point averages and academic honors consistently report positive and sup- porting results favoring early school admissions. 42 It would appear that the greatest influence which the early entrance of advanced pupils bnught to the scene was a further recognition of individual differences in child- ren. Such terms as "flexible school entrance" appeared and a realistic look at the issues involved in breaking down the chronological age School barrier Was taken. Many of these studies were carried on by school psychologists and have aided in their focus on school readiness. Speci- fically, it has broadened the testing approach, pointed up areas in need of research and identified potential learn- ing problems. Through the early screening of pupils, the deprived child, the child with speech problems or verbally inadequate, as well as perceptual deficits were identified. Finally, of course, further defintion of School readiness criteria is sought. It is in this reSpect in particular, that this study hopes to clarify and Specify frames of reference. For the school psychologists, the larger frame of reference of mental health criteria appears to provide the theoretical bases for discussion of school readiness. guppper Summary. The frame of reference of kinder- garten teachers is referred to as an activity approach 42 See Jack Monderer, "An Evaluation of the Nebraska Program of Early Entrance", Unpublished Thesis, Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1953, as an exampb of this view- point. 38. because their primary concern appears to be with kinder- garten activities rather than with the growth of the indi- vidual child. This emphasis does not seem to support Froebel's kindergarten theories to which kindergarten teachers profess allegiance. The kindergarten teacher's orientation is also in conflict at several points with what has been referred to as a mental health criteria and which has become the operational philOSOphy of school psycho- logists. Both kindergarten teachers and school psycho- logists accept social development as highly desirable but by this the kindergarten teachers seem to mean a conform- ing to teacher-directed classroom activities whereas Froebel, psychologists with a mental health concern, and school psychologists appear to mean a series of autono- mously determined social interactions and experiences taking placemainly between individual pupils and groups of pupils. In addition, school psychologists have been attempting to arrive at adequate school readiness assess- ments through involvements with early school admissions programs, the early identification of learning problems in pupils and with considerable attention andstudy of measurement procedures involving preschoolers. CHAPTER III DEVELOPMENT OF THE SURVEY AND HYPOTHESES AS indicated in the Initial Statement of Purpose in the introductory chapter, the purpose of this study is to explore and§describe the attitudes and concepts of school psychologists and kindergarten teachers towards school readiness by making a survey study. What has been discussed thus far has been intended to set the stage for this focus on school readiness. Reviews of certain issues and ways of looking at the problem have been made in an effort to convey to the reader its multi-faceted nature. The writer has attempted to portray, forexample, some of the typical experiences of kindergarten, or what preschoolers are get- ting ready for. It is out of this frame of reference that the following questions have been posed; 1. What is school readiness? Do kindergarten teachers have an operational definition of a "ready" child? Do school psychologists have an operational definition of a "ready" child? 2. What are the differences and what are the Simil- arities in attitudes towards school readiness amon kindergarten teachers? Among school psychologists Between kindergarten teachers and School psycholo- gists? What is the significance of these Similar- ities and differences in attitudes and concepts towards school readiness? These questions were developed to serve as a framework for surVeying the field of school readiness and thus ulti- mately would contribute to the develOpment of the survey instrument, the School Readiness Survey. It Should be noted 39. 40. that for the purposes of this study, school readiness is defined to cover not only school admission requirements but also an ability to cope with the kindergarten Situation. This means then, that understandings as to what goes on in kindergarten and attitudes as to what should go on in kin- dergarten are also involved. The related issues in Chapter II indicated general as well‘as more specific problems in terms of differences of opinion and in theory between kin- dergarten teachers and school psychologists. The review of literature also reveals that there are explicit differences between the current statements made by official spokesmen about kindergarten aims and practices and other statements regarding desirable educational aims found in the mental health literature. Both general and Specific differences in the viewpoints of kindergarten teachers and school psychologists then, are of direct concern in the School Readiness Survey. There are also undoubtedly differences in vieWpoint which are implicit and which result from diff- erent interpretations of such terms as social. These are simply acknowledged and not taken to be the province of the present study. Background and Development of the Survey. AS noted in Personal Interest in Chapter I, the writer has been intensely interested in the school readiness problem for several years,has talked to many kindergarten teachers about their views, has dealt with the problems of early 41. admissions as a school psychologist and has, in an effort to understand the issues involved and apparent differences Of opinion, read widely on the problem. These personal experiences and the reviewing of the literature aided in giving the problem focus and also served as a basis for designing an approach to studying these questions. AS has been noted earlier, the final decision was to design an instrument which became the School Readiness Survey and to use it to clarify and describe these apparent differences in opinion between kindergarten teachers and school psychologists. The School Readiness Survey was designed to sample Opinions and concepts relating to several issues, all growing out of problems involving school readiness and each represented in a section of the survey. In Section I of the instrument, Opinions are sought on four major school readiness issues. These are not new issues; in fact, they have been studiedand researched at some length. In the educational world at large, there are divided Opinions about each Of these issues. The litera- ture did not reveal any dramatic Splits Of opinion between the spokesmen of the kindergarten teachers and the school psychologists. However, differences were apparent between statements made regarding kindergarten education and mental health theory. Beyond these differences, the investigator has Observed that in the translation of educational theory 42. into classroom practice, in this case -- kindergarten practice, there has been a seemingly widening gap between the views of the kindergarten teachers and the school psychologists. These major school readiness issues were included in the survey to permit the respondents to have an opportunity to eXpreSS themselves on the most import- ant issues and to permit further comparisons with other problems which were to be probed by the survey. The issues that were judged by the writer as most important were the following; A. Chronological age as the sole admission criterion. B. The evaluation of early admissions research. C. Differential admission based on sex (the earlier admission of girls). D. The adequacy of school readiness measures. It was felt that reponses to these issues would provide a basis for an understanding of the presumably different attitudes held by kindergarten teachers and school psycho- logists with reSpect to school readiness. The develOpment of the four remaining sections re- quired a more intensive search for meaningful approaches (Specific factors which might differentiate between the views of the kindergarten teachers and the school psycho- logists) because there were none which were readily avail- able and applicable for the purposes of this study. Each factor was selected by the investigator only after a study 43. of the literature and informal try-outs with both kinder- garten teachers and school psychologists. Section II of the survey asked that respondents make judgments regarding the relative importance of each of a series of factors with respect to how the child usually spends his time in kindergarten. Kindergarten teachers and school psychologists were asked to report their Opinions regarding the amounts of time Spent by children in the dev- elOpment of mental, social, physical and emotional maturity. Because there appeared to be some question in the literature regarding the extent to which social and play activities are utilized, this section particularly sought to probe this question. In the develOpment of the survey, preliminary forms were tried with kindergarten teachers and it became obvious that the meanings of several factors or skills which had been selected for inclusion in this section were ambig- uous. A further breakdown of these skills or factors was suggested by the kindergarten teachers who were observing aspects of growth directly. Thus they suggested that the mental factor be divided into verbal and academic. A per- sonal factor was added to account for the various apparent individual involvements. Physical Skill was changed to "motor" Since this was regarded as more Specific to the kindergarten situation. After these changes, six Skills remained; social, personal, verbal, motor, academic and emotional. 44. Section III was concerned with the importance of certain factors related to school admission. The respon- dents were asked to rank these in terms of their relative importance as indicators of kindergarten readiness. To do this, it was suggested that they take a theoretical frame of reference. From this point of view, the approach of considering mental, social, emotional and physical factors seemed appropriate and unambiguous. Chronological age was added to the four factors SO that it could be eval- uated against other indicators. Section IV asked that the respondents list a series of activities and attitudes in order of importance, in this case ten were selected in which children commonly engage in the kindergarten classroom. This listing was difficult to establish in that it needed to be inclusive of the variety of activities and attitudes which the child might eXpress in the school Situation. The early effortSof the writer contained a much longer list of facets of kindergarten life. To develop this, the writer had made extensive use of Hi1- dreth's book as well as previously cited works by Fuller, Davis and a Research Bulletin of the National Education Association. Ultimately, through varying approaches and combinations, the list was reduced to ten rather definite activities and attitudes which in the try-out sessions had been understood and considered relevant by kindergarten teachers and school psychologists. The list included such 45. activities and attitudes as tolerates situations, shows general knowledge, memorizes readily, works independently, and has intellectual curiosity. It was hoped that an eval- uation of the importance of these qualities would serve to contribute insights into those approaches considered as well as the actual and the practical Situations in kinder- garten.1 Section V of the Sghool Readiness Survey asked that the usefulness of certain kindergarten experiences be eval- uated. A four-way categorization was suggested by Brenner? This experience approach to kindergarten has been presented in recent years as a new and unique attempt to evaluate the total kindergarten situation. Brenner's feeling was that most references to kindergarten were not particularly meaningful because of misunderstandings of such terms as activities, program and curriculum. Hence, this new cate- gorization of experiences (also referred to as "transactions"). These categories include experiences with peers, teachers, objects and verbal symbols. This approach, it was hoped, would serve as a general check on other approaches and also provide another frame of reference to the Study. .Pretesting. Over a two-year Span of time, the invest- igator discussed the general issues related to school readi- 1 The Bureau of Educational Research of Michigan State university advised on the construction of Sections II and IV of the survey. Particular credit is due Mrs. Blum. 2 Anton Brenner, "Nature and Meaning of Readiness for School", ierrill-Palmer Quarterly 3 (195 ), p. 114. 4o. ness with kindergarten teachers and school psychologists. These interchanges helped in the formulation of questions out of which a preliminary survey was developed. Upon the development of a trial form of the survey, two pre- tests were undertaken. The preliminary survey was devel- Oped in the summer of 1963 after extensive informal try- outs of questions with both kindergarten teachers and school psychologists. In October of 1963, a pretest was conducted using kindergarten teachers at a Teachers Insti- tute in Grand Rapids. The participation by members of this group was optional. After the investigator reviewed the purpose of his study, Sixty kindergarten teachers remained and completed the survey. Upon completion, they were asked to comment on questions Which were not clear to them and to make suggestions. AS a result of this pretesting with teachers, several Changes were made in the wording of the survey in order to make meanings clearer. For example, in Section 11, the changes which have already been noted in regards to the further specification of skills were made as a result of these suggestions. In Section III, Chronological age was added as a factor and in Section IV, examples or various activities and attitudes were changed SO that they could be more readily understood. Changes in Section V mainly resulted from an informal research session in the fall of l963 at a workshop with 47. twenty school psycholongtS. Their suggestions also in- cluded further changes in the activity and attitude exam- ples in Section IV. In Section V, the school psychologists suggested that Brenner's term "transactions" would not be appropriate to use with a national group. The writer, in personal conference with Dr. Brenner, was assured that the substitution of the word "experiences" would not affect the meanings of the various categories and this change was thus made. The groups of the pretesting samples also served as a try-out for the various statistical procedures which were being considered. Survey Sample Selection. In the selection of the samples for the study proper, care was taken to select groups of kindergarten teachers and school psychologists who came from Similar school systems and thus could be compared meaningfully. In this way, variables regarding entrance policies, program and curriculum, as well as the various school practices of a regional nature would be accounted for. Inasmuch as there are relatively few school psycho- logists in comparison to the numbers of kindergarten teachers, a national sample of school pychologists was selected first with the intent of finding a comparable sample of kindergarten teachers. Because of the varying roles of school psychologists, a random sample of the 48. membership of Division Sixteen (school psychologists) of the American Psychological Association was not regarded as appropriate. Previous investigation by the writer revealed that some school psychologists do not accept preschool referrals or evaluate school readiness. It was ascertained from a 1962 Research Interest Check- list which was sent to the diviSion membership that school readiness was listed among the areas of "major concern" by 140 school psychologists.3 The stated interest of this group was regarded as indicative of a willingness to further ex- plore the issues and problems pertaining to school readi- ness and it was decided to use them as the population of school psychologists for the research. The names of these school psychologists were made available by the Office of the Secretary of Division Sixteen. Comparing this group to school psychologists in general, it was noted that they represented an appropriate sample geographically and were also comparable to unselected school psychologists in terms of professional training and years of experience.4 The sample of kindergarten teachers, which was ot be comparable to the school psychologist group, was obtained by studying national listings of kindergarten teachers. A listhg was located through a publishing concern which 3 Division Sixteen Newsletter, Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association, Summer, 1962. 4 Paul E. Eiserer, in The School Psychologist, Wash- ington D.C.: The Center for Applied Research in Education, inc., 1963, describes school psychologists nationally in Chapter I and these descriptions were used as a model. 49. handles listings for several national educational org- anizations.5 The effort was to determine whether the school districts which the selected school psychologists served employed kindergarten teachers. The school district employers of the school psychologists were obtained from the Directory of the American Psychological Association. The listings of kindergarten teachers were availaHe by school districts. Ultimately, one kindergarten teacher was paired with each school psychologist. This teacher was randomly selected fromthe total number of kindergarten teachers within a school district by using a table of ran- dom numbers. This was necessary Since no information with respect to years of experience and training was available regarding individual teachers. Four school districts had no kindergarten teacher listed and the sample was reduced to 136. In the school psychologist sample, it was noted that no school psychologists were listed from private or par- ochial kindergartens. This has limited the sample to a public school group. It should also be noted that the sample consists, in Eiserer's terms, of large and medium- Sized school districts. Only in two instances were school districts represented with less than 5000 pupils. These seem to be the primary limitations in the selection of the gpoups to be surveyed. A major objective of obtaining Service Press, Davenport, Iowa. 50. comparable groups and controlling a number of variables was realized by the selection of kindergarten teachers from the same school districts in which the school psycho- logists were employed. . The Sphool Readiness Survey was sent to both the kindergarten teacher and school psychologist groups with an identical cover letter which invited them to participate in a research survey. The surveys were sent to the school psychologists in February, 1964 and to the kindergarten teachers in March, 1964. The surveys were inconSpicuously coded and the respondents identified themselves only if they desired. Reminder notices were sent to those who had failed to return the surveys by May 1, 1964. By the first of June, 108 paired surveys (school psychologist and kindergarten teacher in the same school district) were returned. An initial analysis indicated that several from each group were not completed. Each incomplete survey, together with its paired survey was drOpped. As a result, one hundred paired surveys remained, representing a 70.3 percent return. Statistical Procedures. As soon as the instrument was constructed, an extensive search and consultation was carried out for an appropriate statistical analysis of the survey. The initial concern was in obtaining a measure of the ex- tent of association or relation involving sets of attitudes of two groups. However, in order to accomplish this, it was necessary to determine the association both within each of 51. the groups as well as between the two groups. In essence, then, three measures became involved. The first would note the association or agreement among the school psychologists as a group. The second measure was concerned with the ex- tent of agreement among kindergarten teachers as a group. The third measure was concerned with the extent of associ- ation or agreement between the two groups. In order to carry this out, the two groups were combined and in this study are referred to as the "combined group". The complexity of the rankings was almost unmanage- able when the usual chi-square, tests of significance, and tests of same-different populations were considered. The use of a contingency table would serve to Simplify the data. The Kendall Coefficient was considered as a possible ap- praoch but rejected, in that it too was highly involved with correction procedures which made it almost unmanage- able. Ultimately, a little-used approach suggested by Siegel called the Contingency Coefficient (C) was selected? It satisfied all the criterion in that it could readily be computed from a contingency table and the procedure itself was designed for populations or groups of this Size which mean considerable less involvement with correction measures than other formulations and procedures. An added advantage of the Contingency Coefficent (C) 6 Sidney Siegel, Non-Parametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, McGraw Hill: New York, 1956. 52. is that it is easily interpreted. It is directly compa- rable to Simple coefficients, i.e., coefficients above .70 indicate high agreement or contingency, from .50 to .70 indicate moderate agreement, .25 to .50 indicates low agree- ment and below .25 indicates very little agreement. gupppe;_§ummary_and_§tatement of Hypotheses. In the development of the School Readiness Supvey, the investigator worked with school psychologists and kindergarten teachers at first in individual conference situations and later, as the pretesting was carried out, in groups. Pretestingcic- tated certain modifications of the instrument as it was originally constructed. Following this, the Sphool:Readi- ness Survey was completed and the experimental sample se- lected. Finally, an appropriate method of statistical analysis was selected. The survey sections were developed concurrently with the hypotheses and follow the same gen- eral outline. In order to eXplore Similarities and differences in attitudes and concepts of school psychologists and kinder- garten teachers twards the various considerations involv- ing school readiness, Specific hypotheses are stated to give direction to the study; I It is hypothesized that kindergarten teachers and school psychologists do not agree in their attitudes and concepts towards certain major readiness issues: A. Chronological age as the major entrance criteria. B. The early entrance of intellectually advanced children. C. A differential admission based on sex (the earlier admission of girls). II III IV 53. D. The adequacy of school readiness measures and assessments. It is hypothesized that kindergarten teachers and school psychologists do not agree in their judg- ments as to how time is Spent in kindergarten. It is hypothesized that kindergarten teachers and school psychologists do not agree in their judg- ments as to the relative importance of admission factors. It is hypothesized that kindergarten teachers and school psychologists do not agree in their judg- ments as to the relative importance of certain activities and attitudes for kindergarten children. It iS hypothesized that kindergarten teachers and school psychologists do not agree in their judg- ments as to the relative usefulness of given kindergarten experiences. CHAPTER IV SURVEY RESULTS Chapter Procedure. The results of the School Readis ness Survey will be summarized at the outset and this in- formation will be followed by a detailed examination of the findings of each of the five sections. In summar- izing the results Of the survey, it seemed desirable to divide the informatinn into two parts; the first derived from Section I, is concerned with opinions on four issues which had been determined to be of major concern in the matter of school readiness and the remaining four sections concerned with the importance of admission factors and the kindergarten experience, both the way time is Spent there in a real sense and two sections -- one dealing with the relative importance of a series of activities and the other dealing with the relative usefulness ofla series of eXpefiences for success in kindergarten. In addition to the statistical findings from the various sections of the survey, there is a report on the comments which the respondents were invited to make after each of the questions. There were many comments and they give added insights into attitudes and interpretations which are not available from the survey results alone. In order that they are not confused with the specific findings of the survey results, they will be noted under a 54. 55. separate heading called Discussion. A table including the Contingency Coefficients (C), actual numbers of respondents and the mean rank differ- ences will be made for each of the five sections as well as the summary of general results. The method of report- ing statistical data will be described when presented. Summary of Generaeresults. AS indicated in Chapter III, four major issues were identified in the survey of the literature and in preliminary discussions with kinder- garten teachers and school psychologists as having a spec- ific relevance to school readiness and were placed at the beginning of the survey as Section I. The results of Sec- tion I pertaining to the hypotheses are presented in Table 1. The chi-square (at the .01 level of Significance) and Contingency Coefficients determine the acceptance or the rejection of hypotheses, i.e., that kindergarten teachers and school psychologists do not agree in their attitudes and concepts towards certain major readiness issues. 0f the four issues, it is apparent that kindergarten teachers and school psychologists are in agreement on only one -- that chronological age is not a satisfactory criterion for 4} kindergarten admission. Regarding the sufficiency of early admissions research as a basis for early admission of int- ellectually advanced children, kindergarten teachers as a group are undecided whereas school psychologists as a group are accepting. With respect to the early admission of girls 56. TABLE 1 SECTION I SUMMARY: MAJOR SCHOOL READINESS ISSUES Hypotheses: _ Results: A Chronological age as the . admission criterion Rejected B Early school admissions research as favorable Accepted C Earlier admission to kindergarten for girls Accepted D Adequacy of school readi- Accepted HESS measures kindergarten teachers as a group are more accepting of this than are the School psychologists as a group. Finally, on the issue of the adequacy of School readiness measures, the kindergarten teachers as a group are undecided and school psychologists as a group responded positively. Thus, it is apparent, if we generalize from this survey, that the kindergarten teachers and school psychologists differ consi- derably about admission procedures -- what Should be the criteria and how the situation Should be evaluated. The general results of Sections 11, III, IV and V are presented in Table 2. The chi-square (at the .01 level of significance) determines the acceptance or rejection of the hypotheses, i.e., that kindergarten teachers and school psychologists do not agree in their judgments in regards to 57. TABLE 2 GENERAL RESULTS: Sections II, III, IV and V Section: Hypotheses: . Result: II Ranking of time spent in kinder- . garten at various skills. Rejected III Ranking of the importance of . admission factors. Rejected IV Ranking of activities of kinder- garten classrooms. Accepted V Ranking of the usefulness of Accepted kindergarten experiences. the various questions asked in the School Readiness Survey. AS noted in Table 2, the hypotheses are rejected for Sec- tions 11 and III and accepted for Sections IV and V. There is agreement reported as investigated in Sections II and III by kindergarten teachers and school psychologists in two areas, as to the relative amounts of time devoted to diff- erent activities by children in kindergarten classrooms and the relative importance of a series of admission factors. However, judging from the results of Sections IV and V, there is little agreement between kindergarten teachers as a group and school psychologists as a group as to the rela- tive importance of a series of activities common in kinder- garten classrooms and similarly, that there is little agree- ment as to the relative usefulness of a Series of kinder- garten experiences. 58. Survey Sectipn I: Results. The first section of the survey dealt with four of the major school readiness issues. As was noted earlier, the respondent was asked to judge in terms of agreement (Yes), disagreement (NO) or indecision (Undecided). The first question which asked for a judgment was the following: In your judgment, is chronological age a satisfactory criteria for kindergarten admision? The vaults are presented in Table 3. AS noted by the Contingency Coefficients (C), high agreement is seen both TABLE 3 SECTION I-A: CHRONOLOGICAL AGE AS AN ENTRANCE CRITERION / Group: Numbers of Respondents C Yes Undecided No Kindergarten teachers 6 8 86 .74 School psychologists ll 5 84 .72 Combined groups l7 13 170 .73 within each of the groups as well as between the groups, or as indicated in Table 3, with the combined groups. In terms of percentages, eighty five percent of kindergarten teachers and school psychologists are not satisfied with chronological age as a criterion for kindergarten admission.l Survey Section I-A: Discussion. The results of this Because the numbers of respondents in each group was 100, these numbers are also percentages. 59. survey tend to corroborate other studies which also Show considerable disagreement with chronological age criterion. It is noteworthy that all groups surveyed on this issue report quite similar results. However, to the writer's knowledge, this is the only survey specifically involving kindergarten teachers. Survey Section I-B: Results. The second question of Section I was asked in an attempt to have the kindergarten teachers and school psychologists judge the value of the research and studies on early school admissions. They were asked to respond to the following: In your judgment, is research concerning the early admission of advanced pupils sufficient to justify such a practice? The results of the question are reported in Table 4. The area of highest agreement regarding this survey question is among the kindergarten teachers and this "agreement" indi- cates that they are undecided as to the adequacy of research relating to early school admissions. The next highest area of agreement, supported by a moderate Contingency Coefficient (C. of .48) points out that sixty percent of school psycho- logists in this sample are satisfied with research support- ing this issue. In the total percentages, the combined groups indicate that they are undecided regarding the re- search. Survey Sectipn I-B: Discussion. The comments made by kindergarten teachers were to the effect that most of their 60. TABLE 4 SURVEY SECTION I-B: JUDGMENTS AS TO THE VALUE OF EARLY ADMISSIONS RESEARCH Group: Numbers of Respondents C yes Undecided No ’ Kindergarten teachers 11 76 13 .67 School psychologists 6O 16 24 .48 Combined groups 71 92 37 .31 reading and experiences regarding early school admissions practices were satisfactory. They avoided specific refer- ences to studies and research. In contrast, school psych- ologists cited several studies and research relevant to early school admission. In the comments section, the school psychologists also were questioning the problems involved in administering such programs, the time involved in screening procedures for preschoolers and the follow-up of these pupils. On the basis of such comments, it might be assumed that these complicated problems may have influ- enced the responses of the school psychologists as well as the more basic question of their evaluation of early school admissions research. However, they still were largely in favor of the practice in spite of the questions raised. Sppyey_Section I-C: Results. The third question was asked in an attempt to obtain the Opinion of the respondents regarding the need to make adjustments to mental differences 61. TABLE 5 SECTION I-C: JUDGMENTS REGARDING EARLIER.ADMISSION OF GIRLS Group: Numbers of Respondents Yes ‘Undecided No C. Kindergarten teachers 82 7 ll .7. School psychologists 22 46 32 .26 Combined groups 104 53 43 .36 between boys and girls at the five-year level. They were asked to respond to the following: In your judgment, Should girls be admitted to kinder- garten at an earlier age than boys, i.e., three to six months? The results are summarized in Table 5. Kindergarten teach- ers are highly agreed that girls should be admitted to kindergarten at an earlier age than boys. Nearly half of the school psychologists were undecidd on this question and a third were unfavorable to the proposition. Survey Section I-C: Qiscussipp. The comments of the kindergarten teachers were in the main of the tongue-in- cheek type to the effect that they "have known this for years". The comments of the school psychologists indicated that they recognized that there are developmental differences between boys and girls at this age level. However, they appear to be unwilling to suggest that the problem is a case of Simply starting the girls in school earlier than the 62. boys. They noted other problems in boys which might need attention, such as coordination, more aggressive behaviors, and possibly less interest in school, and that these pro- blems might not be lessened by a later school entrance. §prvey Section 1:2; Resplts. The final issue per- taining to school readiness in Survey Section I was probed by this question: In your judgment, is an adequate measure of school readiness available? The results are presented in Table 6. In effect, the ques— tion asks to what extent adequate measures of school readi- ness are available for making judgments concerning the individual child. The highest area of agreement, as noted by the Contingency Coefficients, is with the school psych- ologists noting that school readiness measures are adequate. Kindergarten teachers are largely undecided on the matter. Moderate agreement is noted with each of the groups. Be; tween the combined groups, actual agreement is low. Survey SectionAI;Q: Apiscussion. Most of the kinder- garten teachers did not comment on this question other than indicating their unfamiliarity with readiness tests. After the question, both kindergarten teachers and school psych- ologists were asked to describe what they believed would be an adequate measure of school readiness. Again, the kindergarten teachers, in the main, did not respond to this request. Most of the school psychologists commented to some 63. TABLE 6 SECTION I-D: JUDGMENTS REGARDING THE ADEQUACY OF SCHOOL SCHOOL READINESS MEASURES Groups: Numbers of Respondents Yes undecided No C. Kindergarten teachers 20 63 17 .44 School psychologists 56 10 34 .47 Combined groups 76 73 51 .22 length. Many also mentioned specific school readiness measures. Nearly half of the school psychologists mentioned the Binet first. However, opinions regarding the Binet are quite divided. Some say that the "binet is Still the basic measure" while others "would hate to damm a child with the Binet". The next most frequently mentioned measures were expressions of hope in three new instruments: The Brenner Gestalt Test of School Readiness, the new preschool version of the Wechsler, and the Gesell Institute's Developmental Scales for School Readiness. Many mentioned the various perceptual measures, such as the Bender Gestalt, the Rutgers Drawing Tests, the Perception Forms Test and several ment- ioned informal and projective drawings as desirable. Pro- jective drawings were regarded as good indicators of social maturity as well as a good index of personal or develop- mental maturity and were frequently mentioned as a necessary 64. part of the readiness assessment study. Several ment- ioned the clinical judgment of the psychologist as an adequate indicator of emotional maturity. However, the Vineland Social Maturity Scale was mentioned but severely criticized for its inappropriateness to school readiness by several of the respondents. Survey Section I Summary. With respect to the major school readiness issues studied in this section of the survey, it may be concluded that: (1) Kindergarten teachers and school psychologists agree that chronological age is not a satisfactory criterion for kindergarten admission. (2) Kindergarten teachers are undecided as to the value of research pertaining to the early admission of ad- vanced pupils; school psychologists are inclined to accept the supporting research. (3) Kindergarten teachers are highly convinced that girls should be admitted to kindergarten at an earlier age than boys; school psychologists are undecided. (4) There is little agreement among either the kinder- garten teachers or the school psychologists as to whether an adequate measure of school readiness exists. However, school psychologists are more apt to feel this is true. Spgvey_Sectiop_;I: Results. The second section of the survey required kindergarten teachers and school psych- ologists to make judgments as to how kindergarten children 65. Should spend their time. Six skills were ranked from "taking the most time" to "taking the least time". The directions and Skills to be ranked were as follows; Please rank these skills as to actual time Spent in kindergarten; rank 1 as taking the most time, to 6 as taking the least time. (Skills to be ranked included social, personal, academic, motor, verbal and emotional.) The results are presented in Table 7. The Contingency Coefficients on these rankings show high agreement within TABLE 7 SURVEY SECTION II: JUDGMENTS OF TIME SPENT IN KINDERGARTEN Rank “222282;?“ psycfii‘ié’glsts 1 social skills (155)2 social Skills (141) 2 personal skills (244) emotional maturity (244) 3 verbal skills (344) verbal Skills (289) ‘4 motor skills (421) personal Skills (442) 5 emotional maturity (433) motor Skills (481) 6 academic Skills (500) academic skills (503) AND BETWEEN THE GROUPS. The C. for the kindergarten teachers is .67, for the school psychologists is .73, and for the combined groups is .66. The area of greatest agreement is amongthe school psychologists. Agreement among the kin- 2 The numbers in parentheses are the true difference ranks which Siegel regards as the truest indicator of the ' differences in rankings. They represent the sums of the rankings for a given item. 66. dergarten teachers and for the combined groups is some- what lower; yet is significantly indicative of good agree- ment. Both the first and the last positions are identical. The development of social skills is chosen by both groups as the area in which most time is Spent. The mean rank- ings in both instances are near 1.5. Both groups perceive that the least time is devoted to the development of academic skills. Among the school psychologists, emotional maturipy and the development of verbal Skiilp are ranked high in terms of their mean rankings (2.4 and 2.8). School psych- ologists appear to have common agreement as to what pppp- ional maturppy_means to them and in their evaluation, it occupies a primary Spot as to the actual Spending of time in kindergarten. Verbal Skills are also given primary time consideration. The fourth and fifth rankings of the psych- ologists are filled by personal skillp and motor Skills with rather low mean rankings of 4.4 and 4.8. These rank- ings were also close in terms of the true difference ranks and are considered as having definitely secondary Signifi- cance in terms of time consumption. In contrast, kindergarten teachers ranked personal Skills a close second in terms of time consumption. Posi- tions of secondary importance, according to the kindergarten teachers, were assigned to a group of three skills. Verbal skills was ranked third and in close succession, motor 67. Skills and emotional maturity. It Should be noted that yprbal Skills was ranked a full position below that given by the school psychologists. This suggests an area of difference in their judgment as to how time is spent. Kin- dergarten teachers do not see themselves as Spending much time in the development of verbal skillp. Motor skills are ranked somewhat higher by kindergarten teachers than they are by school psychologists. Survey Sectipn II: Discussion. In the comments of the respondents, kindergarten teachers and school psycho- logists alike, regarding the judgment of time Spent in kin- dergarten, there were repeated references to the belief that the way kindergarten is presently arranged, it is primarily a social experience. Both groups further emphasized that kindergartens are not academically oriented by which they referred to reading, reading readiness material, number workbooks and the like. Several respondents noted that academic tasks are sometimes used for other purposes, such as teaching work habits and developing concentration and attention. A few of the school psychologists noted that formal academic tasks should not be assigned to kinder- gartens but that the intellectual pursuit of general know- ledge, discussion and Sharing of experiences was to be en- couraged. Two different rankings in this section corroborate other study and research. The first is that of the rather 68. primary emphasis given verbal skills by school psycho- logists. Stutsman reports that verbal facility is highly valued by psychologists.3 In this survey section too, the indication is that psychologists think considerable time is spent in its development. Psychologists seem to view the importance of motor Skills aS of secondary importance ac- 4 cording to Bayley. Several kindergarten teachers noted that games and play activities as well as perceptual tasks may be regarded as motor Skills and it appears that they give this term a somewhat broader interpretation than the school psychologists did. This might account for the higher ranking. The area of greatest difference in perception of the way time is Spent in the kindergarten is related to the ratings given personal skills and emotional maturity. The high time emphasis given personal Skillp by the kinder- garten teachers, judging from their comments, is a reflec- tion of their awareness of the amount of time taken in a kindergarten classroom with such activities as dressing and the teacher's helping the pupils individually with respon- sibilities regarding their person. The comments of the school psychologists regarding personal skills suggests that knowledge about time Spent of these activities may not 3 Rachel Stutsman, Mental Measurement of Preschool Children, Yonkers-on-Hudson: World Book Co., p. 38. 4 an , yley, "Correlates of Mental and Motor Deve- lopment“, E§1§3 Development IV (1937), p. 329. 69. be common to school psychologists. Under the comments sections relevant to emotional maturit , it appears that kindergarten teachers are not agreed as to its meaning or may have regarded it as too general to attach a time vari- able to it. Several reSpondentS noted that it was the total kindergarten experience which produced emotionalgmaturity rather than its being taught as a Skill which took a def- inite amount of time. School psychologists made few com- ments to emotional maturity other than underscoring its importance. Obviously, they cannot know how much time is spent on the development of such a general quality but it might be inferred that psychologists think kindergarten teachers Spend a good deal of time trying to help children mature. This group difference regarding pmotipnal maturity is thus far the most significant expressed difference be- tween these two groups. Survey Section I;_Summapy. With respect to the judg- ments of time Spent in kindergarten which were studied in this section of the survey, it may be cnncluded that: (1) Kindergarten teachers and school psychologists agree that social:§kills mequire the most time in kinder- garten and that academic skills require the least. (2) The area of greatest disagreement has to do with emotional maturipy. School psychologists rank it as taking a primary amount of time whereas kindergarten teachers are of the Opinion that less time is involved. There is the 70. possibility that these groups interpret the term differ- ently and that it has such general meaning that assigning an amount of time to teaching it is hard to conceptualize. (3) School psychologists rank verbal skills as re- ceiving primary attention in time and kindergarten teachers feel its role is secondary; yet is ranked third by both groups in their perceptions as to how time is Spent in kindergarten. Actually, all differences Should be regarded as minor; over-all agreement is still at high levels. Survey Section III: Results. The third section of the survey added the dimension of the judgment of the rela- tive importance of a series of factors as bases for admission. The question asked and the directions given follow; What do you feel is the relative importance of the following in consideration for admission to kinder- garten? Rank 1 as the most important to 5 as the least important. (Factors to be ranked included mental age, soial maturity, chronological age, emotional maturity and physical maturity.) The results are presented in Table 8. The Contingency Coefficients within and between the groups is high. The C. for the kindergarten teachers was .73, for the school psychologists was .72 and for the combined groups was .70. The actual rankings are interesting from several van- tage points. The mean rankings as noted by the true diff- erence ranks are within one mean difference and suggest that the top three rankings of both groups are a cluster of rankings. Further, mental age is chosen over social 71. TABLE 8 SURVEY SECTION III: JUDGMENTS REGARDING THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF ADMISSION FACTORS Rank Kinder arten Schpol, teac ers psycho ogists 1 mental age (175) emotional maturity (200) 2 social maturity (184) mental age (204) 3 emotional maturity (276) social maturity (266) 4 physical maturity (391) physical maturity (381) 5 chronological age (473) chronological age (444) maturity (supposedly the goal of kindergarten) by both groups. Kindergarten teachers rank mental age and social maturity very high with emotional maturity somewhat lower. School psychologists rank both emotional maturity and mental age very high with social maturity somewhat lower. Again, the high priority given emotional maturity by school psychologists is emphasized. Chronological age was ranked last and of least importance as an admission factor by both groups. Egypi- cal maturipy also receives a low (fourth place) rank, i.e., is perceived as having relatively low significance as a factor when admission to kindergarten is considered. Survey Section III: Discussion. In the differential ranking of the relative importance of admission factors, 72. both the results and the comments of the respondents hint that the kindergarten Situation is apparently regarded as somewhat broader than a social experience. Several of the respondents noted that mental age is becoming increasingly inclusive as a concept and very important. Many of the comments in this section were in regards to chronological pgp and physical maturity Mainly, the respondents stated their opposition to the use of these factors in considering the admission of pupils to kindergarten. Survey SectioanII: Summapy. With respect to the judgments of kindergarten teachers and school psychologists regarding the relative importance of admission factors and based on results obtained from Section III of the survey, it may be concluded that: (1) There is high agreement between kindergarten teachers and school psychologists as to the relative importance of admission factors. (2) There is a suggestion that both groups are not strict adherents to kindergarten as a social experience. Mental age was ranked as the most important consideration by the groups combined for admission. Again, School psychologists underscore the importance of emotional maturity (ranked 4 true difference points higher than mental age). (3) Both groups rank chronolpgicalpage and physical maturity as least important in admission considerations. 73. Survey Section IV: Results. In the fourth section of the Sphopl Readiness Survey, an attempt was made to understand more about what the task of the kindergarten is seen as -- what is the niative importance of certain atti- tudes and activities which the child is seen as needing in the kindergarten. The question asked and directions given follow: What is the relative importance of these Skills or activities for success for kindergarten children? Rank 1 as the most important, to 10 as the least important. (Skills and activities to be ranked include; works with a group, works independently, cares for his per- son, verbalizes readily, tolerates situations, listens to directions, coordination, intellectual curiosity, general knowledge and memorizes readily.) Table 9 documents the results of this question. The Con- tingency Coefficients for these rankings are most reveal- ing; kindergarten teachers, a C. of .81, school psycho- logists a C. of .78 and the C. for the combined groups is .50. Only moderate agreement is seen between the groups, i.e., when they were combined. The kindergarten teacherss, among themselves, and the school psychologists, among them- selves are in high agreement. In fact, the highest coeffi- cients of the entire survey are in this section. And there are significant differences in the judgments of teachers and psychologists. Further, this section elicited the greatest number of comments from the respondents which also might suggest critical differences. The examination of these rankings and their true differences ranks indicate clusters or groups of activities. 74. TABLE 9 SURVEY SECTION IV: JUDGMENTS REGARDING THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF ACTIVITIES AND ATTITUDES Rank Kindergarten School teachers psychologists 1 listens to directions (158) intellectual curiosity (289) 2 works with a group (276) tolerates situations (350) 3 works independently (321) verbalizes readily (393) 4 cares for his person (380) works with a group (446) 5 verbalizes readily (578) general knowledge (500) 6 tolerates Situations (585) listeS to directions (576) 7 coordination (618) works independently (600) 8 intellectual curiosity(797) coordination (626) 9 general knowledge (832) cares for his person (851) 10 memorizes readily (949) memorizes readily (946) The kindergarten teachers rank four activities as of primary importance for success in kindergarten. These four are; listens to directions as a high first, second is works pith apgroup, works independently is ranked third and fourth is cares for his person. Lgspens to directions is given a very high first position with a mean ranking of 1.5. Another activity in this cluster of primary importance is yppks with a group and following closely, works independently. Cares for his 75. person was ranked fourth and speaks to the amount of time Spent in kindergarten in the various personal activities. A secondary group of activities ranked by kindergarten teachers as important for success in_kindergarten includes three activities. Given moderate recognition in the fifth ranking is verbalizes readily. Ranked as sixth in this cluster of secondary activities was tolerates Situatlpns. Coordination is ranked as seventh and last in this cluster. .Activity areas given minimal recognition include a group of three activities or attitudes. Intellectual curiosity was ranked as eighth. Geneppl knoweldgp was ranked ninth and memorization was ranked tenth and last. The rankings of the school psychologists are not as widely distributed as those of the kindergarten teachers. The top six rankings of the school psychologists as indi- cated by the true mean differences fall within three rank- ings (between the second and the fifth) of the kindergarten teachers. In short, their attitudes towards these activi- ties appear to be more general in terms of their rankings. In this group of Six primary activities, intellectual curiosity was ranked first. Tolerates Situations was ranked second and verbalizes readily was ranked third. Ranked as fourth in the list of primary activities was works with a gpppp. General knowledge was ranked as fifth and listens to directions sixth. Receiving secondary recognition by the school psych- 76. ologists was seventh-ranked works independently and coordination was eighth. Minimal recognition was given cares for his person which was ranked ninth and memorizes readily which was ranked tenth. Survey Section_IVi Discussion. This section elicited more comment from the respondents than the other sections did. Many of the comments are quite revealing and perti- nent to a discussion of the rankings. In regards to the kindergarten teacher's ranking of listens to directions as first, several teachers noted that listening appeared to be an almost-forgotten skill or acti- vity. Others noted that it was a prerequisite to many other kindergarten activities. School psychologists, who ranked this activity Sixth, noted that this activity might be more important later in school than in kindergarten. A few also noted that listenipg to directiopp appeared to be an attention span factor or that it could be assessed by attention span factors on psychological tests. School psychologists also noted that this might be more of a moti- vational matter whereas kindergarten teachers appear to be responding to this activity in terms of relationships to direction and authority -- certainly a needed skill for a child if he is to do well in the tasks required in kinder- garten. It also appears that works with a group and works independently, ranked second and third by kindergarten 77. teachers, were taken to mean a conforming to authority by the kindergarten teachers. Several noted that this meant "working quietly without bothering others". Others noted that this might well be considered the primary goal of kindergarten and that subsequent grades and learning experiences would be easier if this goal were readily realized. A few teachers commented to the effect that kindergartens tend to be as large as other classrooms in terms of numbers of pupils and that because of this fact, it is regarded as quite mandatory that children are able to work with a group, to get along with others, to share attention of the teacher and become perceptive to the fact that they belong to a group and must subserviate their needs and identity to this group. School psychologists appeared to see these activities which they ranked as fourth (yppks with a grOpp) and sev- enth (works_independently)somewhat differently. Their com- ments were of two kinds. First, their comments were to the effect that if pupils were responding to the group situation without being forced to do so, this was surely indicative of social maturity. Some school psychologists appeared to see this working with a group as a cooperative and volun- tary participation on the part of the pupil. Quite in con- trast, other school psychologists viewed these activities as implying attention and conformity to the direction of the activity ofthe kindergarten classroom and the teacher. 78. They viewed these activities in a "work" frame of reference suggesting that completion of an assigned task independently without undue support or attention from the teacher while other pupils are working. The critical element of the latter viewpoint was the required participation in a work assignment. gppgsfor his person.also drew many comments from the kindergarten teachers and their ranking this activity as fourth Speaks to the amount of time they see themselves as spending in the personal care of their pupils. They alluded to the time-consuming tasks of assisting with dressing, cleanliness, and such "times" in kindergarten as "rest time" "snack time" and "bathroom recess". The school psychologists ranked this activity a low ninth and their lack of comment to this activity probably Speaks to the fact that this activity is somewhat outside the realm of experience of the school psychologist. Three activities -- intellectual curipsity, verbalizes readily and generalgknowledgg were ranked high (first, third and fifth respectively) by the schoolgsychologists who also commented extensively regarding these activities. These skills or attitudes were frequently noted as the goals of kindergarten and involve the best content for all acti- ties. The reSpect and desire for learning were also noted as quite dependent on the develOpment of these three acti- vities. The school psychologists tended to be rather 79. excited about these activities and indicated concern with the lack of interest in these activities in many kinder- gartens. Several school psychologists commented regarding the creativity aspects of mental develOpment and suggested that facility in thinking up questions might serve aS a "creativity index". Others noted that the inquiring mind has become the every-day concern of the psychologist who confronts pupils singly. School psychologists, in comment- ing on the importance of verbaliggppgadily underscored the importance of the ability to communicate and that psychological testing relied heavily on verbal facility, even at the five year level. Such comments by the psycho- logists tends to corroborate others expressed in the test- ing literature and discussions of intelligence regarding the importance of the verbal factor and a general mental factor as viewed by psychologists.3 IntelleCtual curiosity was also noted as implying a high level of interst and motivation towards learning in the child which would be regarded as indicative of school success for the child. Kindergarten teachers commented negatively to these activities and ranked them considerably lower (fifth, eighth, and ninth). Several noted that kindergarten teach- ers did not have time to handle Spontaneous and extraneous questions. Several also noted that kindergarten teachers regard the development of verbalization and general know- ledge as first grade objectives. Others noted that there Nancy Bayley, "On the Growth of Intelligence", American Psychologist X (1955), p. 805. 80. were few activities geared to developing these activities in the present kindergarten program. Theiact was alluded to the effect that the teacher is confronted with the child- ren in a group and with the class as an audience and that this leads her to be unlikely to appreciate the ability of individual children to focus on more questions and prob- lems. Kindergarten teachers noted that verbalization abilities were highly over-rated by parents and generally over-emphasized. Both kindergarten teachers and school psychologists added that generalyknowledge might be an un- fair activity to culturally disadvantaged children if it were competitive. AS was noted in previous sections, pplprates Sitpp- plppp was regarded as emotionally-toned by school psycho- logists, who ranked it second and have consistently scored the emotional factor high in importance. The school psych- ologists commented that this activity or attitude suggested that pupils were responsive and accepting of the stresses and involvements of the classroom and that they were using the attitudes of tolerating Situations as highly indicative of personal and developmental maturity. Kindergarten teachers commented very little on tolerates Situations, and as on previous occasions, de-emphasize emotionally-toned activi- ties. Kindergarten teachers seem to be uncomfortable with emotionally-toned references to development and maturity. Coopdination was ranked comparably by the kindergarten 81. teachers (who ranked it seventh) and the school psychologists (who ranked it eighth). Many of the kindergarten teachers commented to the effect that "either you have it or you don't . . . it can hardly be taught". In the literature, the development of the Skins involving coordination and perception are important and seem to be given considerably 4 more prominence in the kindergarten program. School psych- ologists commented that it was important to screen for perceptual deficits in children but also ranked it low. Several mentioned that the develOpment of coordinationwas not crucial until first grade. Memppizes readily received considerable comment from both groups and was ranked tenth and last by both groups. Most of the comments were to the effect that memorization was greatly over-emphasized. Several school psychologists noted that of all the activities listed, it was the least related to intelligence. Current kindergarten practice, as suggested by the literature, assigns to memorization a rather prominent role in the list of activities; certainly greater than that accorded it by this survey? One wonders whether the role assigned to memorization in this survey represents an ideal rather than an actual appraisal. Sev- eral kindergarten teachers alluded to the idea that memo- rization sounded too much like academically-oriented activi- ties and, as such, less importat in kindergarten. 4 5 H Hildreth, Chapter III. pp. cit., ildreth, pp. cit., Chapter IV) 82. In conclusion, mention is made of several indications. All of the activities whichvere rated as primary by kinder- garten teachers are non-verbal and tend to be conforming kinds of activities. Even the comments of works with a gpppp referred to non-social Situations. In saying that verbally-involved skills and activities are minimal to success in kindergarten further underscores their listing of primary activities, i.e., the listening skills and the like. It would surely seem that kindergarten teachers regard verbal activities as quite incompatible with the listening and working activities which they rank as primary. The school psychologists noted generally that several of the listed activities and skills overlapped. They noted that works independently might be taken to mean the ability to carry out a task and that emotional maturity was involved as well. They also noted that the ability of ready verbal- ization was also indicative of this understanding of a situation, which in turn was indicative of emotional maturity. Several school psychologists noted that they referred to activities Specifically as taught by teachers and learned by pupils which apparently caused them to rank the activities as they did. SpgyeyISectbn IV: Summary. With respect to the judg- ments regarding the relative importance of kindergarten activities, it may be concluded that: (1) In the ranking of kindergarten activities by kinder- 83. garten teachers, primary importance is attached to listening, conforming, and non-social activities. (2) In the ranking of kindergarten activities by school psychologists, primary importance is attached to verbal, intellectual and social activities. (3) Kindergarten teachers are highly agreed among themselves as to the relative importance of Skills and activities. School psychologists are also highly agreed as a group. Agreement between the two groups is moderate. (4) The conflict in attitudes towards kindergarten activities suggests that school readiness is viewed accord- ing to different criteria in regards to what is expected of the child in kindenprten by these two groups. Survey Section V: Results. The final section of the survey attempted to assess the kindergarten Situation in terms of a four-way experience categorization. The ques- tion and directions follow: Which of these eXperiences of the kindergarten child do you feel are the most useful for school success? Rank 1 as the most useful to 4 as the least useful. (Experiences to be ranked include: experience with peers, teacher, objects and verbal symbols.) Both within and between the groups, the Contingency Coeff- icients are moderate: kindergarten teachers, a C. of .60, school psychologists, a C. of .59, and the groups combined, a C. of .45. The results are presented in Table 10. The results of this section can hardly be considered conclusive because of the low Contingency Coefficients. 84. TABLE 10 SURVEY SECTION V: JUDGMENTS REGARDING THE RELATIVE MPORTANCE OF EXPERIENCES Rank Kindergarten School teachers psychologists Experience with: Experience with: l peers (138) verbal symbols (165) 2 teacher (200) peers (233) 3 objects (323) teacher (272) 4 verbal symbols (335) objects (329) The rankings of the kindergarten teachers are commen- sorate with previous survey results. EXperience with_peers is ranked first. In this somewhat more theoretical approach, the social goals and aSpects of kindergarten are oiled forth. Experience with teachers was ranked second and the import- ance of the teacher in guiding the pupils is probably what is implied. The third-ranked experience with objects and the fourth-ranked eXperience with verbal symbols are close with mean rankings of 3.2 and 3.3. These results are also consistent with their tendency to down-grade verbalization and academic activities in kindergarten. In marked contrast, the school psychologists rank experiences with verbal symbols first. As they have done throughout this survey, verbal factors have been regarded 85. as having primary importance in kindergarten experiences. Experience with peers was ranked second by school psycho- logists and almost a full mean ranking below that assigned it by the kindergarten teachers. Ranked as least important by school psychologists were experiences with teacher as third and experiences with objects as fourth. Survey Section V: Discussion. The comments on the last section were quite typical of previous remarks. School psychologists again reiterated the importance of verbal symbols and experiences. Kindergarten teachers again com- mented adversely concerning verbal development in kinder- garten. Kindergarten teachers underscored the role of the teacher as the director and guide to learning and activities. They made frequent references to teacher-involvement in all phases of kindergarten experience. The kindergarten teachers referred to the amount of time and the intensity of the teacher-pupil relationship or experience as most critical for success in kindergarten. Their comments were often of the "teacher makes the kindergarten experience" variety. School psychologists made reference to the importance of peer interaction as being a primary function of kinder- garten. In this respect, they noted that the role of the teacher was regarded as more limited. Experienceppith peers was ranked first by the kindergarten teachers and almost a full mean ranking above that assigned it by the school psychologists. However, the commentswade by kindergarten 86. teachers again suggest that they View the expefience as conforming to teacher-directed group activities. On the other hand, comments made by school psychologists suggest that they View experience in a peer social interaction manner. It is in this fashion that the school psycho- logist's regard for the teacher as the director or guide of kindergarten expeiences is not held to be as signifi- cant as it was by the kindergarten teachers. The example of experience with objects suggested learning tools such as crayons and toys. AS such, it may have struck a responsive note of the academic skills variety which caused lower rating by both groups. How- ever, both groups apparently hold the value of these kinds of objects as relatively unimportant. Many of the respon- dents noted that the activity involved with the object would determine its importance. Several kindergarten teachers noted that there were too many play objects in kindergarten classrooms and that these kinds of objects were frequently distracting to the pupils and deterrants to other experiences and activities. Survey Section V: Summary. With reSpect to the judgments regarding the relative importance of kindergarten experiences, it may be concluded that: (1) This particular frame of reference appears to be less meaningful than the others used in the survey as suggested by the low and moderate correlations. 87. (2) The kindergarten teachers reiterated their stand to the effect that social conformity is the most important experience and that verbalization experiences are the least important experiences in kindergarten. (3) The school psychologists underscore previous findings in their persistant attitude that verbal experiences are the most important of the kindergarten experiences. Chapter Summary. In conclusion to this chapter, the contrasting images of the kindergarten child as viewed by the kindergarten teachers and school psychologists will be con- structed on the bases of responses and comments to the survey. As viewed by the kindergarten teachers, the ideal kinder— garten child is a passive, listening child who cultivates conformity to classroom activities and teacher direction. His personal maturity is represented by his ability to take care of himself and work by himself at whatever tasks are asked of him. The child is the recipient of learning from the teacher and the group. He is secondarily involved in the learning process. What he may know, or howwell he can express himself, are considered less important. (Abilities in thinking up questions or in memorization are regarded in poor judgment.) The kindergarten is regarded as a social experience but it is a limited, directed and conforming Situatinn which demands personal self control and maturity. The image of the ideal kindergarten child, as viewed by the school psychologist suggests an active, verbally involved 88. child. The verbal facility is emphasized to the extent that he is encouraged to think up questions and verbalize exper- iences. Social experiences tend to be Open and less control- led with the teacher farther in the background. Mental fac- ility and an inquiring mind are held in high regard and the child is actively involved in both learning and experiences. Personal maturity is expressed mainly in terms of the ability to tolerate Situations. There is less emphasis on conform- ity and more on Sharing and social interaction. There is less teacher, object, or activity control. There seems to be a give—and-take social atmOSphere wherein the child is allowed to seek and experience rather than be controlled and directed. From the pupil's standpoint, the atmOSphere is considerably more verbal and pupil involved. The implications of these conflicts and contrasts between kindergarten teachers and school psychologists will be evaluated against the questions and hypotheses which have been set forth. Their Significance will be weighed against rather specific school readiness criteria which will be summarized in the next chapter. CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Five topics are considered in this final chapter. First, the general conclusions based on the Sphool Reapi- ness Survey are reviewed. These conclusions are drawn from the five sections of the survey and show both Simi- larities and differences among and between kindergarten teacher and school psychologist groups. Following this, the social implications of the findings are discussed. Particular emphasisis placed on the role of activities -- the Similarities and differences of opinions about acti- vities held by school psychologists and kindergarten teachers as noted in the survey results as well as in the comments made on the survey. The problem of assessing school readiness is reconsidered in light of the implica- tions of the survey. In the summary of this chapter, several implications for further research are presented. General Conpipsions_§§sed on the §chool Readiness Survey. These results are based on the survey which was given to a national population of kindergarten teachers and school psychologists. The survey consisted of five sections and each section will be briefly discussed as to both Similarities and differences in ratings made among and between kindergarten teacher and school psychologist groups. In terms of the differences of Opinion on four major 89. .90. school readiness issues which were examined in Section I, there is general agreement of the combined groups of respondents on only one issue, namely that chronological age is not a satisfactOry criterion for the admission of kindergarten pupils. On the second issue, early admissions research, school psychologists are agreed that the research favors the early admission of intellectually advanced pupils whereas kindergarten teachers are undecided. The third issue is concerned with a differential admission to kindergarten based on sex. Kindergarten teachers favor the earlier admission of girls whereas school psychologists are undecided on the issue. On the fourth and final issue considered in Section I, the adequacy of school readiness measures, School psychologists feel that adequate measures are available but the kindergarten teachers are undecided. In the main, differences of opinion between the groups on the four issues appear to be greater than the similarities. School psychologists feel that the research resits regard- ing early school admissions as well as actual school readi- ness measures are valid and favorable. On the other hand, kindergarten teachers favor an earlier admission to kinder- garten for girls whereas school psychologists are undecided on the issue. In Section II of the School Readipess Survey, there was more pronounced agreement between the kindergarten teachers and school psychologists. Both groups were asked 91. to consider how time is actually Spent in the kindergarten during the school day. Both groups agreed that the deve- lOpment of social skills or maturity takes the most time. Both groups agreed that relatively little time is spent on academic work in kindergarten.1 In Section III, the respondents were asked to Shift their frame of reference to the individual child and to a hypothetical situation. They were asked to judge the qual- ifications of the "ready" child in terms of the relative importance of a series of factors necessary for school 3 admission.2 In this frame of reference, the social factor 1 See page 43 for a complete breakdown of this section. 2 . 3 In the construction of the School Readiness Surve , the writer failed to recognize clearly all of the ramifica- tions regarding the term social and consequently, the reference to social factors and activities are less precise than desirable. However, itappeared to the writer that kindergarten teachers were using quite a different frame of reference than were the school psychologists. This was noted after a careful examination of the comments relative to Section IV. pii examples of kindergarten teachers to the socialization process referred to the pupil's con- forming and adapting to teacher-oriented classroom activities. In contrast, all examples noted by school psychologists referred to the socialization process in terms of peer interaction in independent play activities of an unsuper- vised nature such as on the playground, during recess, or at "free play". On this basis, at least in part, it has been assumed that kindergarten teachers and school psych- ologists are very much in disagreement regarding both the use of the term "social" as well as the purpose and function of the socializing process in kindergarten. To the reader, then, it Should be understood that information relating to the usage of the term "social" may, at times during this chapter, be dependent on sources other than the direct results of the Sphool Readiness Survey. See page 44 for a complete breakdown of this section. 92. iS regarded as only moderately important by both kinder- garten teachers and school psychologists. The kindergarten teachers ranked the mental factor as more important and the school psychologists ranked both the mental and the emot- ional factors as more important than the social factor. It is interesting to note that when both groups were asked to report how time was actually Spent in kindergarten, social activity was rated as the most important factor but on a question related to the importance of factors determing admission qualifications, it was regarded as somewhat less important. Section IV of the School Readiness Survey probed the relative importance of a series of activities and attitudes for success in the kindergarten classroom as judged by kindergarten teachers and school psychologists. Little agreement is seen between these groups in attitudes and concepts which concern school readiness in terms of the individual kindergarten child in this section. Kindergar- ten teachers regard listening to directions of the teacher, the ability to work in a group or independently and to care for his person as the major activities and attitudes which contribute to the success of a kindergarten child. School psychologists regard intellectual curiosity, tol- erance of situations, ready verbalization, ability to work with a group and general knowledge as important kindergarten attitudes and activities. Neither the kindergarten teachers 93. nor the school psychologists regard memory skills or the development of coordination as primary activities of the kindergarten. School psychologists rate ready verbaliza- tion somewhat higher than do kindergarten teachers and give intellectual curiosity and general knowledge much higher rankings than do the kindergarten teachers.4 Kindergarten teachers and school psychologists were asked to rate the relative importance of a series of kin- dergarten experiences in terms of school success in SectiOn V of the School Readiness Survey. It is in this section of the survey that the differences in thinking become clearest. Of the four areas in Which the relative importance of school experiences are rated, school psychologists choose verbal symbolsas most important and kindergarten teachers rate these as least important. The rank importance of the three remaining experience areas -- peers, teachers, and objects is the same for both groups. However, the kinder- garten teachers feel that these three kinds of experiences tend to be relatively more important than verbal experience.5 In conclusion, it can be seen that there are some major agreements and disagreements between kindergarten teachers and school psychologists. In Section I, the two groups agree that chronological age is not a satisfactory criterion for kindergarten admission. However, the two See page 45 for a complete breakdown of this section. See page 46 for a complete breaddown of this section. 94. groups are not agreed as to what considerations should go into early admissions. In Section II, it is noted that both groups agree that social Skills take the most time in kindergarten classrooms and that relatively little time is Spent on academic work. In Section III, kinder- garten teachers and school psychologists agree that mental age, emotional maturity, and social maturity are import- ant factors to consider when a child is being admitted to kindergarten. Both groups also agree that chronological age and physical maturity are the least important factors. In Section IV, listening to directions and the ability to work independently or with a group are regarded as most important by kindergarten teachers while the school psych- ologists regard intellectual curiosity, ready verbalization and general knowledge as most important. Section V also reveals a rather striking difference between the two groups. They were asked to make judgments regarding the relative importance of certain experiences for the kindergarten child. School psychologists rate experience with verbal symbols as the highest as before, while kindergarten teachers rate this kind of experience lowest. Social Implications and Discussion. As was noted earlier, one of the terms which has been used repeatedly and has become very much involved in this study is the term "social". The dictionary Specifies it as a ". . . tendency to form cooperative and interdependent relationships . . . 95. the interaction of the individual and the group."6 The writer has been concerned about the meaning of this word throughout this study. In the development of the survey instrument as well as in earlier discussion with kinder- garten teachers and school psychologists, he realized some confusion and became quite aware of the problem when he read the comments that accompanied the survey. As a re- sult of this, he has concluded that the term often means quite different things to kindergarten teachers and school psychologists. It has been stated previously that kindergarten teachers appear to generally use the term "social" to mean conforming behaviors to teacher-directed group activities, i.e., they refer to this as a socialization process and this accounts for the group activities which are so greatly emphasized in the kindergarten literature. The extent to which kindergarten practice iS preoccupied with these acti- vities is indicated by Hildreth who suggests that adjustment of individual pupils Should be defined in terms of conform- ity to the socialization process and that children must be- come adjusted to the group. This view suggests that it is expected that changes or modifications of behavior will be made from without the child rather than that these will come autonomously from within. It would appear then, that to the kindergarten teacher, the socialization process may 6 Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 7th edition. 96. often mean conforming to behavior standards and activities which are, for the most part, set and determined by the teacher herself and then incorporated into the child's behavior. This can be taken to mean that teaching listen— ing skills, seatwork and group games would be seen as develOping social maturity in children. Social maturity is then interpreted as having learned conforming behavioral patterns rather than learning to behave independently. In contrast, it is the writer's impression (gained from his evaluation of the comments of school psychologists to the survey) that school psychologists are more concerned with "creative becoming". For these psychologists, the critical element seems to be that the behavior comes more directly from the child (a kind of self control) rather than imposed standards from without. Social maturity is marked by the internaligation of behavioral expectancies. This is also the frame of reference in which mental health theorists generally use the term. It may be noted that such terms as "adequate perception of reality", "Openness to experience", and "integrative" behaviors imply a recog- nition of the social standrds of behavior. And in turn, social experience would foster growth toward maturity, self actualization, and other behaviors indicative of personal and social maturity. School psychologists seem to be aware of the use of the term social as a "socializing"effort to control and 97. have turned instead to the term "emotional maturity" in their reference to a developmental type of maturity. It will be recalled that in Section II of the Sphoqineadi- ness Survey, both kindergarten teachers and school psych- ologists indicated that social activities took the most time in kindergarten. However, in Sections III and IV, as the reference to hypothetical kindergarten situations was called for, school psychologists indicated that emotional maturity was more important. Particularly in the comments of school psychologists, repeated references are made to a child's ability to tolerate, to adapt and to adjust to the direction of the teacher and to conform to the activities of the group. These experiences appear to demand greater emotional maturity than what is usually referred to by school psychologists as social maturity. School psycho- logists, by their comments, tend to agree with-the Webster definition of social and by it refer to individual and group interaction and this kind of social experience is, of course, still regarded as moderately important. But the greater Significance for the kindergarten child, accord- ing to the school psychologists, is with emotional maturity and emotional experiences. As will be noted later, this frame of reference appears to have greater validity in terms of school readiness assessments as well. It has already been noted that the generally accepted philosophical viewpoint of kindergarten literature is that 98. the experience for the child is to be primarily social. At least at a verbal level, kindergarten teachers appear to believe that the activities into which pupils are dir- ected have social experience goals. In practice, however, it might be said that kindergartens have departed markedly from the theory of Froebel. Kindergartens are obviously entitled to changes in either theory or practice if indi- cated. However, it would cause much less confusion if this shift of emphasis were recognized as well as the fact that different people define the terms differently. How- ever, as is also noted by a careful examination of the literature, American kindergartens have become involved with teacher-directed activities and less involved with peer social interaction and the use of independent play and discovery methods as suggested by Froebel.7 This difference and conflict in meaning between kindergarten teachers and school psychologists is particu- larly important in this context of school readiness. Kin- 7 The word play has, to some extent, come under the same confusion. Webster refers to play as ". . . the Spontaneous activity of children . . . to move aimlessly about . . . as involving free or unimpeded motion". Even the term "free play" of kindergarten in which children are permitted to choose a particular activity hardly meets this definition. However, Froebel's statements regarding kindergarten play agree rather precisely with Webster. His kindergarten involves the kind of play in which children would be permitted to develop and discover quite independently, or cooperatively with peers, with little direction from the teacher. Such also appears to be the reference of mental health theorists in their quest for intra-personal maturity through inter-personal experiences. 99. dergarten teachers appear to want quiet, listening, con- forming children (the results of the socializing process) whereas school psychologists tend to regard children as mature and deuiOping in positive ways if they perceive situations and can objectify and understand the reality of the social scene (the outcomes of social experience according to the school psychologists). These differences in the interpretation of the meaning of social maturity can, of course, mean that the child is judged as ready for school by one standard (the school psychologist's) and after he gets there, is held accountable to quite a different standard (the kindergarten teacher's). The Role of Activities. In examining the values held by those professional workers closely involved with kinder- gartens, it can be seen that kindergarten teachers place an emphasis on activities. Historically, these seem to have come out of Freobel's early efforts. However, accord- ing to Froebel's kindergarten theories, activities Should represent an attempt to foster the natural play aspects of children and thus to provide greater opportunity for social growth and experience. The activities which were intro- duced to the children had no particular didactic value. They were intended to be enriching experiences. The role of the kindergarten teacher was Simply to present the activities and then remove herself from the situation to permit self-discovery and social interaction to take place. 100. Currently, in American kindergartens, the Situation appears to be different. The role of the kindergarten teacher seems often to be that of the presenter, the director and the enforcer of activities which have be- come, in effect, the objectives of kindergarten. These activities are viewed by kindergarten teachers as social learning eXperienceS and children are required to parti- cipate. Whether the activity is listening to a story read by the teacher, playing a group game, Singing as a group, or participating in an art project, it appears that successful conforming and achieving in the given activity is the objective. Kindergarten teachers apparently fail to recognize the control that they exercise and the academic orienta- tion implied when they use activities in these ways. It may be recalled that Hildreth Spoke of the rigidity and repressive atmosphere of the grades and that she intended the kindergartens were not to be like this. She went on to say that the academic subjects in elementary school were introduced in an atmosphere which was not condusive to best growth and learning in children. Yet, her book recommended and kindergarten teachers appear to have used activities much the way academic requirements in the grades have been used and seem to require much the same kind of conforming and repressive patterns in their class- rooms as do other elementary teachers. 101. School psychologists appear to recognize the role assigned to activities by kindenarten teachers and thus view the kindergarten as somewhat more controlling and more academically oriented than do the kindergarten teach- ers. In an ideal or hypothetical Situation, they regard the development of verbal abilities through verbal Sharing and telling of experiences as important. They seem to realize that the development Of intellectual curiosity and verbal facility calls for a considerable de-emphasis of the typical kinds of kindergarten activities. In con- trast, the kindergarten teachers regard the development of verbal facility and intellectual curiosity as distinctly minor objectives. However, the perception of the school psychologists as to the role that teacher-directed activities should play in the classroom differs markedly from the views of kinder- garten teachers. The school psychologist seems to be pri- marily concerned with the individual child and in helping him develop intellectual and emotional independence. School psychologists apparently recognize that kindergartens actu- ally place heavy emphasis on this socializing process as achieved through teacher-directed activities. However, school psychologists do not consider this, or at least the way it is done, as an ideal condition. They make it rather clear to them, that a major goal of the kindergarten eXper- ience (beyond develOpment of emotional maturity) is the 102. intellectual and verbal abilities of the child. Assessing School Readiness. The results of this sur- vey indicate that the assessment of school readiness is no simple matter. The rather decisive rejection of chronolo- gical age as an appropriate entrance criterion puts both kindergarten teachers and school psychologists on record as believing in a flexible approach to admitting children to kindergarten. This finding suggests that our concern is not only with the early admission of mentally advanced children but also with the déayed entrance of mentally Slow children as well aS with a staggered admission of children according to their readiness for school tasks. In Speaking of kindergartens generally and referring back to questions regarding the kindergarten teacher's description of a "ready" child, we may now proceed to put together some impressions. The kindergarten teacher's frame of reference against which school readiness is discussed is in terms of a developmental maturity. This matte child is able to accept direction and conformity from the teacher and the group. He is a good listener and can work independently as a member of a group to which a task has been assigned. He is not particularly aggressive or verbally responsive. The image is one of rather receptive, passivelearners who are alertly awaiting the teacher's orders so they can be obediently carried out. Kindergarten teachers feel that 103. this demands at least average intelligence (several noted this in the comments sections) but more frequently refer to a child's’readiness in terms of what they call maturity. Their problem children are invariably referred to as "im- mature". Sometimes, they are the youngest members of the class. In other instances, they are the children who can- not curb their aggressions, who talk too much, who are not personally responsable for their clothing and care or who fail to carry out assignments. The "ready" child is re- cognized by the kindergarten teachers as the mature, con- forming, listening child. The school psychologist's image of the "ready" child is quite in contrast to that of the kindergarten teacher. As was noted previously, the School psychologists want a high level of verbal facility. They are most impressed with a child's ability to verbalize concerning his school experiences. They seek an expression of intellectual cur- iosity and active excitement about learning. Another facet of the school psychologist's image of the "ready" child amounts to a mental health appraisal. The school psychologist iS far more impressed with a child's understanding, perceiving and tolerating than he is with simple conforming and following. These characteristics are more typically a part of emotional maturity as viewed clinically than they are of social maturity in inter- personal relationships. 104. At this point, as school readiness is more specific- ally noted, mention must be made to the specifics of a local kindergarten situation, i.e., will the child read in kindergarten, etc.? Reference should also be made to the regard for individual children with unique problems such as the verbally shy and unresponsive child, the child with speech deficiencies, the hyperactive child, etc. as to the school's willingness to accept and work with these children. As assessment procedures are noted in terms of the results of the School Readiness Survey as well as the added comments of the respondents, which in this regard were rather extensive, it is seen that the testing stan- dards of the "ready" child consist of two facets. The first is gained through a basic clinical measure of intell- igence which is already highly verbal at the five year level. The second facet is impressions of emotional maturity gained from reactions to stress and authority in the testing situation, understandings and insights, and general response and maturity in accepting a new situation. This latter facet may be tapped by projective drawings which Show levels of conceptualization or organization. Emotional maturity may also be evaluated by impressions of this kind of maturity. Most of the comments in the survey regarding social maturity indicated that this was the most difficult area to assess. Several respondents noted the 105. inadequacies of psychometric instruments in this area. Other than the Vineland Social Maturity Scale (which was frequently referred to as unsuitable for school readiness purposes) there is no psychological testing instrument which even suggests that it measures social maturity. School psychologists are actually without an assessment tool or technique for determining a level of social matu- rity. Typically, it is generally alluded to in an assess- ment study as part of general maturity or else ignored. The school psychologist's frame of reference towards school readiness represents this same dual-faceted approach. Both Sections III and IV of the School Readiness Survey give credence to the importance of the mental and the verbal factor in school readiness. Adn much of the research in regards to early school admissions as well suggests that some indication of mental age or level of intelligence is advisable. However, the usual clinical measures of intell- igence present complications with such pupils as the verbal- ly resistive child and the socio-economically deprived child. In this reSpect, some school psychologists are reluctant to use the traditional Binet Scale. It iS in this area that the second facet becomes involved. Again, Sections III and IV underscored the importance of the emotional factor. The current trend towards the "gestalt" tests suggests that its proponents feel that it gives a more realistic appraisal of development and maturity (including emotional) than the more 106. traditional measures. There is good research evidence to support this impression. School psychologists have insisted that a developmental measure is appropriate in adequately assessing School readiness. AS to agreement between school psychologists and kin- dergarten teachers regarding the intelligence factor in school readiness, its similarity with general develOpment suggests basically high agreement. Activities which kinder- garten teachers ask of children can be carried out reasonably well if average intelligence is present. In many cases, the dull and slow student becomes obviOus to the kindergarten teacher after a short time in kindergarten as he does to the school psychologist in a preschool testing session. AS was noted previously, school psychologists tend to assess this general maturity as emotional maturity. Judg- ing from responses and comments in the survey, kindergarten teachers and school psychologists seem to be talking about comparable behaviors when maturity is mentioned even though their approaches to terminology differ. To the school psychologist, the emotionally mature child tolerates Situ- ations and adapts readily because he has the understandings and insights regarding expectancies and the maturity to achieve these expectancies. At this point, there is proba- bly no disagreement with the kindergarten teacher as to the expectancies of the child. They want conformity and the ability in the child to listen and follow directions although they may not be concerned with the child's insights and under- 107. Standings. However, the kindergarten teachers tend to refer to the conforming process as either Simply maturity or the socialization process. The school psychologist would not be directly concerned with the teaching process involved but would be calling the maturing process and the apparent conformity an internal emotional maturity. In summary to assessing school readiness, kindergarten teachers and school psychologists appear to be in moderate agreement. Both groups agree that general development as measured by a basic intelligence factor is involved. The terminology of this phase of school readiness is referred to by both groups as maturity. AS a second facet of this maturity, school psychologists refer to emotional maturity. Kindergarten teachers are most uncomfortable with the emotional maturity frame of reference. They prefer to Speak of the second facet of maturity in socialization terms although their usage of this term is not in keeping with the accepted usage of Webster or with the theory of Froebel, or for that matter, with the school psychologists. Implications for Further Research. During the time of the writer's concern with school readiness and the attitudes and concepts of kindergarten teachers and school psychologists, there have been occasions when the involve- ments of the problem seemed hopelessly immense. In this respect, a new appreciation has been gained for research and a constant need has been felt for additional study and 108. research. Some of these areas of concern relating to school readiness are briefly noted here. This survey has clarified some of the departures of kindergartens from Froebelian theory. Certainly, a more extensive analysis of kindergarten teacher attitudes and concepts regarding all facets of kindergarten is indicated. This analysis Should elicit some of the differences between kindergarten education and education in general. An ex- tensive statement of the philOSOphy of kindergarten is indicated and if Froebel is outdated, a more realistic philOSOphy Should be set forth. On the other hand, a reconsideration of the educational objectives and practices of kindergartens may be in order. Education seems to be particularly slow in intro- ducing indicated change. Flexible entrance has seemingly beenacceptable to a wide range of school personnel for some time.' However, most of the projects relating to school admission have been concerned only with the early school admission for the intellectually advanced which is, of course, a first step towards flexible entrance. These programs have received considerable attention and have achieved the sanction of several states.- A Shift in focus now appears to be indicated and specific projects with flexible entrance, possibly based on school readiness test- ing, are needed to carry out research implications. Terminology also needs to be operationally defined 109. with groups who are using terms differently. Reference has already been made to the terms social and emotional. These terms could be used more appropriately if agree- ment could be reached as to their meaning. By their generality and vagueness, communication is hampered. Some terms, such as "immaturity", through over-use and miS-use' become so general that the meaning conveyed merely repre- sents condemnafion. AS was noted in this study, however, this is no simple matter. For example, terminology needs to be approached from several levels. In this case, it was noted that at least three levels of interpretation were involved; there were the spokesmen for the kindergarten teachers, there were occasional interpretations from the kindergarten teachers themselves, and finally, the practi- cal application of what was thought to have been said or done to carry out an objective. All of this, of course, underscores the ideal that communication Concerning school learners and learning problems needs to be as articulate as possible. Differences noted in the survey also appear to be worthy of study. The Whole matter of the relative importance of verbal abilities needs clarification. What accounts for the vast differences between these two groups of educational Specialists regarding intellectual curiosity? It would appear that this represents a very basic question involving all of learning and particularly early school experiences. 110. Once again, the matter of goals, philosophy and programs to fit these goals are long over-due. As was noted at the outset of this study, the role of the school and the meaning of education are variously defined indeed! It then becomes the responsibility of kindergarten teacher and school psychologist alike in noting school readiness that our focus and perceptions of these varying and sometimes incompatible points of view do indeed need constant re-assessing. BIBLIOGRAPHY Books. Allport, Gordon W. Becoming. New Haven: University Press, 1955. ' Association for Childhood Education. The Kindergarten Centennial, 1837 - i937. 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Kindergarten - Primary_Education. New York: Ronald Press Co., 1961. National Education Association. An Annotated Bibliography of the Academically Talented Students. Washington, D.C.: National Education Association, 1960. National Education Association. The Guggent Status of the Kindergarten. Washington, D.C.: National Education Association, 1934. Oliviari, Irene M. The Relation of School Eptrance Age. New York: Fordham University Publications, 1957. Owen, Grace. Nursery School Epucation. London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1923. Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer. Lectures ip Training Schools for Kindergarten. Boston: Heath and Co., 1886. Read, Katherine. The Nursery School: A Human Relatipnship Laboratory. Philaddphia: Saunders Co., 1960. Rogers, Carl. On Becoming a Person. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1961. School Psychologists Division (EdS.). The Psychologist on the School Staff (Report of the Committee on Recon- sideration of the Functions of the School Psychologist). Wgsgington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1 5 . Shane, Harold G. and Yauch, Wilbur A. Creative School Administration. New York: Holt and Co., 1954. Siegel, Sidney. Non-Parametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences. New York: McGraw-Hill Co., 1960. Stutsman, Rachel. Mental Measurement of Preschool Children. Yonkers-on-Hudon: World Book Co., 1931. 114. Terman, E.L., McAllister, William, and Lorge, Irving. Non-Language Multi-Mental Test. New York: Columbia University Teacher's College Bureau of Publications, 1943. Vallett, Robert E. The Practice of School Psychology. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1963. Vandewalker, N.C. The Kindergarten in American Education. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1908. Wellman, Beth Lucy. The Intelligence of Children as Measured by the Merrill-Palmer Scale. Iowa City, Iowa: The University, 1937. White, Mary Alice and Harris, Myron W. The_§phooi Psychologist. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1961. Wiggin, Kate (Ed.). Froebel's Gifts. Cambridge: River- side Press, 1896. Articles and Periodicals. Allen, G. Masling, J. "Early Assessments". Journal of Educational Research, December, 1951, 285-296. Ammons, M.P. and Goodlad, John I. "When to Begin - Dimensions of the First Grade Entrance Problem", Childhood Education, September, 1955, 204. Anderson, J.E. "The Limitations of Infant and Preschool Tests in the Measurement of Intelligence", Journal of Psychology VIII (1939), 351-380. Barrot, Ernest S. "The Relationship of the Columbia Mental Maturity Scale to the WISC? Journal of Consulting Psychology 20 (August, 1956), 294-296. Bayley, Nancy. "On the Growth of Intelligence", American Psycholqgist, X (1955), 805-818. Bayley, Nancy. "Environmental Correlates of Mental and Motor Development: A Cumulative Study from Infancy to Six Years", ChildjEevelOpment IV (1937), 329-341. Birch, Jack W. "Early School Admission for Mentally Advanced Children", Exceptional Children 21(December, 1954), 84-87. Bradway, Katherine P. "Predictive Value of S-B Preschool Items", Journal of Educational Psychology XXXVI (1945), ,1-16. Bijou, Sidney W. "Discrimination Perfrmance as 3 Baseline for Individual Analysis of Young Children", Child Development 32 (March, 1961), 163-170. Blair, Ghnn M. and Jones, P.S. "Readiness" Enqyclopedia of Educafional Research, 1960, 1080-1086. Brenner, Anton. "Nature and Meaning of Readiness for School", Merrill Palmer Qperteriy 3 (1957), 114. Brenner, Anton. "A New Gestalt Test for Measurino Readiness for School", Waldonwoods Collected Papers, 1559, Chap- ter 11. Brenner, Anton. "Reality Perception, Perceptual Differentia- tion, and Readiness for School", Merrill Palmer Quarter- iy 4 (1958), 196. 115. 116. Brenner, Anton and Samelson, Nancy M. "Kindergarten Behavior and First Grade Achievement: A Case Study Exploration", Waldonwoods Collected Papers, 1958, Chapter VI. Brondy, H.S. "New Look at Readiness",.Schooifiang Society 91 (December 28, 1963), 424-430. Carter, Lowell B. "Effect of Early School Entrance on the Scholastic Achievement of Elementary School Children in the Austin Public Schools", Journai_pf Educational Research 50 (1956), 91-103. Cone, H.R. "Brookline Admts Them Early", Nation's Schools 55 (March, 1955), 46-47. COOper, M.G. "Predicting School Achievement for Bilingual Pupils", Journal ongducational Psychology 49 (Febru- ary, 1958), 31-36. Cureton, James G. "Mental Age Equivalents for the R83 Vocabulary Test", Journal of Consuiting_£sychoiogy 18 (1954), 381-383. de Hirsch, Katrina. "Tests Designed to Discover Potential Reading Difficulties at the Six Year Level", American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 27 (1957), 566-576. Division Sixteen. "Report of Fall, 1958 Research Interest , Checklist", American Psychologist 14 (1959), No. 4. deLourdes, Sister Mary. "Importance of Readiness at the Kindergarten Level", Nationai_Catholic Education Associadon Bpiietin 60 (August, 1963), 537-543. Dwyer, P.S. "Correlation Between Age at Entrance and Success in College", Journal of Educational Psycholpgy 30 (April, 1939), 251-264. Dyer, D.W. "Visual Perception and Binary Patterns by Preschool and School Children", Journal of Educational Psychology 52 (June, 1961), 161-165. Edmiston, R.W. and Holahan, C.E. "Measures Predictive of First Grade Achievement", School and Society 63 (1946), 268-269. Forester, J.J. "At What Age Should a Child Start School?", School Executive 74 (March, 1955), 80-81. 117. Gates, Arthur I. "The Necessary Mental A e for Beginnin Egadin ", Elementary School Journai 7 (March, 1937 7- 9 . Gates, Arthur 1. "Further Evaluation of Readin Readiness Tests", Elementary School Journal 40 (1940 , 577-591. Gelles, Herbert M. and Coulson, Marion C. "At What Age is a Child Ready for School?", School Executive, August, 1959. Graham, F.K. ”Development in Preschool Children of the Ability to Copy Forms", Child Develqpment 31 (June, 1960), 339-359. Hamalainen, Arthur E. "Kindergarten-Primary Entrance Age in Relation to Later School Ad ustment", Elementary School JQppnal 52 (March, 1952;, 406-411. Handy, A.E. "Admission of Underage Pupils", American School Board Journal 83 (August, 1931), 46. Handy, A.E. "Are underaged Children a Success in School?", American School Board Journal 97 (October, 1938), 31-32. Harriman, D.E. "The Bender Gestalt as a Measure of School Readiness", Journal of Clinical Psychology 6 (1950), 175. Hausman, E.J. "Ready for First Grade?", School Executive 59 (February, 1940), 25-26. Heffernan, Helen. "Early School Admissions", Childhood Education 34 (November, 1957), 112-117. Heffernan, Helen. "Pressures to Start Formal Instruction Early", Childhood Education 37 (October, 1960), 57-60. Hildreth, Gertrude H. "Age Standards for First Grade Entrance", childhood_Education 23 (September, 1946), 22‘27 o Hobson, James R. "Mental Age as a Workable Criterion for School Admission", ElemgntarySchooiJoprnal 48 (1948). Hofman, Helmut. "Children's Drawings as an Indication of Readiness for First Grade", Merrill-Palmep:guarteriy 4 (1958), 165. 118. Hofman, Helmut and Brenner, Anton. "Children's Perceptual and Conceptual Levels in Relationship to Readiness for School Tasks", Waldonwoods Collected Papers, 1959, Chapter III. Hofman, Helmust and Brenner, Anton. "The Role of Knowledge and Information for Kindergarten and First Grade Readiness", Waldonwoods Coliected Papers, 1960, Chapter II. Honzik, Marjorie P. "The Constancy of Mental Test Perform- ance During the Preschool Periods", The Journal of Genetic Psychology 52 (1938), 285-302. Houle, Cyril 0. "Minimum School A e Attendance", Elem- entary School Journal 47 (1947), 427-428. Hurst, John C. "A Factor Analysis of the Merrill Palmer", Educational Psychology Measurement 20 (1960), 519-532. 11g, F. L. and Ames, L.B. "Every Child in the Right Grade", Instructor 73 (November, 1963), 7. Kazienko, L.W. "Beginner Grade Influence on School Pro- ress", Educational Administration and Supervision 40 IApril, 195 , 219-228. Kelley, M.R. "IS the Half Day Kindergarten Adequate?", Elementary_instruction 7 (1960), no. 3., "Kindergarten is Readiness", National Catholic Education Association Bpiietin 58 (August, 1961), 361-366. Kind, Inez. "Effect of Entrance Age into Grade One upon Achievement in Elementary School", Elementaty Schooi Journal 53 (February, 1955), 331-336. Knight, J. and Manuel, H.T. "Age of School Entrance and Subseqeunt School Record", School and Society 32 (July 5, 1930), 24-26. Koppitz, Elizabeth M. "Revised S-B Scoring System for Children", Journal of Clinical Psychology 14 (1958), Koppitz, Elizabeth M. "Note on Screening School Beginners with the B-G Test", Journal of Educational Psychoiogy 52 (April, 1961), 80. Koppitz, Elizabeth H. "Prediction of First Grade Achieve- ment with the B-G and Human Figure Drawings", Journal of Clinical Psychology 15 (April, 1959), 164-168. 119. Kowitz, G.T. "Readiness: Its Three Phases", National Elementary Principal 43 (February 1, 1964), 2-5. Lenner, Roger T. and Mitchell, Blythe C. "Trends in Age- -Grade Relationship: a 35-year Review", School and Societ 82 (1955), 123- 125. Levinson, B. M. "Binet Non-verbal Preschool Scale", Journal of Clinical Psychology 16 (January, 1960), 12-13. Evinson, B. M. "Research Note on Columbia Mental Maturity Scale and the RSB- L in a Preschool Population" Journal of Clinical Psycholqu 16 (April, 1960), 158- 159. Levinson, B. M. "Re- evaluation of the RSB-L Vocabulary Test as a Test of Intelligence for Kindergarten and Primary School Children", Childhpod Education 93 (1958), 237- 248. Lorr, Maurice and Meister, R.K. "The Optimum Use of Test Data" Educational and Psychologipai_Measurement II (19423, 339-348. Luttgen, Gertrude. "Use of the Brenner-Gestalt Test as a Measure of Readiness for School", Waldonwoods Coll- ected Papers, 1960, Chapter IV. McCandless, Boyd. "Should a Bright Chfld Start School Before He IS Five?" Education 77 (1957), 370. McHugh, Geolo. "Changes in Goodenough IQ at the Public School Kindergarten Level", Journal of Educational Psychology 36 (1945), 17- 30. Manwiler, C.E. "Follow-Up of Pupils Tested for Placement in Grade One Before a C.A. of Six", Pittsbprg Public Schools 10 (January, 1936), 68-95. Meinert, Rudolph. "Investi ations on School Readiness", Psychologie Rdsch. 6%1955), 188-198. Meister, Ralph. "An Evaluation of a Short Administration of the RSB Examination", Educational and Psychological Measurement, August, 1951, 489- 93. Moore, Omar K. "TiS Time He Shoid Begin to Read", Carnegie Corporation of New York Quarterly IX (April, 1961), No. 2. 120. Nemzek, C.L. and Finch, F.H. "Relationship Between Age at Entrance to Elementary School and Achievement in the Secondary School", School anigSociety 49 (June 17, 1939), 778-779. _ Pank, Walter J. "Are Present Reading Tests Valid for Both Boys and Girls?" Journal of Educational Research 53 (1960), 279 (No. 7 . Parson, G.E. "Readiness for School", Elementary School Journal 57 (February, 1957), 272-275. Partington, J.M. "Relation Between First Grade Entrance Age and Success in the First Six Grades", National Eiementary Principai 16 (July, 1937), 292: 02. Patterson, Hardy. "C.A. of Highly Intelligent Freshman", Peabody Journal of Educatipp 12 (July, 1934), 19-20. Pauly, Frank R. "Sex Differences and Legal School Entrance Age", Journal of Educational Research 45 (1951), 1-9. Pauly, Frank R. "Should Boys Enter School Later Than Girls?" Natinnal Education Associatipn Journal 41 (1952), 29- 31. Pinneau, S. and Jones, P. "Early School Entrance", Review of Educational Research 25 (December, 1955), 77. Ralph, Jean. "The Brenner Gestalt as a Measure of Readi- ness for School", Waldonwopps Coiiected Papers, 1960, Chapter V. Rowland, T.D. and Nelson, C.C. "Off to School - At What Age?" Elementary Schooiggournal 60 (October, 1959), 1.8-230 Simon M.D. "Body Confi uration and School Readiness", Child Develgpment 0 (December, 1959), 493-512. "Should Beginning Pupils Be Admitted on Mental Age?" Nation's Schools 56 (1955), 6. Thompson, Jennie Lloyd. "C.A. Does Count", Journal of Education 115 (December 5, 1932), 661-664. Thompson, Jennie Lloyd. "Big Gains from Postponed Reading", Journal of Education 11 (October 15, 1934), 445-446. Trow, William C. "When are Children Read to Learn", Education Digest 21 (September, 1955 , 21-23. 121. "Too Young for School?" Life 35 (September 7, 1953), 89-90. Vieweg, William E. "The Albion Study: A Longitudinal Study of Readiness for School Tasks as Measured by the Brenner Gestalt Test", Waldonwoods Collected Papers, 1960, Chapter VIII. Wright, Grace 8. "Permissive School Ages in Local School Systems", School Life 28 (July, 1 46), 20-25. "Validity of Early Entrance Into Kindergarten", Journal of Educational Research 56 (September, 1962), 53-54. Unpublished Material. Brubaker, Charlene Hill. "Effects of a Two Year Kinder- GartenF, Doctoral Dissertation, New York University, 1960. Gordon, Ira. "New Look at Learning", Article for the 1966 ASCD Yearbook (Mimeographed Pre-Publication Copy). Hastings, Harold. "The Predictive Value of Individual Items in Preschool Intelligence Tests", Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, 1952. Monderer, Jack H. "An Evaluation of the Nebrasks Program of Early Entrance to the Elementary School", Doctoral Dissertation, University of Nebraska, 1953. Pauly, Frank R. "Further Research on Sex Differences with Implications Regarding School Entrance for Boys and Girls", 1960 (Mimeographed COpy). Trachtman, Gilbert M. "Personality and Developmental Characteristics Rated Most and Least Ready for First Grade", Doctoral Dissertation, New York Univeraty, 1959. Tyler, Frank and Brownell, William. "Readiness for School", 1956, University of California (Mimeographed Pamphlet). Weiss, Rosalle Greenfield. "Validity of Early Entrance Into Kindergarten", Doctoral Dissertation, New York University, 1960. Wilson, Milton. "Screening Instruments for School Entry", California Association of School Psychologists and Psychometrists, Conference Workshop Notes Number 6, March, 1961 (Mimeographed Copy). 122. APPENDIX A. COPY: School Readiness Survey. March 20, 1964 Dear Colleague; What is meant by School Readiness? The attached School Readiness Survey is an attempt to examine the kindergarten experiences of children as these pertain to school readiness. It is hoped that a consideration of these issues may have a bearing on early school admission practices and the psychological assessment of the preschooler. Judgments of various personnel concerned with early school experiences of children are being gathered. The research survey is supervised by Dr. Elizabeth M. Drews of Michigan State University. You need not identify yourself on this survey. If you wish to comment further, it will be appreciated. Your helpfulness in completing this survey will be appreciated. Eugene Scholten 61 West 16th Street Holland (Michigan) Public Schools. 123. 124. School Readiness Survey. Please check in the Appropriate response: In your judgment, is chronological age a satisfactory criterion for kindergarten admission? Yes Undecided No Comment: In your judgment, is research concerning early admission of advanced pupils sufficient to justify such a policy? Yes Undecided No Comment: In yourjudgment, should girls be admitted to kinder- garten at an earlier age than boys (i.e., three to six months)? Yes Undecided No Comment: In your judgment, is an adequate measure of school readiness available? Yes Undecided No Would you please describe what you believe is or would be an adequate measure? 125. 11 Please rank these skills as to actual time Spent in 111 f kindergarten: Rank 1 as taking the most time to o as taking the least time. developing developing developing developing developing developing Please comment: social skills (e.g. living with social rules) personal skills (e.g. dressing self) emotional maturity (e.g. accepting direction) verbal skills (e.g. telling experieces) academic skills (e.g. writing numbers) motor skills (e.g. rhythm activities) What do you feel is the relative importance (ideally) of the following in consideration for admission to kinder- garten; Rank 1 as the most important to 5 as the least important. emotional maturity (e.g. ability to accept direction) chronological age (e.g. 4 years 9 months old) mental age (e.g. as measured by the Binet) social maturity (e.g. ability to get along with peers) physical maturity (e.g. general size, motor facility) Please comment: 126. IV What is the relative importance (ideally) of these skills or activities for success for kindergarten child- ren? Rank 1 as most important to 10 as least important. general knowledge (e.g. knows basic colors) development in coordination (e.g. prints name legibly) intellectual curiosity (e.g. thinkgs up questions) listens to directions (e.g. pays attention) works independently (e.g. carries out a task) works with a group (e.g. participates cooperatively) cares for his person (e.g. dresses self) memorizes readily (e.g. pledge to the flag) tolerates situations (e.g. accepts direction) verbalizes readily (can relate experiences) Comment: V Which of these experiences of the kindergarten child do you feel are the most useful for school success? Rank 1 as the most useful to 4 as the least useful. experience with verbal symbols (e.g.language ability) experience with peers (e.g.social interaction) experience with teacher (e.g. accepts direction) experience with objects (e.g. crayons, toys) Comment: APPENDIX B. Related_Literature Review. Early School Admissions and Preschool Testing. Purpose. The Intention of the review of the litera- ture regarding early school admissions and preschool test- ing is to present in historical perspective those facets of study and research which have a bearing on school readiness. The rather extensive literature is alternately well executed and again rather poorly carried out. Although the topics appear to be separate, they are quite inter-related in that early school admission programs for intellectually advanced pupils are highly dependent on preschool testing. In turn, preschool testing has developed to a considerable extent in order to assess school readiness for possible early admission candidates. Early Prggghool Assessments. As has been indicated in Chapter II, the mental age and the IQ were regarded as all- sufficient in the early twentieth century and through the 1920's. Diagnoses of retardation, verification of gifted- ness, and acceptance of early school admission candidates were satisfied with the quantitative results of tests.1 The two revisions of the Binet (the 1905 Binet-Simon and the 1916 Binet) and a lesser used version, the Kuhlmann 1 See Chapter I of Beth Lucy Wellman, The Intelligence of Children as Measured by the Merrill-Palmer Scale, Iowa City, Iowa: The University, 1937. 127. 128. Binet were the most common measures of intelligence. At that time, these tests were universally revered and were rarely criticized. These tests were the standard and the criterion. Other group tests of intelligence were stand- ardized by them. The psychologists of the day were for the most part uncritical of these tests.2 They administered these tests and set up programs based on test scores. These tests were accepted as authorative and few studies were concerned with validation or with the criter- ion which was decided by test results. A 1931 appraisal of the situation discussed only what could be gained from the use of testing instruments.3 In the early thirties, studies by Handy4 and Knight5 were reported which questioned pro- cedures of preschool testing or alluded to the limitations of testing instruments. The criticisms were mainly directed at the over-emphasis of verbal and sensory factors of the tests. Mention was also made of the shortness of the early revision of the Binet at the preschool level. The Influence of Reading Studies. In the early thirties, the study of reading was receiving much attention which was ultimately to affect preschool testing and school readiness 2 Wellman, 92. cit., p. 340. 3 See Chapter I of Rachel Stutsman, Mental Measurement 19 Preschool Children, Yonkers-on-Hudson, World Book Co., 4 A.E. Handy, "Admission of Underaged Pupils", American School Board Journal 83 (August, 1931), p. 46. S J. Knight, "Age of School Entrance and Subsequent School Record", School and Society 32 (July 5, 1930), p. 24. 129. assessment. Gates determined that a mental age of six years and six months was advisable before a formal reading program was begun? His studies influenced educators to the extent that lowering of school atrance ages was halted.7 Within a few years, studies in reading were considerable both in numbers and the extent of areas covered. Gertrude H. Hildreth was concerned with providing a realistic measure of reading readiness.8 She stated that a chronological age of five years and nine months was a pre- requisite to reading readiness in the first grade. Dr. Hildreth felt that a minimal mental age of six years was advisable for successful reading. The work of both Gates and Hildreth in the early thirties called attention to a child's early school experiences. It established a common pre-reading vocabulary and readiness in reading was broken down into teachable skills such as visual discrimination. And it added another dimension to the assessment of the preschool child, that of development in areas critical to readiness for reading. Two studies by Thompson indicated increasing concern with teaching reading too early.9 Both studies were small 6 Arthur I. Gates, "The Necessary Mental Age for Begin- ning reading", ElementarySchool Jounal 37 (March, 1937), p. 497. 7 Gertrude H. Hildreth, "Age Standards for First Grade Entrance", thldhood_§ducation 23 (September, 1946), p. 22. Roger T. Lenner, "Trends in Age-Grade Relationship", School and Society 82 (1955), p. 123. 9 Jennie L. Thompson, "Big Gains from Postponed Reading", Journal of Education 117 (October, 1934), p. 445. 130. in terms of numbers observed but clear and conclusive in recommendations. hthildren read better and faster when the mental age as a pre-requisite for reading was adhered to. The Development of School Readiness Measures. By the early thirties, Dr. James R. Hobson was already admitting a highly selective group of pupils to school early on the 10 He maintained careful record on basis of mental age. his pupils and became a vocal proponent of early school admissions based on mental age. He was very much interested in the assessment of these pupils in terms of school readiness. Although his major approach in terms of assessment was that of intellectual capacity, Hobson later indicated that social and emotional factors were informally taken into considera~ tion. This was the beginning of one of the best publicized and probably one of the best longitudinal stuies in early school admissions. By the late thirties, both Goodenough and Stutsman were becoming increasingly critical of the Binet Scales and were soon to begin work on school readinss scales of their own. The study of Goodenough, Who worked at the Institute of Child Welfare at the University of Minnesota, was a critical 11 review of the Kuhlmann Binet Scale. Her concern was with the shortness of the measure at the four and five year lev- els. Her critical work was published in 1928. Ten years 10 James R. Hobson, "Mental Age as a Workable Criterion for School Admission", Elementary School Joggpal 48 (1948), p. 64. 11 Florence Goodenough, Mental Tesging, New York: Rine- hart and Co., 1938, p. 68. 131. later, she published a scale in c00peration with Katherine' Maurer and M.J. Van Wagenen. This scale was the Minnesota Preschool Scale and was a lengthy instrument which has re- ceived little attention or study}2 It will be referred to more specifically later. During this time, Florence L. Goodenough was also at work on a longitudinal study of mental growth which resulted in a well-documented study which was not published until 1942.13 She was also at work on a study of drawings as a measure of intelligence and her book on this subject was published in 1938. This introduced anew technique for a global or conceptual approach to the whole child rather than the facet approach of the usual types of intellectual measurement. The Draw-A-Man Test has caused much excite- ment and considerable research and study in subsequent years. Dr. Goodenough's dual contribution in the assess- ment of the preschooler and the young school-aged child is probably unsurpassed. It was she who insisted that techni- ques must be developed exclusively for four and five-year olds which were not watered-down versions of tests for older children. Rachel Stutsman developed a test during the early thirties called the Merrill-Palmer Preschool Scalg which was designed as a school readiness measure.14 Like other 12 F. L. Goodenough, "A Study_of the Predictive Value of thg_Minnesota Preschool Scales, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1942. 13 14 Ibid. Stutsman, QB. cit. 132. instruments of this type, the scale was an age scale which did not recommend converting to IQ's. In most other reSpects, it was like the Binet except that it placed greater emphasis on performance-type items, particularly sensorimotor co- ordination. Anastasi reports that the scale was not widely used because it seemed cumbersome and did not have enough 15 In short, both the Merrill-Palmer and the verbal items. Minnesota Scales which were designed as school readiness measures, were used very little. The lack of studies or research involving these instruments tends to substantiate their lack of pOpularity. However, competition in the form of the R83 was also on the scene. The 1937 Reygégd Stanford Binet. With the appearance of the 1937 revision of the Binet, the attention of those concerned with preschool measurement shfted almost exclu- sively towards this new instrument. This revision of the Binet almost completely dominated the testing scene for twenty-five years. The addition of the two to five-year scales pre-empted the use of other measures which were designed for preschool testing. At the time the Binet was released, several studies were published which were highly critical of preschool scales. J.E. Anderson did a comparative study with the Merrill-Palmer, the Minnesota and the Kuhhan and suggested 15 Anne Anastasi, Psychological Testing, New York: The Macmillan Co., 1960, p. 675. 133. that preschool scales were inferior because of the great variances between the three instruments.l6 His highest correlations were at the moderate level between verbal portions of the scales. Marjorie Honzik was discouraged with the lack of constancy of mental test performance on a single instrument.l7 She examined a group of children annually from two to five- years and concluded that the inconsistent scores indicated poor instruments. McHugh found "gross inconsistencies" in the measurement of intelligence as measured by the Minnesota Scales. In the first two months of school attendance, the average mental age growth was measured at six months.18 Meanwhile, studies concerning the Binet were coming out. One of the most ambitious of these was done by Bradway who had access to the original Binet standardization data.19 She studied 138 children who were originally tested between two and five years of age. She repeated the Binet and attem- pted to single out four factors for a preschool scale. These factors were verbal, memory, number concept and a non-verbal factor. Correlations between the first and second tastings l6 J.E. Anderson, "The Limitations of Preschool Tests", Journal of Psychology VIII (1939), p. 351. 17 Marjorie P. Honzik, "The Constancy of Mental Test Performance During the Preschool Periods", The Journal of Genetic Psychology 52 (1938), p. 285. 18 Geolo McHugh, "“hanges in Goodenough IQ at the Preschool Level", Journal of Educational Psychology 36, p. 17. 134. were .68 on verbal items, .49 on nonverbal items, .62 on memory and .57 on number concepts. Her conclusions stated that items tended to correlate well with total test perform- ance (about .70), hence suggesting that the early tastings were valid. She indicated that attempting to use any fact- ors as a short preschool scale was not advisable. Further, verbal items appeared to offer the greatest hOpe in the direction of predictive credence in preschool assessments.19 McNemar reported a correlation of.7O on a group of preschoolers using the Binet and the Minnesota Preschool Scale.20 However, these children were being tested for early school admission 5 and they had a mean IQ of 126. This suggests that the study really proves very little except in terms of the comparability of instruments at very high IQ levels. Levinson replicated the McNemar studies except with children of average intelligence. His correlations between the Binet and the preschool scales were only moderate. The correlation between the Binet and the Merrill-Palmer Scale was .52 and with the Minnesota, .62.21 The conclusions and tone of most of these studies 19 Katherine Bradway, "Predictive Value of S-B Preschool Items", Journal of Educational Psychology XXXVI (1945), p. 3. 20 T. McNemar, "A Comparative Study of the Binet and the Minnesota", Journal ofygducational Psyc ology XXXIV (l943)p. 22. 21 B.M. Levinson, "Binet NonVerbal Preschool Scale", Journal of Clinical Psychology 16 (1960), p. 12. 135. suggested the superiority of the Binet, even at preschool levels. Both of the preschool scales were already having difficulty gaining recognition, and the increasing popu- larity of the Binet all but dealt the fatal blow. As the Binet increased in pOpularity and received much study and research, portions of the Binet were receiving some attention as short measures of school readiness. Levinson worked on the use of the vocabulary section of the Binet as an independent measure.22 Although as late as 1958 the vocabulary section correlated highly with totat test performance, the use of the vocabulary section independently by the Binet scoring system was never proved valid. Levin- son felt that the vocabulary section of the Binet was the weakest at the preschool level. In spite of this, Levinson reports thatlsychologists continue to believe in the vocabu- lary section of the Binet as the best available indicator of intelligence. After a lack of credence in working with the vocabulary section of the Binet, Levinson turned his attention to a nonverbal section of the Binet (also called the "limen" Binet)?3 Levinson reported inconclusive results with a small population of preschoolers. He felt that too many critical school readiness factors were left out with the use of the 22 B.M. Levinson, "Re-Evaluation of the R83 Vocabulary Test as a Test of Intelligence for Kindergarten and Primary Schoi Children", ChildhoodyEducation 93 (1958), p. 237. 23 Levinson, 92. cit., p. 237. 136. nonverbal measure. In the last ten years, the writer has been unable to locate any reference to the limen Binet. The Limitations in the Use of a Single Measure. Along with the increasing popularity of the Binet and the feeling that the Binet "did the job" at alllevels, there were studies which suggeSted that a single test of intelli- gence was not measuring through all involvements. Nancy Bayley Reported a longitudinal study in 1937 in which she suggested that the environment was as, or more significant than what was thought of as basic intelligence. She was studying environmental correlates of mental and motor develOpment and concluded that test scores would be altered by added environmental experiences.24 The studies of the thirties which reported that experiences greatly influenced test performance were studied during the forties as social and cultural considerations. The early forms of the Vineland Social Maturity Scale were usednainly in connection with retarded children. Its applicability for use with children of average intelligence and with preschoolers has been particularly questioned by 25 Yet, for school readiness purposes, there seemed Hobson. to be a growing concern that such considerationses "matur- ity" and "motivation" were not tapped by the Binet. There also seemed to be an increasing concern with 24 Nancy Bayley, 'Environmental Correlates of Mental and Motor Development", Child Development IV (1937), p. 329. 25 Hobson, pp.cit., p.64.. 137. measures of geometric drawings and the beginnings of "out- line form perception" were seen. Designs of this type were a part of the new Binet as well as the preschool scales. However, the Gestalt influence was strong in Europe and there was considerablé experimentation there with preschool readiness assessments. Pfaffenberger investgated the visual Gestalt percep- tion of preschool children. In a longitudinal study of the production of gametric designs in three to seven-year olds, he found that copying patterns involved two rather distinct and separate skills. One of these skills was a motor skill and the other a visual discrimination skill. He was hoping to develop a group test of intelligence or develOpment but concluded that this would be invalid because the simply copying of pattern confounds the two skills. He later standardized a procedure for a develOpmental test of visual perception using directed questions which was to be indi- vidually administered.26 In America, the Bender Gestalt was used by KOppitz in an experiment as a predictor of reading readinss in first 27 The Bender Gestalt was administered to 272 first grade. graders in the first week of school. At the end of the year, the Bender Gestalt correlated .59 with the reading achieve- 20 Hans Pfaffenberger, "Visual Gestalt Investigations", Kommissign Verlag, 1960, p. 20. 27 B.M. Koppitz, "Prediction of First Grade Achievement with the B-G Test and Human Figure Drawings", Jgurnal of Educational Psychology 52 (April, 1961), p. 80. 138. ment scores. This correlation is at the same level as other visual and perceptual indicators. This initial study was later used in screening school beginners with comparable moderate results. Both of these studies suggest that the visual motor or perceptual factor is undoubtedly involved and necessary in school readiness assessment. Early School Admiosion Programs angggtudies. Other than the Hobson study, there were few actual programs Specifically aimed at admitting mentally advanced pupils to school early in the early 1930's. There were individual instances and in some cases, efforts at studying the problem from differing vantage points. The most dissappointing comment during the thirties came from the so-called studies reported in a few educational publicaions. In most cases, the studies consisted of judg- ments and observations completely lacking verification or 29 experimental control. The studies of Nemzek,28 Partington, 31 Patterson,30 Hausman, and Dwyer32 are of this type. They attgmp§§d_to indicate that the older a child is when admitted 28 C.L. Nemzek, "Relationship Between Age at Entrance and Achievement in the Secondary School", School and Society 49 (June, 1939), p. 778. 29 J.M. Partington, "Relation Between First Grade Entrance and Success in the First Six Grades", Elementary Principal 16 (July, 1937), p. 292. 30 H. Patterson, "C.A. of Highly Intelligent Freshmen", Peabody Journal of Education 12 (July, 1934), p. 19. 31 E.J. Hausman, "Ready for First Grade?", School Executive 59 (February, 1940), p. 25. 139. to school, the better he will do. Their studies were rather frankly stated as attemting to prove that early school admissions were unworkable. The "facts" of their study added to "years of experience" Showed that the younger children in each classroom were of necessity the poorer students. Individual instances were sometimes cited to "prove" the case against early school admission. Actually, these studies have to be completely dismissed as lackingor failing to meet even minimal standards of study and research. One of the best early studies of individual students who had been admitted to school early was by Keys and published in 1938.33 It followed several hundred underaged pupils and compared them to expected Stadards for the age group against which they were competing. She found that under- aged pupils were overwhelmingly more successful in the academic achievement area. When rated by their teachers in the social area, they were rated as being as well adjusted as their peers. This study concerned pupils then in high school and college. The Manwiler study of early admissions in Pittsburgh was+published in 1936 and also indicated success?4 The study 32 P.S. Dwyer, "Correlation Between Age at Entrance and Success in College", Journal of Educational Psychology 52 (April, 1939), p. 251. 33 N. Keys, Underage Students in High School and College, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1938. 34 C.E. Manwiler, "Follow-Up of Pupils Tested for Placement in Grade One before a C.A. of Six", Pittsburgh Public Schools 10 (January, 1936), p. 68. 140. actually involved a follow-up of pupils tested for place- ment in the first grade before they were six years old. The results suggest that they were academically achieving well above their peers but that their social adjustment, by teacher ratings, was moderate. Several other studies which produce conflicting re- sults warrant examination. Carter matched 25 pairs of child- ren enrolled in the first grade before and after six years 35 of age. Conclusions stated that the older group main- tained its lead in 87 percent of the cases. No mention is made as to other controls used. No mean ages or IQ's were given. There is no mention as to how allowances for ex— pected differences in achievement due to age were handled. It is rather unfortunate that this information was not made available and that the study was carried out in this way. This study by Carter is often quoted as conclusive. The note sounded by Lorr was to the effect that test data at the preschool level was not adequately used.36 Lorr examined a Series of test protocols of children who had been admitted to school early. Because of a number of failures with these early admissions, the study was set up to determine whether the test data was carefully utilized. His conclusion was that although quantitative test evidence 35 Lowell B. Carter, "Effect of Early School Entrance on the Scholastic Achievement of Elementary School Children in the Austin Public Schools", Journal of Educational Research 50 (1956), p. 91. 3? Maurice Lorr, "The timum Use of Test Data", Educational and Psychologica Measurement II (1942), p. 339. 141. was conclusive, other qualitative test evidence suggested a lack of school readiness. Although Lorr's sample was small, the evidence appears to be valid. Bythe late thirties the work of Dr. Hobson was becoming widely known although the formal study was not published until 1948. Hobson used mental age as the primary criterinn for early school admission. Later, Hobson indicated that he had an Opportunity to observe all children who were admitted early. His evidence in 100 cases indicated that pupils admitted early did better in two out of three cases as meas- ured by later standards such as grades and academic honors. This study remains as probably one of the best and most carefully executed as well as conclusive studies in early school admissions.37 The Current Scene. During the last fifteen or twenty years, the preschool testing for school readiness and early school admissions has changed considerably. The assessment study of the preschool child has been broadened and the programs have become more involved. Although the wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children did not appear until the early fifties, there was increasing beliéf that performance or motor factors were valid indica- tors or measures of ability. At this time, the Columbia Mental Maturity Scale appeared primary as a measure for 37 Hobson, op. cit. 142. physically handicapped children but a valid factor for all children as well. Correlations with the Binet and the Wechsler at the five year level have been reported from a 38 These studies involved small very low .20 to a high .70. groups. A larger study showed moderate correlations. studies with the Columbia Scale show that visual discrimin- ation is an important indicator of school readiness but is not sufficiently valid as a single measure. The same appears to be the case with the picture voca- bulary scales. Both the Peabody and the VanAlystyne scales are reported by Weiss as having moderate to high correlations with the Binet and the Wechsler at the five year level.40 Again, this scale has a particular use and that is as a screening instrument. However, there are types of children (the fearful, the culturally disadvantaged) who doIDorly on these types of measures. In summary, picture vocabulary scales used independently are not sufficient measures. In addition to the viSual discrimination factor and the picture vocabulary tests, there were several other kinds of tests which were studied as appropriate in assessing school readiness. One of these was the study of outline form per- 38 Ernest S. Barrott, "The Relationship of the Columbia MMS to the WISC", Journal of Consulting Psychology 20 (Aug- ust, 1956), p. 294. 39 B.M. Levinson, "Research Note on the Columbia MMS", Journal of Clinigal Psychology 16 (April, 1960), p. 158. 40 R.G. Weiss, "Validity of Early Entrance Into Kin- dergarten", Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, New York university, 1960, p. 87. 143. ception by Graham.41 He correlated a measure of outline form perception with six other measures. With 108 two to six-year olds, he found no significant correlations with any of the measures. He used six major individual measures as well as a mental age factor and a physical growth factor. Graham used eight typical geometric forms. He concluded that such a measure was not valid as an indicator of ability nor was it consistently related to other factors considered predictive of either ability or school readiness. This study appears to be particularly well executed. Bijou developed an informal measure of visual discrim- ination and suggested that it could be used for screening 42 He set up mental age equivalency standards preschoolers. and his validation study showed that it was valid as a base- line for individual analysis of young children. A European study by Meinert compared physical growth standards based on physical examinations by medical personnel 43 An elabor- with traditional measures of school readiness. ate study of 300 five-year olds comparing the physical growth norms with school readiness indicators showed that the meas- ures of physical growth were insufficient and not predictive of school readiness. 41 F.K. Graham, "DevelOpment in Preschool Children of the Ability to Copy Forms", Child Development 31 (June, 1960), p. 339. 42 Sidney W. Bijou, "Discrimination Performance as a Baseline for Individual Analysis of Young Children", Child Development 32 (March, 1961), p. 163. 43 Rudolph Meinert, "Investi ations on School Readiness" Psychologie Rdsch. 6 (1955), p. l 8. 144. DeHirsch attempted to predict school and reading read- 44 iness by neurological examination. Pupils were classified as primitive, average, or outstanding. The theory was that if the neurological organism is primitive, the pupil would be a poor school and reading risk. The pupils were re- evaluated after a year of kindergarten and the results were confirmed as positive. Actual correlations were not report- ed and descriptions of the groups were not given. It was noted that language experience was not readily noted by a neurological examination and that this was a limitation. The study is interesting and it would seem to warrant further investigation under usual research specifications. Simon reported a study in 1959 in which an attempt was made to classify pupils into physical body types and corre- late these with school readiness measures?5 The physical body typeswere not specified as to categories. From the discussion it appears that coordination, perception and general physical type were involved. The author reports that no thly sig- nificant correlations were obtained. Simon did suggest that girls tended towards uniformity of body types comparable to school readiness more than boys. Without more of the details of the study available, the applicability of this study for our purposes is limited. 44 Katrina DeHirsch, "Tests Designed to Discover Pot- ential Reading Difficulties at the Six Year Level", American Journal of OrthoPsychiatry 27 (1957), p. 566. 45 M.D. Simon, "Body Configuration and School Readineess", Child Development 30 (December, 1959), p. 493. 145. Certainly the most ambitious measure of school readi- ness in recent years is the Brenner-Gestalt Test of Sghool Readiness. This test was developed during the 1950's at the Merrill-Palmer Institute. The measure is primarily a test of the "gestalt" frame of reference with an added number concept factor. It requires individual administra- tion and can be given in 20 minutes. An extensive ration— ale and theoretical framework has been developed by its 46 author. To date, research studies with the instrument give high credence to the test. Correlations with the Binet at the four and five year level have been at .70 and with a follow-up teacher judgment, an even higher .76?7 A large scale study by Ralph also reports high correlations with teacherfihdgments and with individual clinical measures of 48 The test was published in the spring of intelligence. 1964 and other studies with this instrument are currently under way. It seems to satisfy many of the requirements of a school readiness screening measure (short, easily administered and scored, can be given by teachers) and is a test which bears watching. Informal drawings have also been used as school read- 46 Anton Brenner, "A New Gestalt Test for MEasurin Readiness for School", Merrill Palmer Quarterly 4 (1958 , p. 196. 47 William E.Vieweg, "A Longitudinal Study of Readi- ness for School Tasks as Measured by the Brenner Gestalt Test", Waloonwoods Collected Papers, 1960, Chapter VIII. . Jean Ral h, "The Brenner Gestalt as a Measure of Readiness for Sc ool", Waldonwoods Collected Papers, 1960, Chapter V. 146. ness measures by Shipp.49 The study is particularly in- teresting in that it is held that drawings are not indicative of mental age (as suggested by Goodenough, et. a1.). He re- ports that it is indicative of a level of conceptualizatinn or what teachers refer to as maturity, particularly when these may be at variance with general mental levels or when levels of mental functioning are highly varied. The study was done on a fairly large sample and the research evidence is impressive. It also suggests that probably our concern with attempting to make mental age and the IQ all-inclusive frames of reference is quite at odds with initial purposes. Another informal measure having information of value in the assessment of school readiness is by Marion Mbnroe and reported in Chapter IV of Growing Into Reading. (This oral vocabulary inventory notes the level of verbalization and discussed these levels in terms of maturity of the child and readiness for social and reading experiences. Although no research evidence is presented, such a theoretical reference warrants attention. Others, such as Milton Wilson have gathered several informal measures intended to add to the assessment study.50 Looking back at the instruments which are currently available for school readiness purposes, there appears to be £9 D.E. Shipp, "The D-A-M Test and Achievement in the First Grade", Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Louisiana State University, 1956. 50 Milton Wilson, "Screening Instruments for School Entry" Conference Workshop Notes (Mimeographed), California Association of School Psychologists and Psychometrists, 1961. 147. greater agreement today to a rather thorough assessment study involving several psychological measures. The days of a one-test study are hopefully over along with the single quantitative score. Certainly any discussion of instruments suggests that they are only as valid as the skills which are brought to the testing session by the users. Another of these skills consists of the ability of the users in select- ing appropriate measures to fit the given situation. In recent years, there is little reference to either the Minnesota Preschool Scale or the Merrill-Palmer Scale. The writer has been unable to locate a single reference in the literature to either of these instruments in the last ten years although both are still available. Asrns been previously noted, both of these instruments are long, cum- bersome and difficult to administer and score. And the studies involving these instruments have generally been unfavorable. The Hurst study of the Merrill-Palmer con- sisted of a new factor analysis which indicated that three factors account for more than half of the variance in the instrument.51 His subjects were one hundred superior children and his major criticism was with the intra-indi- vidual variation in levels of reSponse. The three factors identified by Hurst are most interesting and tend to agree with teacher rankings of activities in this survey. They include following directions, persistance at a task, and fine motor coordination. These factors are also referred 51 John C. Hurst, "A Factor Analysis of the Merrill- Palmer", Educational Psychology Measurement 20 (1960), p. 519. 148. to by Brenner and appear to be mandatory for any preschool assessment study. It would appear that this broad frame of reference in which school readiness is currently assessed represents a more realistic approach to this task. There are several current studies of early school admission programs which have been carefully executed. One of these is the Monderer study in Nebraska where flexible entrance policies are encouraged by the state. He studied 138 children who were admittd to school early and compared them to 468 of their classmates who were not admitted to school early. Their academic and social progress in school suggested increasing superiority of the early-entrance children. Monderer's data overwhelmingly supported early entrance for children who had been assessed by a complete study.52 An ambiguous study by Hamalainen found that four times as many underage children had adjustment problems as over- age children. The study also pointed out that overage children also frequently had adjustment problems. Tabula- tions were not completed on the overage children so the actual intended purpose of the study is negated. The authors claims regarding his data are unjustified.53 52 Monderer, op. cit. 53 . . Arthur E. Hamalainen, "Kindergarten-Primary Entrance Age in Relation to Later School Adjustment", Elementary School Journal 52 (March, 1952), p. 406. 149. King attempted to carry out her study in much the same fashion. However, she also noted differences between boys and girls. She indicated that underage children tended to achieve less well and were more likely to be educationally retarded. She noted that the young boys in particular are likely to have problems in their early years at school. She suggested that this was as true of average-aged boys as of under-aged. Actually, her study has pointed out another problem involvement, that of all boys in school, rather than simply the under-aged boys.54 Pauly further studied sex differences at this age level in relation to adjustment and achievement in school. In his ambitious study of 1502 pupils, he noted that boys present more than ninety percent of what teachers regard as adjustment and achievement problems in both kindergarten and first grade. Girls present no problem whether admitted up to six months early or six months late. From the stand- point of educational planning, Pauly concluded that the T problems with early school experiences needed to be approached differently for boys. He recommends that boys Should either be admitted later or should have an extended kindergarten or first grade readiness experience. Pauly's evidence is well executed and impressive.55 54 Inez King, "Effect of Entrance Age into Grade One Upon Achievement in Elementary School? Elementary School Journal 53 (February, 1955), p. 331. 55 Frank R. Pauly, "Sex Differences and Le a1 School Entgance Age", Journa of_Educationa1 Research 45 (1951), p. . 150. In the same fashion, Shane and Yauch recommend a broader kindergarten experience?6 They suggested a two- year kindergarten for four and five-year olds. Under this proposal, the mature child might spend as little as one year in kindergarten and the mature child as much as three years which would include a readiness program. Although Shane and Yauch report no research, they spent considerable time and effort in observing flexible kinder- garten programs. DeVault conducted a survey study in Texas of child- ren entering the first grade before they were six years old. The children were rated by their teachers as to social adjustment and academic achievement which was measured by achievement testing in grades two and four. Among the conclusions which DeVault claims were that children who are not more than two months underaged when admitted hold their own in personal-social adjustment and academic achievement. If more than two months underaged, they again hold their own in personal-social adjustment but do less well in academic achievement. This study involves all children rather than specifically intellectually advanced children. However, the results are significant in that they contradict some reports which try to suggest that underaged children ipso facto 56 Harold C. Shane and Wilbur A. Yauch, Creative_§chool Administration, New York: Holt and Co., 1954, Chapter 5. 151. have adjuStment problems as well as achievement problems.57 The Oliviari study matched two groups of children who had entered school between four years nine months and five years and the second group between five years and five years three months. The children were studied in grades three through six in terms of academic achievement. The groups were matched in terms of socio-economic status, verbal and non-verbal intelligence. The conclusions were that achieve- ment in later elementary school between the two groups was not Significant. This study seems to have been carried out carefully and involved three hundred children. Once again, it suggests that the chronological age differential in considering school readiness and later school achievement is not critical.58 There are several excellent studies done with large numbers of pupils admitted early with a broad assessment study. This is the note sounded by Birch with his studies in Pittsburgh.59 McCandless and Worcester have also put considerable study into the problem of early school admission and the assessment study.60 They report favorable results 57M.V. DeVault, Underage First Grade Enrollees, Dallas: University of Texas, 1957. 58 Irene M. Oliviari, The Relation of School Entrance Age, New York: Fordham university Publications, 1957. 59 Jack W. Birch,"Ear1y School Admission for Mentally Advanced Children? Exceptional Children 21 (December, 1954, p. 84. 6° Boyd McCandless, "Should A Bri ht Child Start School Before He is Five?" Education 77 (1957), p. 370. 152. provided a broad assessment study is carried out. The terms of such an assessment study include the establish- ment of mental age, some indication of personal and social maturity and a general appraisal of such facets of deve- lopment as motor coordination, perception, language development and learning motivation. It is rather surprising to note the number of studies which suggest that there are those who feel that the "right age" can be determined chronologically for all pupils or by a single test indicator. Rowland and Nelson feel that the age may need adjusting but fail to recognize a problem.61 They feel that the failure of teachers to provide for indi- vidual differences is the problem. Forester seems to see 62 the issue in the same way. Gelles and Coulson simply changed the terms and talk of a "readiness age" for all children which can be substituted for chronological age.63 The manner in which they speak of this readiness age suggests a single test score type of appraisal. Several others urge a very cautious approach until further evidence is gathered. This seems to be the approach of most of the authorities who have studied the learning 6lf‘T.D. Rowland and C.C. Nelson, "Off to School - At ghaE8Age?" Elementary School Journal 60 (October, 1959), 62 J.J. Forester, "At what Age Should a Child Start School?" School Executive 74 (March, 1955), p. 80. 63 Herbert M. Gelles and Marion G. Coulson, "At What Age Should a Child Start School?", Schoolfixecutive 79 (August, 1959), p. 110. 153. problems of kindergarten and first grade children. Trow has suggested a longitudinal study of learning thresholds to note high and low learning thresholds and their rela- tionships to the various indicators of school readiness.64 Pinneau and Jones suggest that all involvements need to be more carefully weighed and researched before school entrance laws are changed or "wholesale movements" of early admission are launched.65 I Heffernan feels that the status quo represents the best possible solution to the present involvements. She feels that some parents are out of step and overly anxious for their children. She is generally critical of early school admissions and is a rather prolific writer who defends current educational procedure in this regard.66 The new approach or "new look" at readiness to which the reader has been referred by Birch and Worcester is commonly discussed in several journals and publications. Brondy feels that school readiness assessment is highly 67 desirable for all children. DeLoudres feels that parents are not keenly aware of the importance of kindergarten and 64 William C. Trow, "When Are Children Ready to Learn?" Education Digest 21 (September, 1955), p. 21. 65 S. Pinneau and P. Jones, "Early School Entrance", Review of Educational Research 25 (December, 1955), p. 77. 66 Helen Heffernan, "Pressures to Start Formal Instruction Early", Childhood Education 37 (October, 1960), p. 57. 67 H.S. Brondy, "New Look at Readiness", School and Society 91 (December, 1963), p. 424. 154. unfamiliar with the whole concept of readiness.68 She feels that parents need to be re-educated away from chronological age and developmental considerations. Flex- ible entrance is freely discussed by many writers who feel that many educational instructional problems would be alleviated if children were closer to appropriate instru- ctional levels. Flexible school admisSion received favorable recognition in a series of articles in the New York Times Educatbn Sup- plement in April, 1962. Several educators discussed some of the involvements and procedures of starting school by stages. Reaction to the articles by way of letters was high- ly favorable. Flexible school admission was presented in a forthright manner as an eventual and mandatory practice made necessary by the importance of early success in school and the differences among children in terms of their readiness for school learning experiences. Appendix Summary. Several authors attempted to gather additional data which might be helpful in determining the extent of the problems which result from a rigid chrono- logical age entrance standard. Lenner and Mitchell reviewed 35 years of age-grade relationships which reflected shifts not only in entrance age policies but in promotion policy as well. There has been a 40 percent decrease in age within 68 Sister Mary De Loudres, "Importance of Readiness at the Kinder arten Level", National Catholic Education Assoc- iation Bul etin 60 (August, 1963), p. 537. 155. a given grade since 1918. Greater variance in age appeared in the upper elementary grades rather than the primary grades. Kindergarten and first grade had the least age- grade variation. This supports the thesis that individual differences in kindergarten evidently present as much or more of a problem than in latergrades. The authors contend that school laws require children to be in school and exclusion is used only as a last resort. There has been a Steady de- cline in average entrance age since 1918 which has diminished only in the last 10 years.69 Houle recently summarized school age requirements and concluded that state practices varied more than was desirable. He noted that every conceivable plan and policyywas being tried out. There are state laws, laws set by local dist- ricts, policies set by groups of districts and school dist- ricts withough laws. In summary, Houle noted that these variations made a mockery out of the serious attempts of educators to come to grips with the problems involving school readiness of individual children.70 In school readiness testing, it has been noted that initially, the concern was in finding an instrument which would give a quantitative indication and decision. This was usually based on mental age and IQ. Various kinds of 69 Lenner and Mitchell, op. cit. p. 123. 70 Cyril O. Houle, "Minimum School Age Attendance", Elementary School Journal 47 (1947), p. 427. 156. factors suspected as having significance for school readi- ness assessment were tried out and most of them fell short of being sufficiently valid by themselves. However, they were productive in that they added to the battery of measures available for assessing the individual child. Currently, a broad assessment study is widely accepted. Screening instruments have been developed for pre-testing. Individual clinical measures of intelligence are available when indicated. Other areas to be assessed might include an informal measure of maturity, emotional maturity, per- ception or coordination, and verbal facility. Most school psychologists recognize that these test results represent an indication which is not based on a single quantitative score but rather on an evaluation based on considerable data weighed against the specific kindergarten situation confronting the child. The early school admission studies have also changed. Initially, mental age and IQ were prime indicators and pre- dictors of schoolsuccess. As a result, chfldren were admitted to school solely on the basis of a high IQ. Interest in these children helped in the focus on reading and curriculum in the early grades. It also underscored the need for flexibility with children and attention to individual differences. Actual programs where early school admissions were encouraged were few. However, several studies involving small numbers of children suggest that when the need was present, that 157. children were admitted early with considerable success. Many studies which were done in an attempt to prove that chronological age was highly predictive of learning readi- ness and achievement were poorly executed and their results questionable. Other studies done more carefully indicate that chronological age received too much emphasis in its relationship to school readiness and later achievement. There are still those who still naively believe there is no "problem" and cite very poor research to prove their point. Currently, there is good evidence to suggest the need for early school admissions in an attempt to work around rigid chronological age barriers. There is good evidence to show that when children are adequately assessed as to school readiness, that good results ensue. The problems of early school admission and readiness testing are deeply involved in school policies, curriculum and procedures. The question becomes one of not only "when" a given child Should begin school but also of the "how and what" of the school experience after getting there. Actually, of course, the two cannot be completely and conveniently separated because the extent to which the involvements of the "how and what" of early school experience becomes knowledgeable will the "when" become lucid with the result being a greater educational opportunity for the child. HICH "lllll7llllgligmflfirs