ABSTRACT
Multiple sources raise mounting concerns about school readiness and how best to promote it. First, it has become clear that meaningful individual differences in children’s cognitive, language, literacy, numeracy and executive function skills emerge well before children start school (Shonkoff and Phillips, 2000). Second, this variability does not, in most instances, resolve itself naturally, but persists and predicts children’s functioning well into elementary school (McClelland et al., 2006). Third, a host of environmental factors predict early childhood development, most notably parenting, early childhood education and larger sociocultural forces like socioeconomic status, ethnicity and culture (Morrison et al., 2005). Finally, it is equally evident that these environmental influences are themselves complex and interact with each other and child factors to chart children’s developmental pathways. These insights have heightened awareness of the critical importance of the early childhood years, while complicating the picture of how to nurture it in ways that ensure each child’s readiness for school. In this chapter we will offer some evidence-based recommendations for fostering children’s skills during the foundational preschool years leading up to school entry. We will limit ourselves to children in North America, recognizing that cultural factors moderate the influences of parenting and early education and temper any universal declarations of how to improve children’s growth.
