School readiness report released

The report, "Parents' Reports of the School Readiness of Young Children from the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2007," has been released by the National Center for Education Statistics within the Institute of Education Sciences.

Some findings:

• Overall, 58% of children ages 3 to 6 and not yet in kindergarten were reported to be attending preschool or a daycare center in 2007.
• Regarding children’s school readiness skills, 93% had speech that was understandable to a stranger, 87% could hold a pencil with their fingers, 63% could count to 20 or higher, 60% could write their first name, 32% could recognize all letters of the alphabet, and 8% could read written words in books.
• Parents were asked about the frequency with which they or other family members read to the child in the past week. Fifty-five percent of children were read to every day, 28% were read to three or more times in the past week, 13% were read to once or twice in the past week, and 3% were not read to at all in the past week. For children who were read to in the past week, the mean daily reading time was about 21 minutes.
• A lower percentage of children residing in poor households (40%) were read to every day compared with children residing in nonpoor households (60%).

To read the pdf report online, visit the National Center for Education Statistics website.