Understanding the Early Years - Early Childhood Development in North York - May 2001

3. Results of the Early Development Instrument... What we learned from teachers

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Key findings

• Most children were doing comparatively well on measures of health, social competence, emotional maturity, cognitive development and communication skills.
• However, 31.8% (1,507 children) may have difficulty learning due to below — average development in two or more components.
• Out of the five components of readiness, children had the most problems in social competence.

Components of readiness to learn

The teacher checklist (the EDI) was used to collect information on all of the senior kindergarten children (just over 4,800) in English-language public schools in the community. Teachers used their familiarity with the children in their classes after several months of classroom/school interaction to complete the questionnaire.³ The results provided the community with an idea of how ready their children were to learn when they started school. The instrument is an age-appropriate measure that indicates how children in a classroom are developing and cannot be used to assess an individual child's development.

It looked at five components of readiness to learn, including:

• physical health and well-being,
• social competence,
• emotional maturity,
• language and cognitive development and
• communication skills and general knowledge.

Teachers answered the following types of questions on the EDI about each child in the class. The EDI contained more than 70 questions in total.

• How often is the child too tired to do school work?
• Is the child well co-ordinated?
• Would you say this child follows instructions, accepts responsibility and works independently?
• Would you say this child is upset when left by a caregiver, has temper tantrums, appears worried, cries a lot?

Teachers were also asked to comment on the child's use of language to communicate, his or her interest in books and his or her abilities related to reading and writing. They were also asked about the child's communication skills and general knowledge.

For each of the components, thresholds were established to determine which children fell within the normal range of development and which children were below it. The thresholds represented the children who fell in the lowest 25% of the distribution based on the over 11,000 children who were assessed in Canada in 1998-1999. So the results of the children in North York have been compared to the results of all of the children across the country who were assessed using the EDI in the same year.

In this instrument, higher scores indicated poorer development and scores closer to zero indicated better development (the instrument has since been revised). This means that having a score above the threshold indicated poorer development in the component in question. A score equal to or below the threshold indicated normal development. Figure 1 displays the percentage of children who fell above the threshold according to the teacher ratings. Children scoring above the thresholds were more likely to display the following:

Physical health (threshold set at 11) — Average or poor motor skills, flagging energy levels, tiredness and clumsiness.

Social competence (threshold set at 17) — Regular problems with one or more of the following: getting along with other children, accepting responsibility for their own actions, ability to work independently, self confidence, tolerance.

Emotional maturity (threshold set at 18) — Minor problems with aggression, restlessness, distractibility or inattentiveness, or excessive sadness on a regular basis.

Language and cognitive development (threshold set at 16) — No mastery of the basics of reading and writing, little interest in books, reading, and/or problems with numerical skills (e.g., recognizing numbers, counting).

Communication and general knowledge (threshold set at 16) — Problems understanding or communicating in English, articulating clearly and/or little general knowledge.

According to the teachers' ratings, approximately three-quarters of all children in North York were in the normal range of development in each of the components when they started school. More children (over 80%, which represented 3892 children) fell within the normal range of physical development compared to the proportion within the normal range of development in the other components. Between 20 and 25% of children were having at least some problems in each of the other components.

Overall readiness to learn in North York

Scoring in the "poorer" range on one component of the checklist did not necessarily imply that a child would have a problem with readiness for school and learning. However, children rated as having regular minor problems in two or more of the five areas (31.8% or 1,507 children) were more likely to have difficulty learning. The results showed that almost one-third of the children in the community had problems in two or more of the five areas of development.

Mapping the community

The children were dispersed in schools and neighbourhoods throughout the community (as seen in Map 1). Children were assessed shortly after entering the school system. The results therefore served as an indicator of a community's capacity to prepare its children during the pre-school years for learning and entry into school. The results did not evaluate individual children, specific schools or the performance of teachers. Instead, the EDI gives the community an understanding of how well prepared its children are for school, as well as giving the school an indication of where the children entering the school system are starting from.

The following five maps (Maps 2 to 6) look at the average scores obtained on each of the components of the teacher checklist (EDI) by children living in different neighbourhoods, attending different schools and being part of different school populations.⁴ Therefore, the scores represented the school population's average score. The categories were developed based on the percentile scores in each component for the distribution of all children in Canada who were assessed with the EDI in 1998-1999. Thus children in North York were compared with the development patterns of children in Canada.

The following indicators made up the Social Index (the Canadian averages for the indicators are in brackets).

• Prevalence of low-income status of individual residents (18.6%).
• Proportion of males 15 and over who worked full-time, full year (39.7%).
• Proportion of individuals 15 years and over without a high school diploma (37.0%).
• Proportion of families with children headed by a lone parent (22.7%).
• Proportion of the population speaking neither official language (1.4%).
• Proportion of the population that immigrated to Canada since 1991 (3.2%).
• Mobility or moves into and out of the neighbourhood in one year (16.0%).
• Home ownership (64.8%).
• Proportion of the total income of the neighbourhood coming from government transfer payments (i.e., CPP, Child Tax Benefit, provincial social assistance payments) (18.5%).

All data were from the 1996 Census. Each indicator was considered a risk factor if the community percentage was lower than the national one. The total number of risk factors made up the Social Index.

Scores closer to zero (red stars on the maps) represented more advanced development in each component, while higher scores (yellow stars) indicated poorer development in each component for each school population. Red stars represented school populations where the average score of the children exceeded the top 25^thpercentile score; green stars, those who scored between the 25^th and the 50^th percentiles; blue stars, scores between the 50^th and 75^th percentiles; and yellow stars, school populations where the average score of the children was in the lowest 25^th percentile (those showing signs of poorer development for each of the components). Data were collected from 88 schools.

In order to examine some of the social and economic factors of each neighbourhood, which could affect the results, the scores in each component are shown on the maps, which also indicate the Social Index for each neighbourhood. The Social Index was developed in order to create a profile of the level of socio-economic well-being in the neighbourhoods. It was created by combining social and economic risk factors into one score so that the characteristics of each neighbourhood could be considered individually and in relation to the rest of the neighbourhoods in North York. The Social Index assigns each neighbourhood a point for each potential risk factor. Risk factors included such variables as having a higher unemployment or poverty rate, or a larger proportion of lone-parent families than the national average. Higher scores indicated the presence of more potential risk factors.

Overall, children in most of the neighbourhoods scored well on each of the teacher-rated components of the EDI. Though all schools had children who faced difficulties, only a few schools had average scores for all their children falling below the thresholds. Most school populations scored in the middle range on all components.

There was a great deal of variability within the scores for a population attending a particular school in each of the components. For instance, although children scored best on the physical health component, the average score for each school population for this component showed a wide distribution. There were several school populations with a higher average because a greater number of children scored very well on this component (red stars) while several schools had a lower average because a higher number of children were having problems in the physical health component (yellow stars). This indicated that the developmental level of the population of children attending a particular school was quite varied.

The scores for the different school populations often depended on which component was being examined. For example, one population of school children on the western side of the community (about half way down the map) scored in the highest category for the physical health component, the lowest on emotional maturity and in the middle two categories in all the other components. This suggested that interventions before children enter school need to be examined on a neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood basis, as the mix of outcomes for children in each neighbourhood are quite different. However, because lower-than-desired scores were obtained by children throughout the community in all components, community-based efforts should still be broad enough to support all children who have difficulties in any of the components wherever they might live.

The Social Index, based on the social and economic characteristics for each of the neighbourhoods, showed clusters of low- and high-risk areas in the community. Most of the higher-risk areas appeared to be located in the western portion of the community and in isolated areas on the eastern side.

In some instances, schools with the best average school population scores (red stars) tended to be located in the neighbourhoods that also had fewer risk factors, and those with poorer average school population scores were often seen in the higher risk (blue shaded) areas. However, this was not always the case. There were also several low-risk neighbourhoods where the average school population score was lower on all components, indicating that the children were developing well. Some school populations in neighbourhoods in higher-risk areas also had high average scores for many of the components of development.

Summing up

Although three-quarters of children were developing normally in each of the components of development, a significant number were showing regular signs of problems in at least one or more of the components.

According to teacher ratings, fewer children in North York had difficulties with physical health and a greater number had problems with social competence. There was a great deal of variability in the components, however, in different neighbourhoods across the community as measured by the average score of each school population. This indicates that some schools have children entering school with lower levels of development. Supports and programs in the early years could be provided to prevent this. It also argues for programming to help children overcome these difficulties once they enter the school system.

Results were also examined in relation to the Social Index based on social and economic risk factors in the community. This information can serve as a tool to help communities allocate resources to meet the needs of all children and families by allowing them to understand the multiple demands placed on their services. There are, of course, other individual and family factors that can affect the development of an individual child.

Resources could be targeted to specific areas experiencing particular problems and those having multiple indicators of delayed development. But a base level of services for prevention and support could also be provided to all families with children. Both strategies may be required to ensure that all children are ready to learn when they enter school.

• ³Children were assessed in the spring of their senior kindergarten year.
• ⁴Although many children who attend a particular school live in the neighbourhood that makes up the school's catchment area, some children also live outside of the catchment area. The EDI was collected on a school-by-school basis. Therefore, the scores reflect the scores of all of the children who attended a particular school regardless of whether they lived in the neighbourhood/school catchment area or not.

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