SUMMARY:For three weeks in the summer, children who are entering kindergarten in Portland, Oregon, get ready and get excited to start school. While it’s no substitute for pre-K, getting a preview helps ease the transition for kids, and offers parents a sense of connection. Special correspondent Lisa Stark of Education Week reports.
SUMMARY: In a report released today, researchers found that kindergarteners’ social skills, like cooperation, listening to others and helping classmates, provided strong predictors of how those children would fare two decades later. Judy Woodruff speaks to Damon Jones of Pennsylvania State University about the findings.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): A new study says keeping more children on track to high school graduation, a full-time job and out of the criminal justice system could start in kindergarten.
In a report released today, researchers tracked more than 700 children from kindergarten to age 25. They found students’ social skills, like cooperation, listening to others and helping classmates, held strong clues for how those children would fare two decades later. In some cases, social skills may even be better predictors of future success than academic ones.
Damon Jones, a senior research associate at Penn State University, joins me now to talk about the findings.
Professor Jones, welcome.
First, remind us, when and where did this study take place and what was the original purpose of it?
DAMON JONES, Pennsylvania State University: Well, Judy, our study was aimed at exploring the influential role of socioemotional skills in children in terms of human development in general.
You know, there are a lot of studies that looked at — cross-research disciplines that look at socioemotional skills. Sometimes, they’re called soft skills, sometimes noncognitive skills. And what these represent are kind of key characteristics in children representing things like managing their state, having good relationships, being responsible socially, interacting well with adults, and then getting things done.
It’s really key skills in early development that you can see would be very important in being successful in school and in relationships.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, again, this was 20 years ago that the study was begun.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
LINK DISCLAIMER:
There is no guarantee that any link provided in this blog will always work, especially for older links. The validity of any link is governed by the source-site policies. Some sites will archive articles and require subscription to access. Very small sites, such as a local town newspaper, may not archive at all.
