Screening Children's Entry Characteristics in Kindergarten

Screening children's entry characteristics in kindergarten may help parents and teachers to support the development of every child. To concretize this potential assistance, a pilot screening questionnaire was developed for parents as well as kindergarten teachers. To evaluate the reliability and predictive validity of this questionnaire for four‐year‐old children, longitudinal research was carried out. For the pilot instrument as well as for criterion instruments and biographical variables, data on 778 children in 63 classes of 24 Dutch kindergartens were collected. Factor analysis, alpha scale analysis, and multilevel analysis were used to reveal psychometric qualities. Reliability and predictive validity of the screening questionnaire turn out to be acceptable. While checking on co‐variables at pupil level and non‐specified variance at class level, parents can accurately screen at entry the language proficiency level, the pre‐arithmetic level, and the degree of extraversion of their child. Also, teachers are able, at the end of the first month in kindergarten, to predict a child's level of language proficiency, degree of extraversion, and work attitude. Early screening can therefore contribute to the child‐oriented cooperation between parents and teachers from a child's entry in kindergarten onwards.

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