School Readiness: The Role of Home Learning in Early Child Development

School readiness refers to the child’s preparedness by the time they start school. Recent research conducted by the National Literacy Trust (NLT) showed that school readiness affects the child’s school performance by the time they start the school year and beyond. A shocking discovery of the research showed that only 50% of the students that started school in 2021 in the UK are school-ready. That means that the other 50% are underprepared and would most likely fall behind their peers in school. 

In the study, teaching professionals that included teachers and teaching aids stated that there is significant time loss in learning when the child is not school-ready. This is because the teacher and the teaching aids will have to spend more time assisting underprepared students or they will have to slow down the pace of the lessons so the students that are falling behind can catch up with the lessons. Both of these slow down productivity of the whole class. 

Moreover, school readiness is further described as the child having the basic knowledge, skills, behaviour, and attitude that are necessary for them to achieve academic success in school and later on in life. Teaching professionals that were interviewed for the study expressed their concern that children who are underprepared for school are more likely to feel frustrated, unmotivated, exhausted, and develop low self-esteem. 

Limited school preparedness has a substantial effect on staff resources and can decrease the time teachers have to spend, supporting learning for every child in the classroom. The teachers also identified other significant problems that affect school readiness. This includes parents’ neglect and a lack of peer or community support for parents, which contribute to children not being “school ready.” Learning starts at home, and it is the role of every parent to get their child ready for school and to make sure they are prepared to start the school year, not falling behind their peers. School readiness is an important indicator of success later on in life because young children’s reading attitudes and confidence have been shown to predict their later reading success (Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002; McGeown et al., 2015). 

School Readiness: The Role of Parents in Early Child Development

Parents play a crucial role in the child’s early years. As the parent, you are their first teacher, so how prepared (or underprepared) they are for school is mostly a result of the parent’s interventions. According to research, your involvement in your child’s early years has a significant impact on how well they perform in school and later on in their adult life. No matter how old your child gets, a conducive home environment for learning plays an important role that affecting your child’s school performance. 

A home learning environment is later on described as the combination of everything that you do as a family, the learning spaces that your child has access to also affect their learning. Although parenting may feel like such a big responsibility, it amazingly comes naturally to most parents and there are so many home interventions that you can do to ensure your child is school-ready. 

One of the most effective ways to build a reading habit while they are young. This may not be that easy to start and some children may even reject reading at first, but this is getting into a reading habit is the best way to ensure your child is never behind in their learning. Start by choosing a good book for them, books that they can actually relate to. Studies indicate that personalised elements can increase children’s learning motivation, engagement, and aspiration (Cordova and Lepper, 1996). Moreover, children are also more likely to read books that have personal relevance to them and are less likely to read books that are uninteresting to them (National Literacy Trust). 

A personalised book has personalised elements that gets the child excited about reading. Ownership of text, both in the literal and metaphorical sense is a significant element in the process of becoming and perceiving oneself as a reader (Dymore and Griffiths, 2010). Interest in the book that they are reading greatly affects the child’s emotional engagement which they can associate with reading for pleasure (Schiefele, 1999 as cited by Clark and Phythian-Sence, 2008). 

On average, building a new habit may take as short as 18 days and as long as 250 days (that’s more than half a year!). So, building a reading habit will not be possible to do overnight. It takes time and a lot of patience especially for the parent to encourage the child to read and get them ready for school. 

Start by reading atleast 10 minutes a day. Small changes like these make a significant and lasting impact. It’s like taking bite-sized information and slowly building that love for reading through precious moments of reading that your kids can look back to as a core memory that they’d want to do over and over again! The goal is to get your child school-ready, by building a lifelong love for reading!