The relationship of home environment and kindergarten readiness

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between home environment and school readiness of children entering kindergarten in a rural East Tennessee county. Variables included family income and structure, parents' education, participation in literacy activities, availability of home learning tools, and amount of children's television viewing. A self-reported parent survey was used to gather information; the Brigance K Screen was used to determine entering kindergartner's readiness for school. Three hundred thirty-eight children and parents participated.; An initial analysis of data incorporated simple descriptive statistics in the form of frequency tables. To examine the relationships between the dependent variable (Brigance scores) and independent variables (family characteristics/environment), Kendall's tau-b and Cramer's V were used. Independent sample t-tests and analyses of variance (ANOVAs) analyzed differences in Brigance scores between groups. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis determined if kindergarten readiness could be predicted by specific variables: socioeconomic status, literary resources, and literacy activities.; The analysis of relationships study indicated that family income was more closely related to success on the Brigance K Screen than any other variable; next in importance were the levels of parents' education. Significant positive correlations indicated the value of parents reading to their children, educational outings, availability of educational tools—specifically, a home computer, family structure, mealtime conversation, and the number of children's books in the home. A significant negative correlation was found between the duration of television viewing and Brigance scores; increased television viewing time was significantly related to lower test scores. ANOVAs and t-tests indicated significant differences in Brigance scores of prekindergarten students from different socioeconomic status groups based on family structure, family income, and parents' education levels. Children from two-parent homes scored significantly higher than those from other family situations as did children from higher income homes. Parents' education level was also reflected in the Brigance scores; more educated parents had children who scored higher than children with less educated parents. The multiple regression analysis reinforced the statistical significance and magnitude of the relationship between socioeconomic factors and school readiness. Literacy resources and literacy activities also accounted for variance in the scores.