Dear karen30115-ga;
Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to answer your interesting question.
?The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is conducting a
six-year, $25 million study, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Project,
to track a group of 22,000 children attending about 1,000 different
public and private schools throughout the nation, representing the
nation's nearly 4 million first-time kindergarten students. The first
full report of the project, America's Kindergartners, released in
February 2000, was based on assessments of the students and surveys of
the parents and teachers in the fall of 1998.?
This study indicated that 94% of kindergarten-aged children could
identify the basic shapes and that 66% knew their numbers. It also
adds that results fluctuated depending on what language was spoken at
home, the mental and chronological age of the child, class size,
gender of the student and, oddly enough, the mother?s level of
education:
?Although a child's skills generally increase with the level of the
mother's education, the study found, some children whose mothers have
a bachelor's degree or higher scored the lowest and some children
whose mothers have less than a high school education scored the
highest.?
EDUCATION WORLD: STUDY LOOKS FOR KEYS TO EARLY SCHOOL SUCCESS
http://www.education-world.com/a_issues/issues082.shtml
Typically, by kindergarten the healthy North American child has
routinely mastered these skills, although some may develop these
skills slightly prior to entering kindergarten or coming of
kindergarten age ? depending on the many positive and negative factors
mentioned above. As a matter of rule though, in most instances it is a
prerequisite skill for passage into the 1st grade so certainly the
skills should have been mastered by the time the child graduates from
kindergarten. Since 94% have developed these skills at, or just prior
to kindergarten, and all children are expected to have mastered the
skill by the completion of kindergarten, it would only be logical to
assume that it is this brief period of childhood development wherein
lies the norm for this particular skill.
If the purpose of your question is to determine if you have a genius
on hand, it would seem that the earlier the child has mastered this
skill prior to coming of kindergarten age, the more likely the child
is smarter than most ? at least in this area. If the purpose of your
question is to determine if your child is within the norm for this
skill, it can probably be measured based on that child?s age as
compared to similarly raised children in the same age bracket as was
done in this study. On the other hand, the mere fact that your child
is above or below the norm with regard to this particular skill at
this point in his life is not necessarily a yardstick for overall
intelligence or a cause for immediate concern.
I found the report both fascinating and informative (I too have a
kindergartner) and I?m sure you will also:
REPORT: AMERICA?S KINDERGARTNERS
http://www.nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2000070
Below you will find that I have carefully defined my search strategy
for you in the event that you need to search for more information. By
following the same type of searches that I did you may be able to
enhance the research I have provided even further. I hope you find
that that my research exceeds your expectations. If you have any
questions about my research please post a clarification request prior
to rating the answer. Otherwise, I welcome your rating and your final
comments and I look forward to working with you again in the near
future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.
Best regards;
Tutuzdad ? Google Answers Researcher
INFORMATION SOURCES
REPORT: AMERICA?S KINDERGARTNERS
http://www.nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2000070
EDUCATION WORLD: STUDY LOOKS FOR KEYS TO EARLY SCHOOL SUCCESS
http://www.education-world.com/a_issues/issues082.shtml
NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS (NCES)
http://nces.ed.gov/
SEARCH STRATEGY
SEARCH ENGINES USED:
Google ://www.google.com
SEARCH TERMS USED:
COGNITIVE SKILLS, CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT, BASIC SHAPES, AGE |
