Children's Early Approaches to Learning and Academic Trajectories Through Fifth Grade

• Published in: Developmental psychology 2010-09, Vol.46 (5), p.1062-1077
• Main Authors: Li-Grining, Christine P, Votruba-Drzal, Elizabeth, Maldonado-Carreño, Carolina, Haas, Kelly
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Achievement; Adaptation; Age Differences; Age Factors; Attention Span; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child development; Child Development - physiology; Child, Preschool; Childhood Development; Data Analysis; Demography - methods; Developmental psychology; Educational psychology; Elementary school students; Elementary schools; Emotional Regulation; Ethnicity; Evaluation; Family; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gender Differences; Grade 1; Grade 3; Grade 5; Human; Human development; Humans; Illinois; Individual Differences; Kindergarten; Kindergarten students; Kindergartens; Learning; Learning - physiology; Learning Strategies; Learning styles; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Mathematics; Mathematics Achievement; Mathematics education; Models, Statistical; Persistence; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Pupil and student. Academic achievement and failure; Reading; Reading Achievement; Reading comprehension; School Readiness; Schooling; Schools; Sex Factors; Social Behavior; Socioeconomic Background; Socioeconomic status
• ISSN: 0012-1649; 1939-0599
• DOI: 10.1037/a0020066

Children's early approaches to learning (ATL) enhance their adaptation to the demands they experience with the start of formal schooling. The current study uses individual growth modeling to investigate whether children's early ATL, which includes persistence, emotion regulation, and attentiveness, explain individual differences in their academic trajectories during elementary school. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), the present investigation examined the association between ATL at kindergarten entry and trajectories of reading and math achievement across 6 waves of data from kindergarten, 1st, 3rd, and 5th grade ( n = 10,666). The current study found a positive link between early ATL and individual trajectories of reading and math performance. Overall, children's early ATL was equally beneficial for children regardless of their race/ethnicity and dimensions of their socioeconomic background. However, links between early ATL and academic trajectories differed by their gender and initial levels of math and reading achievement.