Direct and indirect pathways from children’s early self-regulation to academic achievement in fifth grade in Norway

The aim of the study is to investigate how self-regulation in kindergarten and in Year 1 can directly and indirectly affect reading comprehension and mathematics performance in Year 5. The study focuses on the following research questions: 1) Can directly evaluated and kindergarten teachers’ assessments of self-regulation in the last year of kindergarten (5–6 years old) solely predict vocabulary, phonological awareness and early mathematical skills at the end of Year 1 (6–7 years old), and will these assessments of self-regulation in kindergarten and in Year 1 solely be able to predict reading comprehension and mathematics performance in Year 5 (9–10 years old)? 2) Can direct assessments and kindergarten teachers’ assessments of self-regulation at the end of kindergarten provision solely have an indirect effect on reading comprehension and mathematics performance in Year 5 through academic skills and assessments of self-regulation in Year 1?

The results of the study show that direct assessments and the kindergarten teacher’s assessments of self-regulation in kindergarten can predict children’s academic reading/arithmetic skills in Year 1 at school. The study also shows that similar assessments in Year 1 can predict children’s academic reading/arithmetic skills in Year 5. The study thus reveals the role that early self-regulation skills play in later academic performance. It also shows how direct assessments and kindergarten teachers’/teachers’ assessments of children’s self-regulation skills can be used to predict later academic learning.

The study included 287 children, 119 girls and 124 boys, from 19 different kindergartens in Norway. Data for the study were obtained at three different stages. The first collection of data took place during the spring of the last year of kindergarten, the second collection was during the spring in Year 1, and the final collection was during the autumn in Year 5. Data on children’s self-regulation were collected in different ways: through assessment in the form of a psychological test of the children and kindergarten teachers’ assessments of the children’s self-regulation, obtained using a questionnaire. The children’s vocabulary was measured through a Norwegian vocabulary test, phonological awareness was measured using a mixed test, and early mathematical skills were measured using ‘Ani Banani’, a mathematical test. The results of national reading and numeracy tests were used to measure reading comprehension and mathematics performance in Year 5.

Lenes, R., McClelland, M. M., ten Braak, D. & Idsøe, T. (2020). «Direct and indirect pathways from children’s early self-regulation to academic achievement in fifth grade in Norway». Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 53(2020):612-624.