One-third of kindergarten students unprepared, study finds

A growing percentage of B.C. children -- almost one out of three -- started kindergarten last year with developmental deficiencies that are expected to impair their early learning and possibly their entire school experience, says a study released Tuesday by university researchers.

Those children lacked either the language or communication skills or the social, emotional and physical health they needed to do well in school.

It's a troubling picture and while the introduction of full-day kindergarten this year and the spread of StrongStart Centres for preschoolers are expected to make a difference, much more help is needed, the researchers warned.

"We've got a long way to go," said Clyde Hertzman, director of the University of B.C.'s Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), an interdisciplinary network of faculty and researchers from five B.C. universities that has collected data about children's development in neighbourhoods around the province for 10 years.

The latest results suggest five-year-olds in downtown Prince George and north Chilliwack are the most vulnerable in the province and the least ready to learn when they enter school; children in Rossland and Revelstoke, meanwhile, have the strongest foundation.

In Rossland, the vulnerability rate was zero compared with 62.8 per cent in Prince George's South Fort George neighbourhood.

Overall, vulnerability increased to 30.3 per cent of children in 53 of 59 B.C. school districts last year from 28.5 per cent in the same districts in 2008-09.

Source: www.earlylearning.ubc.ca

Data about children's readiness for school is collected via questionnaires completed by kindergarten teachers in 480 neighbourhoods, including public, independent and first nations schools.

The group uses what it calls an early development instrument -- a measure that "reports on areas of strength and deficit in children's development and helps us assess how well communities are doing in supporting young children and their families."

"We can clearly demonstrate that child vulnerability is trending upwards," said Hertzman in a news release. "Anything more than 10 per cent is avoidable under optimal conditions of early childhood so about two-thirds of the developmental vulnerabilities that B.C. children currently experience as they start school is preventable."

Vancouver's overall vulnerability rate was 40.1 per cent, with communications being the biggest hurdle -- in part because large numbers of children speak a language other than English or French at home.

But Hertzman, a professor in UBC's Population and Public Health School, said even when communications skills are removed from the equation, Vancouver still had a high percentage of children who were ill-prepared for school.

Moreover, he said communications shortcomings are evident even in some communities where the vast majority of residents speak English. "That, I think, has to do with whether or not [the children] have been exposed to rich and responsive language environments growing up. If you're not exposed to those environments, you don't develop the language facility," he said in an interview.

The Vancouver neighbourhoods with the most vulnerable children were Strathcona at 58.5 per cent and the West End at 57.1 per cent. South Cambie, meanwhile, had a vulnerability rate of 13 per cent, the city's lowest.

Children in the university lands near UBC showed the biggest improvement while those in neighbouring West Point Grey were headed in the opposite direction, with vulnerability increasing to 30.4 per cent from 18.5 per cent.

While saying he couldn't explain differences in individual neighbourhoods, Hertzman noted wealth doesn't guarantee strong foundations for children.

While roughly half of the differences among neighbourhoods are a result of

via www.vancouversun.com