Chapter 1. Early learning matters: The International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study

The International Early Learning and Child Well-Being Study puts a spotlight on how children are faring at age five. This chapter presents the rationale for focusing on children’s learning and development in the earliest years, and outlines the importance of having reliable evidence on early learning that is comparable across countries. The chapter also provides information on the overall design of the study.

    

The early years: a window of opportunity… and risk

The first five years of a child’s life is a period of great opportunity, and great risk. The cognitive and social-emotional skills that children develop in these early years have long-lasting impacts throughout schooling and adulthood. Although the quality of later schooling is important, strong early learning accelerates later development, whereas a poor start inhibits it (Bartik, 2014_[1]; Heckman, 2006_[2]; Schoon et al., 2015_[3]; Sylva et al., 2008_[4])

Early learning and child well-being are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. Children thrive in caring families, where they feel safe and happy, and where they are supported to learn about themselves and their social, cultural and physical environments. The day-to-day interactions and activities between young children and their parents and other family members foster children’s well-being and their emerging cognitive and social-emotional skills (Melhuish et al., 2008_[5]).

Children also learn in settings beyond their immediate home, including in their wider family network, their neighbourhood community, in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings, and in early schooling. For children without enabling home learning environments, ECEC and early schooling may be their only chance to develop the key skills they need. Children from even the most disadvantaged homes can thrive when they have sustained access to high-quality and responsive learning environments. This early platform of learning enables children to develop the skills they need to succeed in school and in later life (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1. Children’s early learning and later life outcomes

Source: Shuey and Kankaraš (2018_[6]), The Power and Promise of Early Learning, .

 StatLink https://doi.org/10.1787/f9b2e53f-en

The window of positive early learning starts to close when children are around seven years old, due to a sharp decrease in brain malleability at this point (World Bank, 2018_[7]). Investment in children’s early learning enables their development and shapes children’s long-term ability to learn (Figure 1.2). If children have not developed core foundation skills by this point, they will struggle to progress well at school, and may also have social and behavioural difficulties in adolescence and in adulthood. Seeking to ameliorate a poor start at older ages is complex, challenging and costly, and yields low success rates (Heckman, 2006_[2]). At a system level, the proportion of children with poor early development constrains the extent to which any education system can achieve success for these children and perform well as a whole.

Figure 1.2. Risk and protective factors affect development trajectories

Source: Adapted from Walker et al. (2011_[8]), Early Childhood Stimulation Benefits Adult Competence and Reduces Violent Behavior, .

 StatLink https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2010-2231

Countries are increasingly focusing on early years policies as a means to lift overall educational performance and mitigate disadvantage. Many countries have increased ECEC participation rates and their overall investments in early years policies (Figure 1.3). Yet early learning remains a relatively neglected area of international education research. As a consequence, there is little internationally-based evidence on how to improve early years policies and achieve better results for children.

The promise of early childhood education may not always deliver for some children due to, for example, the quality and responsiveness of provision, the extent to which provision focuses on the types of skill development children need most in the early years, and the timeliness and continuity of provision. At a system level, countries could learn a great deal from each other on how to enhance early learning outcomes for all children, by using a common framework for doing so.

Figure 1.3. Change in enrolment rates of children aged 3 to 5 years (2005, 2010 and 2017)

Source: OECD (2019_[9]), Education at a Glance 2019: OECD Indicators,https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/f8d7880d-en.

 StatLink https://doi.org/10.1787/888934099979

Countries can learn from each other to improve children’s early learning outcomes

The International Early Learning and Child Well-Being Study (IELS) was designed to help countries assess their children’s skills and development, and to understand how these relate to children’s early learning experiences and well-being. The study provides countries with comparative data on children’s early skills, along with a framework to foster the growing interest in early childhood outcomes. Using this information, countries can better identify factors that promote or hinder children’s early learning. The study analyses the associations between children’s early skills and elements of their individual characteristics, home learning environments and education experiences.

IELS directly assessed the emergent literacy and numeracy, self-regulation and social- emotional skills of a representative sample of five-year-old children in registered schools and ECEC settings in each participating country. Three countries participated in IELS in 2018: England, Estonia and the United States.

IELS took a holistic approach to understanding a child’s early learning development at the age of five (Figure 1.4). It consisted of a play-based direct assessment of children’s abilities in emergent literacy, emergent numeracy, self-regulation and empathy. Children were assessed through developmentally appropriate, interactive stories and games on a tablet, supported on a one-to-one basis by trained study administrators. The assessments were carried out in the school or ECEC setting the child was attending. There was no reading or writing involved, and no prior experience of digital devices was needed. In addition, IELS collected information from parents and educators to better understand children’s early skills across a wider set of early learning outcomes, including children’s prosocial behaviour and levels of trust. The parents of these children as well as the staff member or teacher who knew the child best were asked to participate, to provide a fuller picture of each child.

IELS scores are not physical units (such as meters or grams). Instead, they are set in relation to the variation in outcomes observed across all children who participated. Each of the directly-assessed learning outcomes in IELS was converted to the same metric scale and internationally standardised with approximately normal distributions. There is theoretically no minimum or maximum score in IELS. The results are instead scaled to have approximately normal distributions, with means around 500 and standard deviations around 100. The overall mean of 500 score points represents the standardised mean of all participating countries. In statistical terms, a one-point difference on the IELS scale therefore corresponds to an effect size of 0.01; and a 10-point difference to an effect size of 0.10.

Figure 1.4. Children’s early learning included in IELS

Source: OECD (2018_[10]), Early Learning Matters, .

 StatLink https://www.oecd.org/education/school/Early-Learning-Matters-Project-Brochure.pdf

IELS’ holistic approach included information on children’s early learning experiences – such as their home learning environment, ECEC experiences and the socio-economic contexts of their families – to identify the relationship of these factors with children’s development. Beyond measuring individual learning domains, the study increases our understanding of how children’s emergent literacy and numeracy skills relate to self-regulation and social-emotional skills. This provides robust new evidence that will help countries to improve children’s early learning outcomes and overall development.

IELS emphasised the well-being of children participating in the study above all else. The activities for the children were engaging and developmentally-appropriate. Participation was voluntary. The trained study administrators - who also liaised with staff in the child’s school or centre – were responsible for ensuring that every child that participated in the study was happy to do so and had a positive experience throughout the assessment.

The results from IELS are presented in an international report and in a series of in-depth reports for each of the three participating countries. This volume focuses on the findings for England.

References

[1] Bartik, T. (2014), From Preschool to Prosperity: The Economic Payoff to Early Childhood Education, W.E. Upjohn Institute, https://doi.org/10.17848/9780880994835.

[2] Heckman, J. (2006), Skill formation and the economics of investing in disadvantaged children, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1128898.

[5] Melhuish, E. et al. (2008), “Effects of the Home Learning Environment and Preschool Center Experience upon Literacy and Numeracy Development in Early Primary School”, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 64/1, pp. 95-114, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.00550.x.

[9] OECD (2019), Education at a Glance 2019: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/f8d7880d-en.

[10] OECD (2018), Early Learning Matters, https://www.oecd.org/education/school/Early-Learning-Matters-Project-Brochure.pdf (accessed on 4 February 2020).

[3] Schoon, I. et al. (2015), The Impact of Early Life Skills on Later Outcomes, http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10051902/1/Schoon_2015%20The%20Impact%20of%20Early%20Life%20Skills%20on%20Later%20Outcomes_%20Sept%20fin2015.pdf (accessed on 31 July 2019).

[6] Shuey, E. and M. Kankaraš (2018), The Power and Promise of Early Learning, http://www.oecd.org/edu/workingpapers (accessed on 14 February 2019).

[4] Sylva, K. et al. (2008), Final report from the primary phase: Pre-school, school and family influences on children’ s development during Key Stage 2 (7-11) Publication Details, http://ro.uow.edu.au/sspapers/1807 (accessed on 4 February 2020).

[8] Walker, S. et al. (2011), “Early childhood stimulation benefits adult competence and reduces violent behavior”, Pediatrics, Vol. 127/5, pp. 849-857, https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2010-2231.

[7] World Bank (2018), World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize Education’s Promise, https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2018 (accessed on 4 February 2020).