Patterns in Parents’ School Readiness Beliefs and Connections to School Entry Timing

More needs to be known regarding what precipitates parents’ decision to delay school entry for their children. Using the ECLS-K:2011 (n = 13,149), patterns in parents’ ratings of school readiness items were investigated, and associations with decisions to delay school entry were examined. Latent Class Analysis was used to investigate the presence of subgroups of parents based on their ratings of school readiness items. A three-class solution was selected (resulting in groups labeled Essential (42.11% of sample), Very Important (38.12%), and Making Distinctions (19.77%)). Next, the demographic breakdown of the three groups was investigated. Distinct patterns in both race and ethnicity and socioeconomic status emerged from the descriptive analyses. Finally, the three groups were used to predict parents’ decision to delay school entry. A significantly higher percentage of parents in the Making Distinctions group delayed school entry than in the Very Important group but not significantly more than in the Essential group. Results suggest that distinct subgroups of parents exist, and those subgroups helped to explain parents’ decision to delay school entry.