Abstract:
The problem, The major question that provided the basis for this study is "Do children in an optional kindergarten program designed specifically for risk children produce readiness test scores at a statistical difference of .05
when compared with children's readiness test scores in the regular kindergarten program as measured by the Metropolitan Readiness Test?"
Procedure. This study was conducted in an independent suburban school district of approximately 3,200 students K-12 near a midwestern metropolitan area. The population for the study consisted of thirty-two children enrolled in the district's optional kindergarten program and thirty-two children randomly selected from the regular kindergarten population of the
district's six elementary schools. The research design consisted of a fall and spring readiness
testing of the total optional and regular kindergarten population during the 1983-84 school year.
A stratified random sample was identified from the
regular kindergarten population and the total population of the optional kindergarten was used. Analysis of variance statistical procedures were chosen to test the study hypotheses. Hypothesis One and Two were tested with a 2 X 2 X 2 ANOVA, Hypothesis Three and Four a 2 X 2 ANOVA and a one-way ANOVA was used for Hypothesis Five.Descrip tive statistics reported are age and sex.
Findings. In testing the research hypotheses at .05 level, significant differences were found for Hypothesis One, Three, Four, and Five. The results of this study found a significant difference beyond the .00l level for these hypotheses,
Conclusions. The general conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that this group of Optional Kindergarten children scored at a statistically significant lower level on a fall and spring readiness measure than regular kindergarten children. The data also shows that as a group the optional children are less ready for
first grade in the spring than they were for kindergarten in the fall. The overall conclusion
drawn from the data is that a significant difference does exist between the Optional Kindergarten children and Regular Kindergarten children as measured by the Metropolitan Readiness
Test.
