Study by Platas and Sitabkhan examines early math and literacy skills as predictors of achievement in students in Kenya

Associate Professor Linda M. Platas and Lecturer Yasmin Sitabkhan of the Child and Adolescent Development Department coauthored an article, “School-entry predictors of lower primary reading and mathematics achievement in Kenya,” with colleagues in the journal Research in Comparative and International Education.

This paper shares the results of a large-scale longitudinal study in Kenya and examines to what extent school-entry early mathematics and literacy skills predict students’ later achievement. Controlling for socioeconomic status, intervention status, rural versus urban settings and parental literacy, the findings revealed that school-entry mathematics skills were significantly predictive of students’ end of Grade 2 mathematics and reading achievement in English and Kiswahili. Likewise, school-entry English early literacy skills predicted students’ end of Grade 2 mathematics and reading achievement in English and Kiswahili. As one of the first articles in this area of research in a low-income country, this article extends earlier research on links between elements of school readiness and later achievement in high-income countries.