Reports

Year One Report: Boston's Progress toward Universal School Readiness

This report to Thomas M. Menino, Mayor of Boston, and Michael K. Durkin, President and CEO of United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, outlines the collaborative activity in Boston supporting school readiness since the release of Boston's School Readiness Roadmap, as well as upcoming work.
    Read more and download the report.

Boston's School Readiness Roadmap
Throughout 2007, 65 Boston-area leaders and community stakeholders from 12 sectors came together to develop a plan to prevent the achievement gap by promoting school readiness and ensuring healthy development. This year-long planning process, known as Boston's Birth to Five School Readiness Initiative, resulted in a new citywide framework called Thrive in 5 - Boston's Promise to its Children, as well as a ten-year plan titled Boston's School Readiness Roadmap.

    Boston's School Readiness Roadmap - Full Report
    (Full report includes Executive Summary)

    Boston's School Readiness Roadmap - Executive Summary


Resources

Self-Regulation Resources
Self-regulation skills (interrelated problem-focused and emotion-focused coping skills, e.g., executive function, emotional regulation) are critical to a child's school readiness. These skills are teachable and best promoted in early childhood, starting at infancy. The following articles demonstrate that self-regulation skills predict resiliency and are linked to strong mental health, social competence, academic achievement, and healthy coping strategies in limited income youth. While the study participants in both articles are children age 8-12, the results are relevant to 0-5 year olds.
Buckner, J.C., Mezzacappa, E., & Beardslee, W.R. (2003). Characteristics of resilient youths living in poverty: The role of self-regulatory processes. Development and Psychopathology, 15, 139-162.

Buckner, J.C., Mezzacappa, E., & Beardslee, W.R. (2009). Self-regulation and its relations to adaptive functioning in low income youths. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 79 (1), 19-30.


Report

Talk, Read, Play: A New Campaign from Countdown to Kindergarten and ReadBoston
Talk, Read, Play offers Boston parents, caregivers and providers one-stop shopping for information about early childhood development, local resources and organizations, and free and low-cost activities and events for young children at home and around the city. Visit TalkReadPlay.org to download a Milestones guide with information about and activities for children ages birth through five. The Milestones guide is available online in English, Spanish, Chinese, Cape Verdean, Haitian, Portuguese, Vietnamese and Somali. Parents can also sign up to receive monthly e-mails and text messages about their individual child's development.

Boston's Families and Resources
Throughout 2006, staff from the Mayor's Office, Children's Hospital Boston, the Boston Redevelopment Authority and United Way compiled demographic information to better understand Boston's birth to five year olds and their families and conducted a community scan to assess Boston's resources for supporting this age group. To learn about what we found, check out "Preventing the Achievement Gap".

Best Practices to Prevent the Achievement Gap
In the fall of 2006, Mayor Menino convened a group of top early childhood researchers and practitioners to recommend the most effective strategies to promote school readiness in young children. The 12-member group, known as the Mayor's 0 to 5 Work Group, detailed their recommendations in a report to the Mayor in December 2006. This report jumpstarted the Thrive in 5 planning process, specifically the Mayor's School Readiness Action Planning Team (the APT), and informed some early program expansion work in Boston. To read the report, click here.

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