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This report is intended to provide a snapshot of the children in the ECLS-K:2011 cohort who were in kindergarten for the first time in the 2010-11 school year and in fourth grade 4 years later during the spring of 2015. About 88 percent of children enrolled in kindergarten in 2010-11 were in kindergarten for the first time that school year and were in fourth grade in the spring of 2015. The remaining 12 percent includes children who were repeating kindergarten in 2010-11 or who were not in fourth grade in the spring of 2015, including children who had been retained or advanced resulting in enrollment in a grade other than fourth, or who were in an ungraded classroom or setting in the spring of 2015. Information is presented on selected child and family characteristics, such as poverty status, parental education, family type, and primary home language (table 1), obtained when the children were in kindergarten. Information is also provided on the children's knowledge and skills in reading (table 2), math (table 3), and science (table 4) in the spring of fourth grade, both overall and by the selected kindergarten-year child and family characteristics.

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011), is collecting information about the early educational experiences of a nationally representative sample of children who were in kindergarten or who were of kindergarten age in ungraded classrooms or schools in the 2010-11 school year. The data collection began in the 2010-11 school year, when the children in the sample were in kindergarten, and will continue through the spring of 2016, when most of the children in the sample are expected to be in fifth grade. This brief report provides information from the data collection conducted in the spring of 2014, when the majority of the students were in third grade. The ECLS-K:2011 provides information on students' status at school entry, on their transition into school, and on their progression through the elementary grades. The longitudinal nature of the ECLS-K:2011 data enables researchers to study how a wide range of family, school, community, and individual factors are associated with educational, socioemotional, and physical development over time. Information is being collected from the students, their parents and guardians, their teachers, and their school administrators. Information was also collected from their before- and after-school care providers in the kindergarten year. The ECLS-K:2011 is the third in a series of longitudinal studies of young children conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. The other studies in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) program are the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B). This report is intended to provide a snapshot of the children in the ECLS-K:2011 cohort who were in kindergarten for the first time in the 2010-11 school year and in third grade 3 years later during the spring of 2014.1 Information is presented on selected child and family characteristics, such as poverty status, parental education, family type, and primary home language (table 1), obtained when the children were in kindergarten. Information is also provided on the children's knowledge and skills in reading (table 2), math (table 3), and science (table 4) in the spring of third grade, both overall and by the selected kindergarten-year child and family characteristics. The following are appended: (1) Survey Methodology and Glossary; and (2) Standard Error Tables.

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011), is collecting information about the early educational experiences of a nationally representative sample of children who were in kindergarten or who were of kindergarten age in ungraded classrooms or schools in the 2010-11 school year. The data collection began in the 2010-11 school year, when the children in the sample were in kindergarten, and will continue through the spring of 2016, when most of the children in the sample are expected to be in fifth grade. This brief report is intended to provide a snapshot of the children in the ECLS-K:2011 cohort who were in kindergarten for the first time in the 2010-11 school year and in second grade 2 years later during the 2012-13 school year. Information is presented on selected child and family characteristics, such as poverty status, parental education, family type, and primary home language, obtained when the children were in kindergarten. Information is also provided on the children's knowledge and skills in reading, math, and science in the fall and spring of second grade, both overall and by the selected kindergarten-year child and family characteristics. For brevity, the selected findings focus on achievement in the spring of the children's second-grade year. Appended are: (1) Survey Methodology and Glossary; and (2) Standard Error Tables.

This report is intended to provide a snapshot of the children in the ECLS-K:2011 cohort who were in kindergarten for the first time in the 2010-11 school year and advanced to first grade in the following year. Information is presented on selected child and family characteristics, such as poverty status and parental education (table 1), obtained when the children were in kindergarten. Information is also provided on the children's achievement in reading (table 2), math (table 3), and science (table 4) in the fall and spring of first grade, both overall and by the selected kindergarten-year child and family characteristics. For brevity, the Selected Findings focus on achievement in the spring of the children's first-grade year. Findings include: (1) Approximately 87 percent were 5 years old (60 to 71 months) when they entered kindergarten for the first time, about 10 percent were age 6 or older, and approximately 3 percent were younger than age 5; (2) Approximately 22 percent lived in households with incomes below the federal poverty level in their kindergarten year; (3) About 8 percent had parents whose highest level of education was less than a high school diploma; about 19 percent had parents with a high school diploma or equivalent; about 36 percent had parents whose highest level of education was some college, an associate's degree, or career/technical education; and about 37 percent had parents whose highest level of education was a bachelor's degree or higher; (4) Assessment scores varied by age of entry into kindergarten; (5) In reading, math, and science, both White students and Asian students had higher average scores than either Black students or Hispanic students; (6) Scores in reading, math, and science all differed across the three income groups examined; (7) In reading, math, and science, assessment scores increased with parental education; (8) Assessment scores varied by family type, with students in two-parent households scoring higher in reading, math, and science than students in single-parent and other parent type households; and (9) Students with a primary home language of English scored higher in reading, math, and science than students with a non-English primary home language and students with multiple home languages. Appended are: (1) Survey Methodology and Glossary; and (2) Standard Error Tables.

This brief report provides a demographic profile of the students who attended kindergarten in the United States in the 2010-11 school year using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011). The ECLS-K:2011 cohort includes students in public and private schools across the United States, students who attended part-day and full-day kindergarten programs, and students who were attending their first year of kindergarten as well as those who were repeating kindergarten. The analyses presented in this report focus on the 3.5 million students who were attending kindergarten for the first time in the 2010-11 school year. Approximately 5 percent of the students in the ECLS-K:2011 cohort were repeating kindergarten and are not represented in the findings in this report. The ECLS-K:2011 is a longitudinal study that will follow a nationally representative sample of students from their kindergarten year to the spring of 2016, when most of them are expected to be in fifth grade. During the first year of data collection, when all children were in kindergarten, data were collected in both the fall and the spring. Approximately 18,200 children enrolled in 970 schools during the 2010-11 school year participated during the kindergarten year. The study will provide information on students' status at entry to school, their transition into school, and their progression through the elementary grades. The longitudinal nature of the ECLS-K:2011 data will enable researchers to study how a wide range of family, school, community, and individual factors are associated with educational, socioemotional, and physical development over time. Information is being collected from the students, their parents/guardians, their teachers, their school administrators, and their before- and after-school care providers. Readers are cautioned not to draw causal inferences based on the results presented. It is important to note that many of the characteristics examined in this report may be related to one another, and complex interactions and relationships among the characteristics were not explored in this report. The variables examined here are just a few of the several thousand that can be examined using the ECLS-K:2011 data. These findings are examples of estimates that can be obtained from the data and are not designed to emphasize any particular issue. In addition, the estimates presented in this report are based on a preliminary version of the ECLS-K:2011 restricted-use data. Estimates produced with the final restricted-use data file, or the public-use data file, may vary. Appended are: (1) Survey Methodology and Glossary; and (2) Standard Error Tables. (Contains 6 tables and 9 footnotes.) [Additional support for this paper was provided by the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families and the Office of English Language Acquisition.]