Self-Regulation and Early School Success

Self-regulation has been identified as an important predictor of school readiness and academic achievement in young children. Children who struggle with self-regulation are at risk of experiencing peer rejection and academic difficulties. Teachers report that there is high variability in children’s self-regulatory abilities at school entry and that children with an accumulation of risk factors are especially likely to enter school without adequate self-regulation skills. Moreover, early academic skills are often cumulative, so children who fail to acquire early skills are at risk of falling behind their peers academically and facing achievement gaps that widen over time.

Although the relation between self-regulation and school-related outcomes has been clearly documented, our understanding of the pathways through which self-regulation influences early achievement and school success remains unclear. This special issue considers previously neglected areas in the current understanding of self-regulation. The seven articles focus on issues including (a) the complex relations between self-regulation and school readiness, (b) predictors of self-regulation and academic achievement, and (c) advances in measurement of self-regulation and related skills.

Research that continues to investigate the complex relations and mechanisms that influence early self-regulation and related outcomes will inform policy and practice in ways that help all children develop the self-regulation skills they need. The volume will be of interest to researchers in the field of child development or education, and educators and policy makers who are interested in promoting school readiness and academic success.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Education and Development.

Megan McClelland is an Associate Professor in Human Development and Family Sciences at Oregon State University, USA, where she serves as Director of the Healthy Development in Early Childhood Research Core at the Hallie Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families. Her research focuses on school readiness including links between self-regulation and academic achievement from early childhood to adulthood, recent advances in measuring self-regulation, and intervention efforts to improve these skills in young children.

Shauna Tominey is a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale University, USA, in the Department of Psychology and at the Yale Child Study Center in the School of Medicine. Her current research is focused on the development of an intervention aimed at promoting preschoolers’ social-emotional skills as well as the development of programs for children and families targeting the development of social competence and social support as a means of fostering resilience.