School readiness among children of immigrants in the US: Evidence from a large national birth cohort study

Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (n approximate to 6800), we examined the factors explaining variation in school readiness in a large and nationally representative sample of children in immigrant and non-immigrant families. In OLS regression models with rich controls to account for selection, we found that language background was a key factor in explaining children of immigrants' expressive language and early reading at kindergarten, whereas both socioeconomic status and language background helped explain their performance in math. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.