Early Development Instrument

Children are born ready to learn.  The human neurosystem is pre-programmed to develop the neuropathways necessary to develop skills, learn and grow.  Environment and early experiences play a critical role in this development.  The Early Development Instrument (EDI) is used to measure children’s readiness to learn in the school environment.  School readiness to learn refers to the ability to meet the task demands of school, such as being cooperative, physically healthy, able to communicate with adults and children, and ready to benefit from the education opportunities of school.

The EDI measures school readiness in five domains.  The EDI is a questionnaire filled out by the teacher in February or March of the Kindergarten year, after several months of interaction with the Kindergarten class.  Kindergarten teachers complete the EDI on individual children; however, the results are not used at the individual level.  The results are grouped by school, neighbourhood, school division, and provincial levels to understand patterns in vulnerability at the population level.

Province-wide collection of EDI data is intended to establish a baseline estimate of the state of early child development in Kindergarten.  The Saskatchewan data collection has been done on a voluntary basis with school divisions.  The 2008-09 and 2009-10 data includes 25 school divisions; also two tribal councils are included in the 2008-09 data.

Saskatchewan school divisions obtained mean scores that were below or similar to the normative average of all participants in Canada, particularly in the physical health and wellbeing, and language and cognitive development domains.

Almost 73% of Saskatchewan Kindergarten students enter school fully ready to learn.  About 27.1% of Kindergarten students were assessed as low on at least one of the five domains, not fully ready for the challenges of school; a proportion similar to the normative average.  Students who scored low in more than one domain have increased challenges to their readiness for school.  A higher proportion of Saskatchewan Kindergarten students scored low in three or more domains (Multiple Challenge Index) when compared to the normative average.