Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS)

DESCRIPTION: The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study: Kindergarten Class (ECLS-k) is one of three longitudinal studies in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) program. The ECLS program provides national data on child development, school readiness, and early school experiences. It also provides data to analyze the relationships among a wide range of family, school, community, and individual variables with children's development, early learning, and performance in school. The kindergarten class of 1998-99 cohort is a sample of children followed from kindergarten through the eighth grade. The study collected information on four main areas: (1) school readiness, (2) children's transitions to kindergarten, first grade, and beyond, (3) the relationship between children's kindergarten experience and their elementary school performance, and (4) children's growth in math, reading, and general knowledge (i.e., science and social studies), and their progress through elementary school.

DATA and CODEBOOKS: The codebooks for the third and fifth grade are available on the network (R:\CFDR\Public\Data\ECLS-K) and from the ICPSR (http://www.icpsr.com/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/3676?archive=ICPSR&q=Early+Childhood+Longitudinal+Study).  We also have the K-8 full sample public-use data files and electronic codebook on disc.

WEBLINKS: http://nces.ed.gov/ECLS/kindergarten.asp