Are today’s children school-ready? How BRISE is studying and supporting transitions to elementary school

The BRISE research alliance (Bremen Initiative to Foster early Childhood Development) has received funding for a further four years. The money, allocated by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMBFSFJ), will enable the alliance to continue its study of young children and their families until the children are in their fourth year of schooling.

BRISE aims to explore the impact of early education and support on the children who receive it. Since the project commenced, it has closely studied and observed over 400 families, seeking to understand how to provide optimum support to children living in various differing circumstances, from the very early years to school entry and beyond.

This new stage of the project will focus specifically on the period of transition to elementary school and on children’s school readiness. The early interventions conducted by BRISE take place before school entry and have the primary purpose of advancing children’s cognitive, social and emotional development. The cognitive factors the interventions address, including language skills and pre-mathematical competencies, help children become school-ready, as does their emerging ability to self-regulate. School readiness will therefore be a key emphasis of the research BRISE will conduct in its new funding period. Further, the researchers will use the evidence-based LONDI screening test, which evaluates basic skills among elementary schoolers, to ascertain whether the early help delivered by BRISE and the support put in place in daycare centers have had positive effects on children’s language and math skills as tested at the end of their first and second years in school.

The continued funding of BRISE represents a significant step toward evidence-based education policy and toward the creation of reliable structures to prevent children’s development becoming impacted by disadvantage. The team hopes that the project’s findings will enliven academic debate in this area and deliver concrete calls to action for practitioners, policymakers, and education administrators, inspiring them to work toward greater educational equity from children’s earliest years onward.

Find out more:

BRISE project website

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