Data in the Early Years
Early years: Data-driven, research informed
The Child Care and Early Years Division leads research on early learning and development in the Region of Durham.
Early Development Instrument (EDI)
The Early Development Instrument helps us know how ready children are to learn in school. The EDI is a questionnaire used by teachers for all senior kindergarten (year 2) children.
The EDI measures children’s skills for their age in five development areas:
- Physical Health and Well-Being: Children are healthy, independent, and rested each day.
- Social Competence: Children can play and get along with others, share and show self-confidence.
- Emotional Maturity: Children can concentrate on tasks, help others, show patience, and are not often aggressive or angry.
- Language and Cognitive Development: Children are interested in reading and writing, counting and can recognize numbers and shapes.
- Communication skills and General Knowledge: Children can tell a story and communicate with other adults and other children.
Durham's EDI Data
How ready for school are Durham Region children? The following interactive tool allows you to explore children's scores from the eight municipalities in Durham Region (and the 50 health neighbourhoods).
How it works
Children’s scores for each development area are shown by high scores and low scores in the community and the province. Children with higher scores are ready for school. We need to help children with low scores because they are vulnerable and not ready for school.
The EDI tool is not used to diagnose children and does not measure a school or teacher. The information from the EDI helps us to:
- Learn more about neighbourhoods and groups of children’s strengths and weaknesses
- Look at patterns over time
- See how children will do in elementary school
The EDI has been done for Durham Region children six different times: 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018, and 2023.
Cycle 7 will be completed in the winter of 2026 with results anticipated in winter/spring 2027.
Ready for school toolkit: EDI Resources and activities
The Ready for school toolkit: Supporting early growth is a resource that gives information on the EDI and provides simple and fun activities that support children's development across the five EDI domains.
The activities included in the package and available below can be done at home and help children build skills to do well in school and life. Doing them every day helps children feel strong, confident and ready to learn.
| Activity | EDI domain the activity supports |
|---|---|
| Using playdough for number formation | Physical health and well-being - Fine motor skills |
| Gross motor activities | Physical health and well-being - Gross motor skills |
| Establishing a hand preference | Physical health and well-being - Physical independence |
Physical health and well-being - Physical readiness for the school day | |
| Conversation card prompts | Social competence - Responsibility and respect |
| Creating a visual calendar | Social competence - Approaches to learning |
| The experience critic | Social competence - Readiness to explore new things |
| Emotion scenario cards | Emotional maturity - Prosocial and helping behaviour |
| Finger labyrinth | Emotional maturity - Hyperactivity and inattention |
| Calming cards | Emotional maturity - Aggressive behaviour |
| The zones of regulation | Emotional maturity - Anxious and fearful behaviour |
| Letter tracing | Language and cognitive development - Basic literacy |
| Memory match game | Language and cognitive development - Interest in literacy, numeracy and memory |
| Story sequencing | Language and cognitive development - Advanced literacy |
| Counting time | Language and cognitive development - Basic numeracy |
| General knowledge game board | Communication skills and general knowledge |