The foundational skills that children begin formal schooling with are subject to persistent inequities, and can have long-term academic, occupational and health consequences. Early learning is conceptualised as encompassing social, emotional, behavioral and motor functioning in addition to more traditional formal academic skills. Within a large, diverse, longitudinal child cohort - Growing Up in New Zealand - the aims of the current study were to examine: (1) how multiple indicators of children's social, emotional, behavioral, motor and cognitive development relate to one another at age four years prior to beginning formal schooling; and (2) whether parent behavior during an observed writing interaction at age 4 was associated with these early learning factors. Children (n = 4,697) and their primary caregiving parent were visited at home and completed the interactive writing task. Children completed direct assessments of language, executive functioning, self-regulation, writing (name and numbers) and emotion knowledge. The parent reported on the child's language, motor skills and social, emotional and behavioral functioning. Exploratory Factor Analysis indicated four early learning factors: literacy and numeracy skills; oral language and regulation; behavior difficulties; and interpersonal and motor skills. After controlling for multiple covariates, hierarchical regression analyses indicated that parent verbalisations during the writing interaction task predicted small but significant variance in children's early learning across all four factors. The current findings support holistic models of early learning and demonstrate associations with parent verbalisations during learning-based interactions.

儿童开始接受正规教育时所掌握的基本技能受到持续不平等的影响，并可能对学业、职业和健康产生长期影响。早期学习的概念包括社交、情感、行为和运动功能以及更传统的正式学术技能。在一个庞大、多样化、纵向的儿童队列中——《在新西兰长大》——当前研究的目的是检验：(1) 儿童社交、情感、行为、运动和认知发展的多项指标在年龄时如何相互关联开始正规教育之前四年；(2) 在观察到的 4 岁时的写作互动中，父母的行为是否与这些早期学习因素相关。孩子们（n  = 4,697）和他们的主要照顾者父母被在家中拜访并完成了互动写作任务。孩子们完成了对语言、执行功能、自我调节、写作（姓名和数字）和情感知识的直接评估。家长报告了孩子的语言、运动技能以及社交、情感和行为功能。探索性因素分析表明了四个早期学习因素：识字和算术技能；口语和规则；行为困难；以及人际交往和运动技能。在控制多个协变量后，层次回归分析表明，父母在写作互动任务期间的言语预测在所有四个因素中儿童早期学习的差异虽小但显着。目前的研究结果支持早期学习的整体模型，并证明了基于学习的互动过程中与父母言语的关联。