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.
The EDI reference sheet provides further detail on each of the five domains as well as their subdomains.
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 was completed in the winter of 2026 with results anticipated in winter/spring 2027.
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