In this paper, we study the evolution of cognitive and noncognitive skills gaps for children of immigrants between kindergarten and 5th grade using two cohorts of elementary school students. We find some evidence that children of immigrants begin school with lower math scores than children of natives, but this gap disappears in later elementary school. For noncognitive skills, children of immigrants and children of natives score similarly in early elementary school, but a positive gap opens up in 2nd grade. We find that the growth in noncognitive skills is driven by disadvantaged immigrant students. We discuss potential explanations for the observed patterns of skill development as well as the implications of our results for the labor market prospects of children of immigrants.

在本文中，我们使用两个小学生群体研究了幼儿园和五年级之间移民儿童的认知和非认知技能差距的演变。我们发现一些证据表明，移民子女入学时的数学成绩低于当地人的子女，但这种差距在后来的小学阶段就消失了。在非认知技能方面，移民儿童和本地儿童在小学早期的得分相似，但是在二年级时出现了积极的差距。我们发现非认知技能的增长是由弱势移民学生推动的。我们讨论了观察到的技能发展模式的潜在解释，以及我们的研究结果对移民子女的劳动力市场前景的影响。