Lessons from L.A. on Kindergarten Readiness

Children in the Los Angeles Universal Preschool program, which started in 2004, can be enrolled with a variety of providers including family home care providers, independently operated centers and school-based centers. The program includes approximately 300 providers and more than 9,000 4-year-olds.

 

The study was not designed to compare students in the program to those in other non-LAUP programs or who were not enrolled in any program before arriving in kindergarten. It also did not provide information on readiness levels between children served in different LAUP settings. (This is information that we advocate that researchers include in future studies so that it’s possible to delineate whether there are certain factors in each setting that contribute to children’s success.)

 

Some of the more interesting findings in the report are the closing achievement gaps between dual language learner students, who speak a language other than English at home, and native English speakers. Though students whose primary language was English out-scored students with another primary language on school-readiness skills overall, the achievement gaps between dual language learners and non-dual language learners closed over the course of the year in three of four areas that were tested. The first three were self care and motor skills, self-regulation skills and social expression.

 

The fourth area, general knowledge, includes pre-literacy skills such as counting, recognizing colors and shapes, and recognizing rhyming words. Though a gap in this area between dual language learners and their peers persisted after a year of preschool, this is the area where dual language learners improved the most over the course of the year.

 

The study, commissioned by LAUP and conducted by Applied Survey Research, included 21 pre-K providers and 437 children. Forty-six percent of students in LAUP speak a language other than English as their primary language. The study gathered data on readiness by assessing students with the Student Observation Form, a version of the Kindergarten Observation Form that teachers or other adults use to determine where children stand.  In this case, LAUP teachers filled out the assessments.