My message to parents is to read, read, read. It makes a powerful difference. Prior to the study, national data on kindergartners came from household and other surveys, but could not be used to study the relationships between children's classroom and school experiences, home environments and their school performance. This new report is designed to study such relationships. The study found that 82 percent of children enter kindergarten with print familiarity skills, such as knowing that print reads from left to right, and 66 percent recognize letters.
Some children can recognize words and a very few can understand words in simple sentences.
Although the findings were positive for the population as a whole, there are several groups of children whose knowledge and skill levels put them at-risk. Differences in children's reading, math, and social skills, and health that are related to poverty, parents' education and race and ethnicity are already there upon entering kindergarten. On average, according to the study, African American and Hispanic children, children from welfare homes, and those whose parents have less education had significantly fewer early reading and math skills, exhibited more problem behaviors, and were less healthy. This new study will continue to follow the same sample of children through the fifth grade, regularly gathering data on their reading and math achievement, social skills, physical development, and school experiences. The study will reveal whether differences that exist when children enter school persist or change over time.