Good reading skills are the foundation for all future learning. It’s best to build this foundation before kindergarten, in high-quality preschool programs.

• California has a reading problem: Half of our fourth-graders can’t read at a basic level, according to national tests.  See the National Assessment of Education Progress’s Snapshot Report: State Reading 2005, California Grad 4 Public School.
  
  
• High-quality preschool provides a language-rich environment that lays the foundation for learning to read and can prevent most early reading difficulties.  For more on this, read Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Catherine E. Snow, Susan M. Burns, and Peg Griffin, 1998).
  
  
• Research shows that much of the gap in fourth-grade reading scores between Latino and white children can be attributed to a gap that exists when they start kindergarten. Pre-kindergarten programs address the readiness gap before it becomes the achievement gap. See Margaret Bridges' Preschool for California’s Children: Promising Benefits, Unequal Access.
  

Our Reports and Studies page features many studies documenting the effects of preschool on children’s early reading skills.  Among them:

• The Children of the Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Study Go to School
  Researchers found children who attended higher quality preschool or child care had better vocabulary and language skills, and significantly higher reading scores on standardized tests through sixth grade.
• The Chicago Longitudinal Study and High/Scope Perry Preschool Study show the benefits of preschool: children enrolled in preschool scored significantly better in reading in first and sixth grades, and at ages 10, 14 and 19.