PK-3 Education: Programs and Practices that Work in Children’s First Decade

The growing school readiness movement has brought increased attention to identifying educational programs that are most effective for young children. There is increasing empirical evidence that programs to successfully address children’s learning needs must be comprehensive, span multiple years, and target key transition points. Preschool to Third Grade (PK-3) programs attempt to incorporate these principles into a broader framework for promoting school success. Although PK-3 is primarily a vision that success is achieved best by promoting learning during all of early childhood development, until recently, systematic inquiry has been limited. The PK-3 perspective has helped the early childhood field move away from a reliance on relatively brief or one-shot programs toward more systematic and comprehensive models that span most of children’s first decade (Reynolds, Wang, & Walberg, 2003). Several recent reviews and policy reports (Bogard & Takanishi, 2005; Foundation for Child Development, 2005; Harvard Education Letter, 2005; Reynolds, 2003) have described the strengths of the PK-3 perspective, the emerging evidence of effectiveness, and a variety of new and established school-based efforts to implement the programs and practices.

In this report, we review the knowledge base on the effectiveness of PK-3 intervention programs and practices for young children making the transition to school. Our coverage includes extended early childhood interventions, preschool programs, full-day kindergarten, reduced class sizes in the early grades, parent involvement, instructional practices, and school transitions (mobility). We also document new findings on PK-3 programs and practices from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort of 1998-99. After summarizing the evidence in each of these areas, we review evidence on the cost effectiveness of PK-3 programs and practices with particular attention to findings from a few extensive longitudinal studies. We conclude with a discussion of the implications and policy recommendations from this evidence.