Summary and Policy Recommendations

I told you what I was going to tell you. I told it. Now let me tell you what I told you and what I think it means for policy.

Reading is the keystone for academic and life success. Learning to read is difficult for many children. Children who fall behind in reading early in elementary school are unlikely to catch up. Children from low-income backgrounds are particularly at risk of early reading difficulties. Children know a lot about reading before they begin formal reading instruction, and this pre-reading knowledge provides the building blocks for learning to read and write. As is the case for reading itself, children from low-income homes often are disadvantaged in terms of their pre-reading abilities.

The developmental precursors of reading are already organized into outside-in and inside-out domains during the preschool period. The strong, direct correlates of reading success in early elementary school are inside-out skills from the kindergarten and pre-k periods.

Given the strong predictive relationship between pre-reading skills and later reading outcomes, screening children for pre-reading knowledge should become as routine as screening for problems in hearing and vision.

Efforts to prevent reading problems need to be sensitive to developmental differences over the preschool period. Interventions to enhance emotional experiences around books should begin early in life. Older children who are talking can be engaged in interactive book reading experiences that enhance their vocabulary and conceptual knowledge. By the time children are four years of age, the pre-K programs they attend should provide instruction in the inside-out skill components of pre-reading such as letters, sounds, print principles, and emergent writing.

Acknowledging the value of pre-academic content in preschools does not mean that should be the only goal of preschool education. Both social-emotional competences such as the ability to interact well with peers and general approaches toward learning such as task persistence are important to later school success, over and above the effects of specific pre-academic skills. However, social-emotional skills and approaches to learning have to be acquired in the context of more cognitive activities. Arguably, a child can acquire the ability to share and persist as well while learning about letters as while working with Playdoe. Or, as we will see in a later presentation today, children can learn about sharing while making letters from Playdoe.

Acknowledging the value of pre-academic content in preschools also does not mean that four-year-olds should be taught using the same methods and materials as a employed for seven-year-olds. A push-down to pre-K of the pedagogy and materials used in elementary school will likely fail and could actually harm young children. The challenge for preschool education is to develop classroom activities that teach while engaging and developing children's interests -- activities that are both fun and educational. Preschoolers are demonstrably eager to learn about all manner of topics, including reading, math, and science, so a little ingenuity, time, and money ought to accomplish this task.

An effort to provide more academic content in preschools will likely generate disappointment among policy makers and taxpayers unless it is accompanied by educational policies that link preschool curricula with pedagogy and content in kindergarten and elementary school. Preschool needs to get children ready for school, not just in a generic sense, but ready for something specific that will be provided at the next educational step and then built on thereafter. We would expect any run-of-the-mill piano teacher to start students with the basics and move them through a sequence of lessons that are hierarchically organized and cumulative in their effects. Shouldn't we expect as much of the connections between the lessons of preschool and school?

Teachers will need new teaching materials and curricula that are based on the science of reading and pre-reading. Where those materials already exist, they need to be disseminated. Teachers will need training in how to incorporate instruction in cognitive skills to preschoolers in ways that engage children's interest and encourage their motivation to learn.

On the home front, we need to let parents, grandparents, and other adults who are involved with young children know how very important it is for children to interact with print, to be talked to, and to play with speech sounds. Getting the word out need not be expensive. It could be a flyer on the door, or a billboard, or, as we will hear later today, a program at the library. If most parents knew the importance of these activities, and how to do them, they would do their part.

Finally, although we know that pre-reading skills are strong predictors of later reading outcomes, weaknesses in pre-reading are not a reason to quit on any child. If children aren't ready for what the school has to offer, then the school will have to change to meet those children's needs. We cannot leave children mired in calamity of reading failure simply because their families or preschools did not do their job in getting them ready for school. Let's do what we can to enhance children's readiness. What we can do is a lot, but let's also insist that schools develop and deploy remedial programs that will bring up those children who start behind.

Knowledge of the importance of pre-reading skills and ways to enhance those skills for all children is important for every adult, not just parents or preschool teachers.

Let's remember the story of pig and hen. As they walked down the street together they passed a charity box. Hen said, "I'll give some eggs if you'll give a ham." Pig said, "For you that would be a gift. For me that would be a commitment." We need to be pig, not hen.

Let's make a commitment to do what we can to see that all children have the preschool experiences they need when they get on that school bus for first grade.

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