Monica Hoenig faced a critical choice when the time came to make a decision about enrolling her son Ryan in kindergarten at Washington Elementary School in Kingsburg, California. On the first day of kindergarten, Ryan, whose birthday is in November, would still be 4 years old, while the majority of his classmates would be 5. Monica worried that Ryan would fall behind his classmates because he lacked the maturity and many of the skills that are important in kindergarten, such as focusing on a task, listening to the teacher, and writing his name.
Ryan’s story is common in California, where children can start kindergarten at a younger age than kids in almost any other state. Because California allows children who turn 5 years old by Dec. 2 to enter kindergarten, more than 120,000 4 year olds enter kindergarten each year. Often, they lack the maturity, and the social, early literacy, and pre-math skills they need to meet the challenges of kindergarten. At the same time, California has some of the highest standards for what we expect our children to learn in kindergarten.
Monica was fortunate because she did not need to make the difficult choice of enrolling Ryan into kindergarten before he was ready. Instead, she signed Ryan up for transitional kindergarten, a new pilot program that was launched in 2010 by the Kingsburg Elementary Charter School District, in partnership with the Fresno County Office of Education. Transitional kindergarten is a bridge between preschool and kindergarten, and is designed for students who turn 5 between Sept. 1 and Dec. 2. It provides the gift of time for children who may not be socially or academically ready for traditional kindergarten.
After just a few months in Washington Elementary School’s pilot program, Ryan is thriving. He now writes sentences, understands the daily classroom routine, and can read words by sounding them out.
The Children, Families, and Communities subprogram helped provide new materials for the classroom at Washington Elementary, such as student computers and an interactive electronic white board, helping students like Ryan stay engaged. The Program also supported Fresno County’s work in designing the transitional kindergarten pilot that serves children like Ryan, and acts as a model for the rest of the state.
At the same time, the subprogram was also supporting longtime grantee Preschool California, which worked with other grantees around the state to successfully advocate for transitional kindergarten opportunities to be offered to children across California. In September 2010, the Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010 was signed into law, creating transitional kindergarten and changing the kindergarten entry date from Dec. 2. to Sept. 1. When it is fully phased in, transitional kindergarten will help ensure that 120,000 more children each year are better prepared to succeed in kindergarten and beyond.