Academic Success in Reading and Math Proficiencies of Students who Have Attended a Pre-K Program

Hi, My name is Sarah Beth Green, and today I'm

going to presenting Thio You, my signature project on the

positive effects of first class pre K.

So what is first class Pre K?

So it all began in 1965 with the Head Start

program that was created by President Lyndon Johnson.

The program was created to help low income families with

free educational opportunities.

During this time on Lee, 10% of 3 to 4

year old Children were enrolled in a pre K program.

Head Start was very, very successful, so successful that every

year since pre K numbers have grown and many states

began to emulate the program that he created today in

Alabama, 32% of four year olds attend a first class

pre K program.

Not only this.

Studies show that students who attend a pre K program

are less likely to have truancy issues repeated grade and

require special needs.

Service's students who participated in a first class pre K

program reaped short and long term effects, and we're going

to talk about the long term effects in just a

little bit because they're just as important as the kindergarten

readiness skills that they gain just from being in a

pre K program many times.

Why? So why does not every parent not just send

their kid to pre Kate?

Why do we have to have a free educational opportunity?

Well, many parents don't have a pre K option because

they can't pay for the pre K option and work.

It's just not worth it.

Or they don't have the transportation to take their child

to a pre K program.

So some surveys were sent out in 2018 and 48%

of parents after, um after the pre K programs had

clearly been established, 48% of parents had the ability to

go back to work because of first class pre K.

28% of parents had the ability thio increase their the

number of work hours that they worked after enrolling their

child, as statistics show.

Not only does first class pre k enhance the child's

life, but it stimulates the economy because you're opening up

so many job opportunities for these parents to go back

toe work while their child gets a free quality education

from an educator, a riel certified educator.

Surveys also concluded that 41% of parents found out about

a pre K program by the by word of mouth.

So why do we not advertised pre K programs Mawr

If they're free and there's a great well, there is

Number one.

There is not enough funding.

Okay, so there's not enough funding.

Andi, even students who do find out by word of

mouth, not all of them get in at the school

that I teach at Gulf Shores Elementary last year, we

had students apply for spots, and 28% of those Children

did not get into the program because we did not

have enough spots.

So that's 28% of students who did not get the

kindergarten readiness skills that they need for the upcoming school

year starting kindergarten.

So why did I decide to do this study?

So this year I had the opportunity to teach kindergarten,

and I noticed that Onley six of my 11 students

had actually been enrolled in a pre K program, and

their pre assessment scores were drastically different after I took

pre assessment scores.

This is before we started any curriculum whatsoever.

I found that the students who had attended a pre

K program scored very, very high on their reading, so

they made an 85% average on their reading assessment.

Um, what we tested them on in reading waas, letter

recognition, rhyming beginning sounds, et cetera.

We then tested them on in math, so we wanted

to know, Do these students know their shapes?

Do they know how to count?

Can they recognize numbers?

And after doing that, we found that 90% of our

students who had attended a pre K program could successfully

passed this test.

They were proficient students who did not go to pre

K first class pre K scored an average of 30%

on their reading and 45% on their math, which is

drastically different.

So this is when I knew I needed to figure

out what the not only what?

The short term effects going into kindergarten, but what the

long term effects of first class free que were because

we want to know this is not on Lee, just

a short term fix, but that this is something that's

going to improve their life overall in the long term.

So what I did was I looked up a C

T scores taken from students, uh, in grades three through

seven. So this is the a C T aspire.

So this is grades three through seven.

So reading proficiency of students who had attended a pre

K program was an average of 1.7% higher than the

students who had never attended a pre K program in

math, the the impact was even greater at 2.7 points

higher than peers.

So this study was very unique in that we had

students who were all different races came from all different

socioeconomic backgrounds and not to mention as students progressing grades.

The results were consistently higher, so there was no what

they call fade out in results.

It was always positive results.

So again, something that I found very, very interesting was

that there was long term achievement for these students.

Pre K gave these students a foundation of confidence in

the classroom and gave them the skills that they need,

such as being on time to school, coming to school,

um, giving them a passion for learning because they had

those foundational skills that they did not have to make

up for over several years, like those that had not

attended a pre K program.

So how did I do my experimental research?

So I wanted to do it in the most anonymous

way. And so I looked for ways to do it

very, very anonymously.

And I found on the Department of Education website in

Alabama that they had sent out surveys to get data

from parents.

So rather than doing parents, I decided to give a

survey to students one survey per grade.

So I did one for elementary students, one for middle

school students and one for high school students.

So, for example, I did a survey for a third

grade class, a survey for 1/7 grade class, a survey

for 1/9 grade class.

And so soon it's build out an anonymous survey.

The asset they had attended a first first class pre

K program.

It asks in tow list the first class brigade program

that they had attended.

Uh, they would be asked their current grade in reading

and math, as well as if they were involved in

any advanced courses or a gifted program.

So students would be, um, since will be asked all

these questions.

But anonymously.

Um, So I found that the anonymous survey was proven

to be a safe and reliable way to achieve personal

information about pre K involvement and current success.

So how did I do this?

Uh, how did I use my can get consent?

To do this?

I sent home a form a consent form with students

that explain the risk and the benefits of the study.

Each consent form clearly stated the purpose, risk and contact

information with those, uh, for those with questions after the

survey. It's so I believe that if this action plan

had actually been implemented in my school awareness of pre

K programs and the lack of funding would be exposed,

I believe that awareness would be so much higher.

I have run into parents who have had no clue

that they could possibly send their child to pre K

for free with a certified teacher.

They have no idea because there's no advertising.

Parents are unaware of the lack of funding.

They're unaware of the ability to be to send their

child to a pre K program.

So I believe that that could be a huge impact.

I believe that administrators and those higher up would be

motivated to try to gain more funding.

Um, especially after seeing the lack of fade out throughout,

you know, their entire school career.

So I believe that if I could go back and

change anything about the study, I could have gained clear

answers by gathering answers to surveys through parents rather than

students. I also had changed the format of the survey

to a multiple choice option, with an option to write

comments at the bottom.

So if I conducted further research, I would research the

impact of first class pre K on specifically poverty stricken

areas. So, for example, how many programs are available in

those areas?

What? What is the long term impact for students in

poverty stricken areas, how our parents impacted by an equitable

education opportunity for their students?

What does this do for students that live in those

type areas?

Okay, so I believe in conclusion.

I believe that first class pre K is a great

investment for our state.

I believe that we need more funding.

I believe that we need more, um, advertising for first

class pre K, an awareness in order to give students

the foundation and confidence that they need going into kindergarten

and throughout their school career.

Thank you for listening

Academic Success in Reading and Math Proficiencies of Students who Have Attended a Pre-K Program

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