Early Impact

According to a 2020 study by the American Academy of Pediatrics, kindergarten readiness can have an impact on how successful a child is in high school and beyond, leading to better grades and lower dropout rates as well as better health and lifestyle habits. Children who enter school with key readiness skills have an 82 percent chance of mastering basic skills by age 11, compared with 45 percent for young children who are not “kindergarten ready.” Yet many children face barriers that prevent a strong start. By the time children from low-income families begin school, many already score significantly lower than their peers on reading and math achievement tests. And the COVID-19 pandemic slowed progress—a 2024 study revealed that children who started kindergarten in the fall of 2021 are “significantly behind” their older peers, particularly in math.

Children who participate in high-quality preschool programs tend to have higher educational attainment, earnings, and health outcomes than those not enrolled in preschool. However, these types of programs are not always accessible for families. Exacerbating this issue, early childhood education continues to be plagued with workforce challenges and costs continue to rise, with American families spending an average of 18.6 percent of their income on childcare. Even when children do have access to programs, quality can be highly variable. A comprehensive study of preschool programs found that currently available curricula do not meet children’s needs, and often fall short in advancing children’s learning across math, early literacy, and science. Organizations such as LENA have shown the promise of technology-informed coaching to improve adult-child language interactions that improve both short and long-term child language outcomes across settings, even when high-quality curricula are not available.

Since the pandemic, chronic absenteeism—defined as missing at least 10 percent of days in a school year—has nearly doubled in the U.S., with 26 percent of students considered chronically absent during SY 2022–23. This increase is critical as chronic absenteeism is a primary cause of low academic achievement, particularly in kindergarten, one of the hardest-hit grades post-pandemic. In California, for example, more than one in three kindergarteners were chronically absent in 2022-23. A study conducted by Learning Heroes and TNTP points to family engagement as a key factor in addressing this challenge. Researchers found that schools with higher scores on engaging families before the pandemic saw a 39 percent smaller increase in chronic absenteeism and a 25 percent lower decline in student attendance than schools with minimal family involvement practices.

Research shows that play is associated with increased happiness, social-emotional well-being, executive functioning, and gains in academic performance for young children. Play has benefits in many forms, including unstructured free play, adult-guided play, and even playful instruction. But the trend towards “schoolification”—in which very young children’s play time is reduced or removed in favor of a narrow focus on academic outcomes—has been rising in recent years, impacting children’s overall emotional and academic well-being. According to a survey conducted by EdWeek, teachers report that children today are having more trouble with social-emotional skills than their peers five years ago. And, children’s screen time is increasing: two- to eight-year-olds spend an average of 2.5 to three hours per day on screen media.

The use of high-quality solutions that engage families has continued to grow since the start of the pandemic, leading to measurable gains for children and families. TalkingPoints, a tech-enabled family engagement solution that allows educators to communicate with families in more than 150 languages, was found to improve attendance; in a 2024 study conducted in Tulsa Public Schools, schools using TalkingPoints saw an average 24 percent decrease in student absenteeism. Reach Out and Read, a nonprofit that integrates literacy promotion into pediatric care, has demonstrated how early and frequent exposure to books fosters strong parent-child interactions and language development. By providing families with age-appropriate books and guidance from pediatricians, the program has been shown to increase the frequency of shared reading, improve expressive and receptive language skills, and strengthen early literacy foundations, particularly for children in under-resourced communities.