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.

In the first few years of life, more than one million new neural connections are formed every second, making this the most important period of a person’s life. Yet only six percent of public education spending, six percent of edtech investments, and four percent of education philanthropy are spent on the early years. This is in large part due to extreme fragmentation in this space, which is exacerbated by wide-ranging quality standards. In SY 2021-22, 32 percent of four-year-olds attended a state-funded program, but only six programs in five states met all 10 of NIEER’s quality standards benchmarks.

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., from approximately 15 percent in SY 2018-19 to around 30 percent in 2021-22. This increase is critical as chronic absenteeism is a primary cause of low academic achievement, particularly in kindergarten. 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. These schools also performed better on student achievement, including a 27 percent lower decline in English language arts and a 37 percent lower decline in math.

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 Research Center, 93 percent of school health workers say they’ve seen an increase in students with anxiety since 2019.

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. Organizations such as LENA and I-LABS have shown the ability of technology-informed coaching to improve parent and child language interactions, suggesting that coaching can be effective at driving both short and long-term child language outcomes, even when it’s virtual. And TalkingPoints, an artificial intelligence platform that allows educators to communicate with families in more than 150 languages, was found to improve state-standardized math scores by nine points. Research conducted in 2022 also revealed that students at TalkingPoints schools whose families engaged with the platform saw lower absenteeism rates than those at schools that had not implemented TalkingPoints.