More than ABCs: How students are falling behind before they enter kindergarten

The foundation for a child’s lifetime of learning is built from birth to age 5. By the time they reach kindergarten, there are certain expectations about the skills they should possess. 

But what happens when they come in not knowing what they are supposed to know? 

Early education and kindergarten teachers say the gaps among students entering kindergarten are often wide and can be wider if it is a child’s first time in a classroom setting. They say while everyone starts at a different point, it is becoming harder to get them all across the finish line at the same time. 

Day one looks different for every student

Caitlyn Greene is a kindergarten teacher in Franklin and has spent all of her teaching career in the city. She understands the array of circumstances from which students arrive in her classroom.

The rural city has a high percentage of students from low-income backgrounds, and the school also operates under a tax cap, which limits the available resources. 

Greene said she and her colleagues share the idea that kindergarten is “the gift of a year.” She knows she has the opportunity to make an impact on their lives, especially because her classroom is often the first time children have been in a formal learning environment. 

The different starting points and curriculum guidelines like Common Core do not always meet students where they are when they enter Greene’s classroom. Greene said that some of the standards teachers have to reach are not “developmentally appropriate for 5-year-olds”. 

“The biggest challenge is that some of the things we ask of (students), they’re just not ready for. We always assume that, when a child is 5, they are ready for all of these things,” Greene said. “But as an educator, we know that a child at 5 can look different across spectrums.” 

Some children, Greene said, have fine motor skills that let them write their name, can sit and listen to a story, take instruction and express their emotions. Others are not fully potty trained despite being 4 or 5 years old.  

“It’s oranges and apples, even though they are the same age,” she said. 

She continued: “We find that there’s a wide spectrum, and because of that wide spectrum, we are starting at different areas for each child. The issue is if a child is already significantly behind in kindergarten when they enter, it puts them at a disadvantage for the rest of the grade levels.” 

New Hampshire is one of five states nationwide that do not have state-funded preschool programs. The only preschool programs that receive government funding are those that cater to special education children. These classrooms can have non-special-needs children but are required to maintain certain child ratios to receive funding, which is mostly federal.

Rhienna Miscio, who works at one of these public preschools in Bethlehem, is well-versed in the realm of child development. She works two jobs, as a half-day public preschool teacher and speech pathologist assistant. 

Both her jobs follow a similar theme: preparing children for what’s next. What she hears from the kindergarten teachers reflects the traits of Greene’s advanced students. 

“They’re like, ‘I just want them to be able to come in and ready to learn. They have their social emotional under control. They’ve been with other kids before. They know maybe how to hold a pencil,’” Miscio said. 

Miscio partially attributes the gap to children not having access to early-learning services. Early-education programs are expensive, if families can even find them. According to the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, average childcare costs for an infant and a 4-year-old in center-based care are more than $31,000, and the state is short at least 9,000 slots. 

“We’re finding that not all kids have access to preschool, especially where we’re from,” she said. “And some kindergartens are still half-day, so when we talk about what we want kindergarteners to know, we also have to say, ‘Is it equitable?’” 

For those who can attend publicly funded preschool, students may need to meet other developmental milestones before they can start preparing for kindergarten. 

“I think that sometimes when we are talking about kindergarten-ready, we also have to remember they’re 5 and maybe focus on the basic skills first,” Miscio said. 

The very real concern of falling behind

Concerns about readiness from early-education and kindergarten professionals culminate in another problem: preparing students for first grade. 

New Hampshire’s kindergarten offerings vary. School districts are not required to have full-day kindergarten, so many only offer half-day. Variation in schedules may give teachers less time to hit their curriculum requirements. 

Greene will sometimes have students who are not ready for first grade by June. She said she recommends at least two students a year to repeat kindergarten. 

“Every year, we catch that some kids, they come in and they can’t sit and they’re missing their instruction because they’re just learning how to operate in a more restrictive environment. We’re doing things at certain times, and so if a child has missed a portion of their education, or we find it clicks in the spring but they haven’t mastered it yet, and there’s significant gaps,” she said. “Then we will talk to a parent.” 

The school makes sure recommendations for a child to repeat a grade are not a shock to parents. Pre- and post-assessments are sent home, sometimes with notes about having a meeting to discuss a child’s progress, as well as constant communication through parent-teacher communication apps. 

“As much as technology has been a deficit in education, when it comes to parents and our ability to communicate back and forth, (it) has really opened up a conversation for there to be better understanding of a child’s needs,” Greene said. 

Greene makes sure to provide parents with data ahead of and along with any conversations about progress. “We always kind of start flagging around January. … You can usually tease out who is struggling. So having those conversations with parents, the open communication is key to not surprise them. It’s a parent’s choice at the end of the day though.” 

Miscio said that as a childcare provider, her philosophy is that she is “in the business of taking care of people.” For her, that extends to parents. 

“So wherever the challenge may be, we’re in it with the parents.” she said. “We’re in the trenches with them.” 

Greene said that while she understands children need to hit early-learning and kindergarten standards, she is worried about the emotional and psychological impact it has on students. She said putting pressure on children to “be at a certain place that sometimes they’re not developmentally ready for” could cause them to “lose the love for learning they should always have.”

Misico said she is worried about the pressure on teachers that comes with children being behind, and the long-term effects on children who lack certain skills. 

“There’s not a lot of time when you’re going from a blank slate to first grade, so I think (teachers) are feeling the pressure, especially when you’re screening them when they first come in, ” Miscio said. “If there’s a gap in kindergarten that goes into first grade, it goes into second grade, and it ends up being kind of a domino effect when we’re not supporting and meeting kids when they’re in kindergarten.” 

She continued: “(But) they’re really little, and some of these kids have never had the opportunity to even be in the classroom, or to have teachers, new adults around. We’re expecting them to be ready. I think that also can be very dangerous because they’re still kids. … We take the kids where they are because that’s what we do.” 

Little institutional support

Early-education advocates have suggested looking up the school administration chain to address issues on the ground. Based on the structure of education and childcare governance, kindergarten readiness is not being addressed, they say. 

In a statement, the Department of Education said that decisions about whether to offer preschool programs, as well as how those programs are “designed and implemented,” are determined at the local level by individual school districts. They also said their oversight of preschool is specific only to special education.

Jake Leon, spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, specified the department “supports school readiness” through its childcare oversight activities, which include licensing and compliance for childcare programs, administering the childcare scholarship assistance program for families, and providing resources to “help programs strengthen early-learning environments.” 

Leon also pointed to the health and education departments’ participation in the Council for Thriving Children, a committee started by former Gov. Chris Sununu during the pandemic that is supposed to serve as the state’s advisory on early childhood education. (This is separate from the Child Care Advisory Council, which was enacted by the Legislature in 1995.) The group’s goal is to address infrastructure, workforce and family matters within the field. The last time the group met was in February, and its website does not point to any active initiatives on kindergarten readiness. 

“DHHS and the Department of Education participate on the Council for Thriving Children and other cross agency workgroups that focus on aligning early childhood systems, supporting families and promoting possible outcomes for children birth to age 5,” Leon said. “While local school districts and private childcare programs determine curriculum and instructional approaches, DHHS’s role ensures that the early-learning settings children experience prior to kindergarten are safe, stable and supported in delivering high quality care.” 

Some groups, such as the National Education Association of New Hampshire and regional childcare coalitions, are trying to address classroom concerns themselves, but have yet to find success due to several factors. For example, childcare programs all have different curricula to give parents a variety of options. Additionally, children all develop at different rates, and while access to early support and services and childcare can help, it may not immediately translate into success in kindergarten. 

At the end of the day, Miscio knows that she and her fellow teachers will continue to work with what they have under the circumstances they are given, because “that’s what teachers do.” But she knows that education gaps are going to continue to be a problem. 

“My old boss, her motto was 3 years old to third grade, and that’s where you need to put in all of everything you got because that gives them the best foundation, and that doesn’t mean put things on them that are impossible, but that means make sure that they have a really good foundation,” she said. “And when you’re rushing it, there’s going to be bigger gaps that are going to be seen the older they get.”