Early Childhood

Full-Day Kindergarten Produces More Learning Gains, Study Says

By Debra Viadero — October 18, 2005 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

A new national study provides some of the strongest evidence to date to support what many educators and parents of young children already believe: Children learn more in full-day kindergarten programs than they do in half-day programs.

The findings, scheduled to be published in the February issue of the American Journal of Education, are based on federal data from a nationally representative sample of 8,000 children in public kindergarten programs. The results show that, on average, the learning gains that pupils make in full-day programs translate to about a month of additional schooling over the course of a school year.

BRIC ARCHIVE

An education professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Ms. Lee is the lead author of a study comparing learning and full- and half-day kindergartens.

“If full-day kindergarten really does show these large effects, the question we have is why doesn’t every school in America offer full-day kindergarten?” said Valerie E. Lee, a lead author of the study and an education professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Nationwide, according to federal data, half of all kindergartners now attend full-day programs, either public or private. But such programs tend to be more common in certain parts of the country, such as the South and the Midwest, and in private schools.

Disagreement is widespread over whether any educational value full-day programs convey is worth the added expense.

“The arguments we always hear are ‘I paid for my children to go to kindergarten, why should I pay for someone else’s?’ or that we just can’t afford it,” said Douglas B. McDonald, a superintendent whose school district includes Timberlane, N.H., a community that has voted down proposals to finance public kindergarten programs of any kind three times over the past seven years.

Nationwide, only nine states require school districts to provide full-day kindergarten, according to Kristie A. Kauerz, who formerly tracked early-childhood- education initiatives as a policy analyst for the Denver-based Education Commission of the States. Another seven states, including New Hampshire, do not require districts to offer any kindergarten at all.

Demographics Differ

Ms. Kauerz said the new study might attract policymakers’ attention because it is among the first to draw on a national sample of students. Previous studies, according to the researchers, often focused on small numbers of schools or districts, or relied on weaker research designs.

Conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan, the University of Oregon in Eugene, and the Chicago-based Erikson Institute, the study draws on data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten, which has been tracking successive waves of kindergartners across the country since 1998.

Kindergarten Comparison

A forthcoming study points to the growing popularity of full-day kindergarten and suggests that children in such settings enjoy an academic edge over those in half-day programs.

• More than half of U.S. Students now attend full-day kindergartens.

• Kindergartners in full-day programs learn more over the course of a school year that their counterparts in half-day programs— the equivalent of about an extra month of schooling.

• Children who attend full-day kindergartens tend to be less advantaged socially, economically, and academically, than their peers in half-day programs.

• Full-day kindergartners are more common in the South and the Midwest than they are in the Northeast and the West.

• Disadvantaged children don’t seem to gain more from full-day programs than their more advantaged counterparts do. Rather, all children learn more in daylong classes.

SOURCE: American Journal of Education

“We found that the kinds of kids who have full-day kindergarten are not the same kinds of kids who have half-day kindergarten,” said Ms. Lee. Pupils in full-day programs are more likely to come from minority groups, to live in poorer rural and inner-city communities, and to score lower on the reading and mathematics tests given in the fall of their kindergarten year, according to the report.

The researchers said the programs’ demographic makeup reflects the fact that full-day programs, which are often underwritten with funds from the federal Title I program, have been thought of as a way to help disadvantaged students catch up to peers whose families can afford private preschools.

While full-day pupils start out behind their half-day counterparts, both groups score about the same on the reading and math tests they take later on in the spring. The researchers discovered the full-day pupils actually learned more over the course of the year when the researchers took into account the initial academic and socioeconomic differences between the two groups.

What’s more, the programs seemed to benefit all students. Contrary to some previous findings, children from poor and minority families did not learn more in full-day classes than did white pupils or those from wealthier homes in the same programs.

“The good news is that this says full-day programs are effective: They do accomplish what we hoped they would do, and it isn’t just a question of putting kids in a high-pressure academic factory,” said Samuel J. Meisels, a study co-author who was a researcher at the University of Michigan when the study began. He is now the president of the Erikson Institute, which offers graduate training in childhood development.

For example, Mr. Meisels said, while full-day programs typically double the number of hours that young children spend in school, they expand students’ actual instructional time by only about a third. Much of the rest of students’ days may be occupied by recess, music or art lessons, or other activities that he described as beneficial to children’s social development.

Benefits Questioned

Yet at least one prominent expert on early-childhood education said he was skeptical about the academic improvements the study reports.

“Full-day kindergarten is a child-care initiative; it’s not an educational initiative,” said David Elkind, a professor of child development at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. “Most 5-year-olds still need a nap in the afternoon, so we shouldn’t expect there to be much difference.”

Whether children in full-day programs will hold on to the learning gains they make is an open question, experts said.

Some previous studies suggest that such academic benefits can fade over time. To find out if that’s the case, the researchers said they will continue to track the same students through elementary school.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the October 19, 2005 edition of Education Week as Full-Day Kindergarten Produces More Learning Gains,StudySays

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Assessment Webinar
Reflections on Evidence-Based Grading Practices: What We Learned for Next Year
Get real insights on evidence-based grading from K-12 leaders.
Content provided by Otus
Federal Webinar Navigating the Rapid Pace of Education Policy Change: Your Questions, Answered
Join this free webinar to gain an understanding of key education policy developments affecting K-12 schools.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Professional Development Webinar
Evidence & Impact: Maximizing ROI in Professional Learning
  Is your professional learning driving real impact? Learn data-driven strategies to design effective PL.
Content provided by New Teacher Center

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Early Childhood Pre-K Programs Expand Nationwide, But Quality Falls Behind
Preschools experienced a boost in funding and enrollment nationwide, but a deeper look reveals a disparity in quality.
6 min read
Teacher Grismairi Amparo works with her students on a reading and writing lesson at Head Start program run by Easterseals South Florida, an organization that gets about a third of its funding from the federal government, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Miami.
Teacher Grismairi Amparo works with her students on a reading and writing lesson at a Head Start program run by Easterseals South Florida on Jan. 29, 2025 in Miami. The organization gets about a third of its funding from the federal government.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
Early Childhood Opinion The Trump Administration Is Sabotaging Head Start
Early-childhood education is being dismantled right in front of us. The quiet crisis comes with a heavy cost.
Yolanda Wiggins
5 min read
A child's block toy school house is partly disassembled. Field of loose blocks in the foreground. Representing losing Head Start programs.
iStock/Getty Images + Education Week
Early Childhood After Layoffs and Funding Problems, Head Start Leaders Fear What Comes Next
Layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services affect employees who administer the preschool program for low-income children.
5 min read
Family Educator Lisa Benson-Nuyen, addresses her students in a circle in the Northern Lights classroom at the Meadow Lakes CCS Early Learning, a Head Start center, Monday, May 6, 2024, in Wasilla, Alaska.
Lisa Benson-Nuyen addresses her students in a circle at a Head Start center in Wasilla, Alaska, on May 6, 2024. Mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are affecting employees who administer the Head Start preschool program for children from low-income families.
Lindsey Wasson/AP
Early Childhood Kindergarten Play Makes a Comeback, and Boys Benefit
The modern kindergarten has little time for movement and play. Not so in this teacher's classroom.
9 min read
Kindergarteners in a play-based learning class react when asked to find their shadows on the ground while following teacher Jessica Arrow back from forest play time at Symonds Elementary School in Keene, N.H., on Nov. 7, 2024.
Kindergarteners react when asked to find their shadows on the ground while following teacher Jessica Arrow back from forest play time at Symonds Elementary School in Keene, N.H., on Nov. 7, 2024.
Sophie Park for Education Week