NIEER’s five-state study focuses on the gains made in quality pre-kindergarten programs in Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia. As NIEER highlights in their summary of the study, the gains seen within these settings come at a crucial time in the national debate over the value of pre-kindergarten attendance after the release of the Head Start Impact Study earlier this year. Children in the study were found to possess stronger vocabulary scores, increased early math scores, and had more skills in the areas of print awareness (book rules, familiarity with words, letters and sounds) than children not attending a quality program.
