Study: Benefits of full-day kindergarten can be elusive

Since 1999-2000, the Institute for Social Research at the University of New Mexico has been following children who had attended a public preschool as they entered kindergarten and then moved on through Albuquerque Public Schools (APS). At the same time, APS changed from half-day to full-day kindergarten (FDK), introducing the full-day program gradually over a five-year period.

When researchers studied language and reading development for a group of children who started in 2002-2003, this group improved their reading skills considerably, moving up an average of 15 percentiles by the end of the year. The problem is that as these children proceed through the elementary grades their reading scores decline steadily. By third grade almost all the initial benefits of FDK disappear. Read more and find a link to the University of New Mexico study at The Mountain View Telegraph website.