Report on the South Carolina Child Early Reading Development and Education Program

Abstract

Following two years of expanded access to publicly funded pre-kindergarten, over 12,000 at-risk four-year-olds participate in state-funded full-day four-year-old kindergarten, formerly known as the Child Development Education Pilot Program (CDEPP). Access to CDEPP has expanded; CDEPP participation has resulted in modest academic gains in CDEPP districts, but statewide achievement gap has not closed; quality of existing CDEPP program could be enhanced. When the results of the fall 2014 CIRCLE assessment can be analyzed, the data should be used to refocus on measuring the quality of instruction in 4K, 5K, 1st and 2nd grades, especially to prepare all students to be reading proficiently by 3rd grade.