An Equation for Kindergarten Success: KITS
KITS Graduation. Photo Credit: Oregon Social Learning Center
This past summer, four- and five-year-olds throughout Lane County proudly walked across their school auditoriums, accepting paper diplomas and balancing tiny graduation caps while smiling for graduation photos. This fall, these students entered kindergarten classrooms with new skills that will help them be successful in these earliest classroom years. The Kids In Transition to School Program, known as KITS, is what is making kindergarten success possible for Lane County kids, thanks to the Oregon Social Learning Center and United Way of Lane County. Why are these early years so important, and what impact is KITS having on Lane County kids? We spoke with a few of the researchers, teachers, and parents participating in KITS to help share the story of this incredible program.
Research in early childhood education has long shown that a child’s kindergarten readiness has long-term impacts: it influences academic achievement, behavioral success, graduation rates, absenteeism rates and more. In fact, we know that the achievement gap we see at high school graduation actually starts long before a child even walks through the kindergarten doors. Children who are furthest from opportunity—such as kids in foster care, kids with developmental disabilities, those whose families live in poverty, whose first language is not English, or who otherwise come from historically underserved populations—often enter school with fewer school readiness skills than other classmates, such as letter recognition, number recognition and the social skills and self-regulation abilities necessary to thrive in a classroom environment.
“The way that children start school makes a huge difference in the way that they go through school and how and if they finish school, so getting children ready to go to kindergarten is, in fact, a very critical thing,” says Katherine Pears, Senior Research Scientist at Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC). Recognizing this vital need to narrow the achievement gap as early as possible, OSLC developed the Kids in Transition to School (KITS) program, a leading-edge, evidence-based school readiness program that is dramatically improving outcomes for kids, families and the community as a whole. With the help of United Way of Lane County, KITS has expanded to serve 11 of the county’s 16 school districts.
A holistic approach to school readiness
KITS students practicing sitting and listening in the classroom.
The KITS program — which occurs the summer before a child enters kindergarten — works to develop students’ literacy, self-regulation, and social skills, but the key element that has led to the program’s off-the-charts success is its holistic approach. Sarah Piccolo, who participated in KITS with her daughter Sofia, particularly notes the program’s focus on both academic and “soft” skills. "The thing I appreciated most about KITS," she says, "is that my child got a head start on both reading and social interaction with other children. [...] I really felt like KITS guided the children to be prepared in how to behave in the classroom, and I wish that more students had that access."
Another way that KITS addresses education of the whole child is its focus on both home and school learning environments. While children develop new skills in a classroom environment, the program also works to educate parents and caregivers on how best to support their children’s learning, and provides participating teachers with new positive teaching and behavior change strategies. “It isn't just about the child,” explains Pears. “You've got parents, grandparents, foster parents — those people are intimately involved in the child's school life and we know that the more involved they are, the better kids are going to do over time.” Additionally, school employees continually report that the high-quality professional development and learning provided by the program extends well beyond KITS and into teachers’ everyday practices during the regular school year.
Research-based, research-backed
It’s clear that KITS is having a positive impact for children. In three randomized controlled trials, Oregon Social Learning Center put KITS to the test with stunning results. According to the research, kids who participated in KITS showed gains on early literacy, social skills, and self-regulation, as well as improvements in several other areas of cognition and behavior. Teachers experienced less stress in their classrooms and increased behavior management skills, while parents became more involved with their children’s schooling. “KITS differs from other programs in that it is elegantly-designed, based on research and really does an extraordinary job of narrowing the readiness gap, both behaviorally and academically,” says Sue Wickizer, the early childhood education administrator at Creslane Elementary School. “We have had an increasing number of positive outcomes for families and students every single year, so for us, that's why we're continuing to participate.”
Collaborating for major community impact
The KITS program strongly aligns with United Way of Lane County’s vision of a community where all kids can be successful in school and life, which is why United Way has worked to help expand the program to more families in Lane County. After its initial investment of KITS, United Way helped the program significantly expand its reach: in 2015, United Way, in partnership with OSLC and local school districts, secured a $2 million federal grant to expand the program from 11 to 25 elementary schools in 11 districts.
By partnering with Oregon Social Learning Center to extend KITS as widely as possible throughout the county, the greater impact of the program has become clear. After completing the program, KITS students are “then diffusing their skills out to the other students, and the teachers are applying new strategies learned in KITS in their regular classrooms,” says Pears. “And this is a major community impact. United Way has seen the value and magnified that impact across so many school districts.” Every summer since 2016, KITS has been offered in 11 of 16 Lane County school districts, serving approximately 500 families and training 125 educators each year.
“From a researcher's perspective or a program developer's perspective, it can often take years and years for something, once it's been tested and shown to be effective, to actually be implemented in the community. United Way provided a huge acceleration of this program for the kids, and parents, and educators in Lane County,” says Pears. Wickizer agrees, saying, “United Way has been instrumental in making all of the logistics work for the teams.” Speaking from the school administration perspective, she adds, “Sometimes what you get from the people providing the funding are ineffective supports that actually create more challenges and roadblocks than they do reduce them, and United Way has done none of that. They have been extraordinary.”
Closing the school readiness gap with an eye toward long-term benefits
Thanks to the generosity of donors, supporters and grantors, United Way looks forward to continuing this extraordinary collaboration with OSLC and Lane County schools to offer the KITS program to hundreds of students. “If you can narrow [the readiness gap] as early as possible, which is what KITS does, you have a much better chance of keeping that gap narrow as the kids go through school,” says Wickizer. “When that gap is narrow or reduced to zero, which is our goal, the outcomes are things like reduced absenteeism, fewer behavior issues, higher chance of graduation — there are so many positive outcomes for kids that start early on.” Thanks to collaborative efforts in our community, KITS has already helped hundreds of students start their journey through school on the right foot.
Learn more about the KITS program on the program’s website. Read more about United Way’s reasons for investing in kindergarten readiness and see how you can take action to support the efforts of United Way of Lane County.