California Invested Big in Transitional Kindergarten. How 1 School Is Making the Most of It

In Kristi Fowler’s transitional kindergarten classroom, 4-year-olds learn math by counting steps as they jump and by sorting objects by shape or color.

They can skip-count by 10s to get up to 100 and recognize patterns in a numerical sequence.

“I used to think that TK [students] were just babies, and they can’t do that kind of stuff,” Fowler said. “They can, and they love it, and they’re excited to do it, and they’re really good at it.”

Getting these students to learn through play is one goal at Yokayo Elementary School, where Fowler works, in the North Coast city of Ukiah. Another is to ensure the skills they gain in TK will last throughout elementary school.

The district is one of dozens in California hoping to maximize the benefits of transitional kindergarten, which this year became free and available for all 4-year-olds across the state. Gov. Gavin Newsom called the $15 billion rollout “a huge opportunity to invest in our kids and their future” and narrow the gap in kindergarten readiness — such as the ability to socialize, pay attention and regulate emotions — between kids from lower-income and higher-income families.

But the enthusiasm for TK is tempered by concerns that the investment won’t pay off if the program’s benefits fade over time. Studies have shown that children who attend preschool start kindergarten with a measurable advantage over classmates who didn’t participate, but those gains seem to disappear by roughly the third grade. In Tennessee, a multi-year study found that 4-year-olds who attended a public pre-kindergarten program fared worse academically by the time they reached sixth grade than those who didn’t participate.

California doesn’t have a plan to evaluate the effectiveness of universal TK. And while the California Department of Education has guidelines on what students should learn, there is no mandated curriculum — leaving TK programs potentially vulnerable to repeating the pitfalls in Tennessee’s program.

Some districts are seeking out best practices to avoid the same fate.

At Ukiah Unified, a high-poverty school district where a large percentage of its 5,800 students are in foster care or are English learners from Spanish-speaking households, administrators are determined to ensure the TK students are set up for success later on. They’re supporting an initiative at Yokayo Elementary, where teachers emphasize learning math skills in TK and building on what students know as they move to the next grade.

The school is focusing on math because more than 60% of California students are not proficient in the subject, and studies show that students’ early math skills predict their academic achievement in middle and even high school.

“If they don’t get that foundation, then it’s a house of cards,” said Deborah Stipek, an expert on early childhood and elementary education at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. “And as they make an effort to learn more advanced math, it falls apart because they don’t really have that basic understanding.”

When students are forced to reach too high when they start a new grade, they can feel lost and frustrated. If they repeat something they already know, they can lose interest in learning, Stipek said.

At Yokayo, teachers from TK to third grade get together to align their curriculum and standards to ensure students make academic progress from one grade to the next.

It’s a type of collaboration that might seem intuitive, but that runs counter to the way schools are typically organized. Teachers usually talk to their colleagues from the same grade level and follow pre-designed lesson plans.

Steven Kellner, director of district leadership and state policy for the nonprofit California Education Partners, said that creates a “herky-jerky” learning experience for students.

“‘Kindergarten’s this way and first grade’s that way,’ and they have nothing to do with each other,” he said of districts’ typical approach. “Transitional kindergarten is great, but if it’s not connected to the other grades, it’s not super helpful.”

Ed Partners, which is dedicated to improving student outcomes in under-resourced districts, is helping dozens of school districts across the state develop what it calls “preschool through third grade coherence.”

The nonprofit pairs university experts with teams of teachers, principals and school district leaders to share math teaching strategies that work across the early elementary school years. The teams receive ongoing coaching to improve the way they teach math, based on how much progress students make between the beginning and end of each school year. Stipek is an advisor to the nonprofit.

Yokayo Elementary is in the third year of implementing this strategy. In Fowler’s classroom, for example, students play a game called “How many ways?” where they’re asked to represent the number 4 and share their reasoning with classmates. Some students drew four dots or four hearts, while others wrote their names four times on the whiteboard.

By the time they get to second grade, in teacher Yadira De Luna’s classroom, they’ll perform the same task but with increasing difficulty. One recent morning, she asked her students to show multiple ways to represent the number 175. Some drew 175 circles or bars, while others filled their sheet of paper with as many addition or subtraction formulas they could think of that end in 175.

This exercise lets students see that there is more than one way to get to the right answer. It also encourages them to articulate their reasoning in front of their peers.

“By allowing them to play with numbers and to look at patterns and to see what they look like in the real world, that’s where you’re going to get that love of math,” said Dana Milani, the school’s principal.

Milani spent 15 years teaching fifth grade at Yokayo Elementary before switching to administration. She said having transitional kindergarten at her school has made her appreciate the opportunity to nurture young children’s love of learning, while being careful not to stifle it.

“We’re not making [math lessons] too long, we’re not having them get to where they’re like, ‘Ugh, do we have to do math again?’” she said. “It’s this really fun time where they get to use problem-solving skills. When you’re 4, problem-solving is a big deal, and if they can figure out how to problem-solve socially, they can do it academically.”

Researchers say engaging in math activities early on teaches young kids cognitive skills (like memorizing and organizing) that can be applied to other areas of life.

Recently, the state proposed redefining transitional kindergarten in official documents to clarify that, instead of using a “modified kindergarten curriculum,” TK instruction should prioritize play as a form of learning. The California Department of Education also encourages school districts to align preschool to third grade teachings.

But with no standard statewide curriculum, Stipek said she’s heard a variety of stories about what goes on in TK classrooms — from a “drill and kill” approach, where “all the kids do is sit and do worksheets” to the “incredibly wonderful, playful learning that’s going on.”

She said one reason Tennessee’s Pre-K program failed kids was that it rigidly focused on knowing letters and numbers, instead of exploring learning through interaction and play.

An evaluation of the fully expanded program would help California state leaders and educators figure out how to fine-tune TK, Stipek said. So far, the Legislature has not committed funding for a study.

In the meantime, the Ukiah Unified School District plans to track its students’ progress from this first year of universal TK, and Ed Partners will evaluate the districts that implemented preschool through third grade alignment.

The district’s superintendent, Deborah Kubin, said so far, TK seems to be working. Ukiah Unified used its state funding to add a new building and playground just for 4-year-olds on Yokayo’s sprawling campus. Each of the two spacious classrooms has a teacher and a teacher’s aide, and classes are capped at no more than 20 students to ensure the kids get the attention that they need.

Students who attended the program when the district began offering it scored 7% higher on their third grade assessments last year than students who didn’t go to TK.

Launching the program “definitely has been a challenge, but as we’re seeing in our results, the students are doing better,” Kubin said.

Parent Katie Sims said at the beginning of the school year, her son, Sawyer, had a hard time transitioning from a small day care to Fowler’s classroom.

“But once he settled in, he did have a great experience with the teachers,” Sims said. “He absolutely loves going to school now.”

TK wasn’t an option when her older son, who’s in seventh grade, began his educational journey.

“My youngest son is going to have an easier transition into kindergarten and actual academics, versus my older son, who just got kind of thrown in and didn’t know what to expect,” Sims said.