Pre-K Now continues to offer the early childhood world updates as to conversations and articles affecting young children. Recently an article posted on their Pre-K Newsclips published in the Washington Post by Marc Fisher caught my interest. Mr. Fisher quotes the findings from the Save the Children report. He writes, “Overall, the report paints a dismal picture of parenting and schooling in America. It finds that 68 percent of American fourth-graders are not reading at grade level—64 percent in Maryland, 62 percent in Virginia and 86 percent in D.C.” He continues to list other states’ results in the article.

Most interesting to me was the following, “Some of the group’s assumptions about what works do not necessarily track in every case although only 49 percent of three- and four-year-olds in Maryland and Virginia attend pre-school. That number soars to 68 percent in the District—the highest in the United States—yet the results are dismal. So it is not mere attendance in preschool that makes a difference, but rather what happens in preschool and how good the programs are.” Exactly.

My question for consideration based on this information is: How many opportunities are children provided to acquire early literacy and mathematic skills in a nurturing responsive environment? We continue to discuss what the definition of quality is.

To read the full Save the Children report, go to: www.savethechildren.org.