Kindergarten Readiness and What's Next for KIDS

As part of the Illinois State Board of Education’s (ISBE) recently released Illinois Report Card, the state included the 2023-2024 Kindergarten Individual Development Survey (KIDS) data.

Since the tool’s statewide implementation in 2017, KIDS data has been the state’s window into understanding kindergarten readiness among Illinois children in a developmentally appropriate way. While KIDS is not the only student outcomes data available at the local level, it is the one and only data we have at the state-level to understand readiness across districts. The data has been eye-opening and has both motivated and enabled district and statewide policymakers to make data-driven decisions that support systems and programs improving kindergarten readiness.

The data reveals that in the 2023-2024 school year, 31.6% of all students in Illinois demonstrated kindergarten readiness in all three developmental areas (social and emotional development, language and literacy development, and math), a slight improvement from the previous year. While it is good news that the state has shown some improvement in overall readiness, it is disturbing to know that gaps across lines of race, income, and specialized learning style not only begin before young learners enter kindergarten, but that these gaps remain stubbornly persistent. 

Percentage of Readiness in all Three Developmental Areas by Race/Ethnicity, 2017-2024

Percentage of Readiness in all Three Developmental Areas by Student Group, 2023-2024

Why KIDS Data Matters

Findings from a series of recent reports from the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative (IWERC) on Kindergarten readiness are consistent with what the latest KIDS data reveals about disparities between student groups. White and Asian students were 15 to 25 percentage points more likely than Black and Latinx students to be kindergarten ready in all three domains. Students who were eligible for Free or Reduced-Price Lunch (FRPL), were English Learners (ELs), or had an Individualized Education Program (IEP) were 15 to 25 percentage points less likely to be kindergarten ready in each of the three domains. Report authors go on to answer a critical question in their secondary report: do disparities grow, shrink, or remain stable as students move through the educational system? The answer - kindergarten readiness predicts later academic achievement. Specifically, students who enter kindergarten with demonstrated readiness are more than twice as likely to be proficient in Math and English Arts in Grade 3. That relationship affirms the relevance of the tool, but here are a few things to consider.

Readiness on KIDS alone does not guarantee later academic success. Data indicates that Black, Latinx, and those students who receive free/reduced price lunch are less likely to score at or above proficiency in Grade 3. These trends are particularly troublesome, underscoring the need for targeted supports (e.g. technical assistance, increased resources) during the early and primary years, further consideration of the mixed-delivery system, and better understanding of individual family needs. 

In addition, while it is understandable that there is a relationship between kindergarten readiness and later academic proficiency, the truth is, our goal should be to disrupt that relationship. Put differently, when KIDS data lets us know that a student may be struggling, it creates an opportunity for us to provide the support necessary to catch the child up. If we are able to do that effectively, one would hope that later academic proficiency would consistently exceed kindergarten readiness levels. 

What is the State Doing to Support KIDS

Over the last few years, with support from the McCormick Foundation, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has hosted annual KIDS Summits. At the November 2024 KIDS Summit, over 200 teachers, districts, and school administrators convened to learn from experts and peers across the state about various applications of the tool’s data, guidelines of the tool’s implementation for special populations, and connections of KIDS to the Illinois Comprehensive Literacy Plan. This year’s main topic was meeting learning standards through play with other sessions ranging from using play for learning and assessment in special education settings to the role of play-based learning in the transition from PreK to K. The clear takeaway from the summit was that a play-based learning environment is essential to achieving KIDS' full potential in kindergarten classrooms and critical in understanding where children are developmentally in their learning journey. Beyond the tool’s implementation, there has been a false dichotomy between play and learning when in fact they are seamlessly intertwined, and play-based learning has proven to be critical to students’ learning and development.

How KIDS Can Improve

While we were excited to see ISBE prioritize play-based learning in this year’s summit, more can be done to not only improve the tool’s implementation, but also to support a statewide focus on closing outcome gaps between student groups for our youngest learners. The KIDS Advisory Committee has recommended that ISBE address these issues through increased community engagement with district leaders to better understand the tool’s current administration and application. The feedback can then be used to create materials that details how KIDS can assist districts in strengthening their K-2 instruction. Lastly, ISBE should consider increasing the number of measures that are required for KIDS. Evidence from current districts who administer the tool with increased measures suggest that if the KIDS tool is administered more than the required number of measures across multiple times in the school year, educators can make better use of the data to inform and advance developmentally appropriate instruction.

What’s Next?

Following the momentum of the successful KIDS summit, the recently released KIDS data, and the IWERC KIDS reports, we look to ISBE to provide strategies that put the state on the path to fulfill the goals and design of KIDS for all students, including those who are diverse learners and English Learners. With the state’s new Illinois Department of Early Childhood (IDEC) in its first planning year, it is a critical time to examine persistent gaps in kindergarten readiness and ask ourselves how we can do better to fulfill the needs of our youngest learners. IDEC, in partnership with ISBE and other stakeholders, has the unique opportunity to 1) use the data we already have to inform the development of stronger and more equitable systems that lead to closing readiness gaps and sufficiently preparing young children from birth to age 5 for kindergarten while also 2) practicing active continuous improvement of the current KIDS assessment and system to improve data reliability and validity.

Maya Portillo is the Senior Policy Advisor for Advance Illinois. Melissa Maldonado is a Policy Analyst for Start Early.

New Data Shows Snapshot of Kindergarten Readiness in Illinois

Advance Illinois Senior Policy Advisor Maya Portillo and Start Early Policy Analyst Melissa Maldonado share a snapshot of the steady increases of kindergarten readiness in Illinois, although gaps persist.

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) released its next installation of Kindergarten Individual Development Survey (KIDS) data, providing a snapshot of the skills young children had as they entered kindergarten in the 2022-2023 school year. The COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult to implement the tool and collect the valuable information it provides, but the data the state gathered makes it plain that while COVID-19 disruptions have had an impact, we are heading back to pre-pandemic readiness levels.

As noted in the recent KIDS report, 30% of all students in Illinois demonstrate Kindergarten readiness in all three developmental areas (social and emotional development, language and literacy development, and math), a steady increase that puts the state slightly above pre-pandemic levels. Indeed, since the launch of KIDS in 2017-2018, and despite pandemic challenges, the percentage of students rated “Kindergarten ready” in all three developmental areas has increased by 6 percentage points, reflecting a positive upward trend over time.

While state-wide numbers reflect improvement over time, the percentage of students demonstrating Kindergarten readiness in all three domains varies widely across lines of income, language and learning style. Persistent early gaps between student groups underscore the need for targeted support both during the early years, and in the early primary grades – particularly for students identified as English Learners. Currently implementation challenges exist to assess and identify English Learners but this implementation issue is being addressed by the KIDS Advisory Committee.

Other researchers are beginning to investigate whether and how KIDS relates to later academic performance. A new report from the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative (IWERC) concludes that KIDS scores are predictive of 3rd grade test scores in Math and English language arts (ELA). Yet, even with similar Kindergarten Readiness scores, Black and Latinx students are less likely to be proficient in 3rd grade math and ELA compared to White students.1

Some of these upward trends are encouraging, but persistent gaps require further work and study in the next few years. To address these gaps, assessment directors and school and district leaders should support administrators and teachers by reducing the amount of costly and redundant kindergarten readiness assessments, promoting the importance of a play-based environment in kindergarten, refering districts to KIDS coaches so they can acquire resources for implementing play-based learning, and ensuring there is an appropriate and full implementation of KIDS. It is too soon to draw any connections or conclusions, but we will note that these recent, modest increases coincide with the first year of Governor Pritzker’s Smart Start IL plan – a multi-year effort to increase funding for early childhood over a period of four years. The administration also plans to create a new Department of Early Childhood, which provides an opportunity for the state to create transformational changes that will benefit the early childhood workforce, young children and their families. This transformational work should be paired with sustainable investments and improved data collection, and we will all be watching to see if these coordinated efforts benefit our youngest learners. 

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1Kiguel, S., Cashdollar, S., & Bates, S. (Forthcoming). Kindergarten readiness in Illinois: Trends and disparities in readiness using the Kindergarten Individual Development Survey (KIDS). Chicago, IL: Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative (IWERC), Discovery Partners Institute, University of Illinois.