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The purpose of this study was to examine associations between attendance in Georgia's Pre-K Program and children's academic and social outcomes through third grade. This report includes a sub-study that incorporates a comparison group of children who did not attend any pre-k program. This report focuses on third grade outcomes, but it also includes pre-k to third grade outcomes collected during the 2013-2014 to 2017-2018 school years and a comparison sub-study of children who did not attend any pre-k. Study components include: (1) Standardized child assessments that measure skills across learning domains. By using standardized child assessments, children's scores can be compared to a nationally representative sample of children of the same age; (2) Observations of classroom quality over time that measure the quality of teacher-child interactions; (3) Inclusion of a subsample of dual language learners (English-Spanish); and (4) A comparison sample of children who did not attend any pre-k added in the third grade year. Children who attended Georgia's Pre-K Program had literacy skills that were moderately higher and executive function skills that were somewhat higher in the fall of third grade than children whose parents reported that the child did not attend any pre-k program (comparison group). These results are similar to the findings of the Longitudinal Study where children who attended Georgia's Pre-K had higher scores in foundational literacy skills relative to the national norming sample. Together, these results suggest that foundational literacy skills, which are a focus of pre-k, were not obtained by children in the comparison sample. [For the report summary, see ED611011.]

This report summarizes results from the Georgia's Pre-K Longitudinal Study Third-Grade Report. The study followed a representative sample of children (n=1,169) from their pre-k experience (2013-2014) through the third grade (2017-2018). Study components include: (1) Standardized child assessments that measure skills across learning domains. By using standardized child assessments, children's scores can be compared to a nationally representative sample of children of the same age; (2) Observations of classroom quality over time that measure the quality of teacher-child interactions; (3) Inclusion of a subsample of dual language learners (English-Spanish); and (4) A comparison sample of children who did not attend any pre-k added in the third-grade year. Children who attended Georgia's Pre-K Program had literacy skills that were moderately higher and executive function skills that were somewhat higher in the fall of third grade than children whose parents reported that the child did not attend any pre-k program (comparison group). These results are similar to the findings of the Longitudinal Study where children who attended Georgia's Pre-K had higher scores in foundational literacy skills relative to the national norming sample. Together, these results suggest that foundational literacy skills, which are a focus of pre-k, were not obtained by children in the comparison sample. The chart below shows where differences were statistically significant between the two groups and the size of those differences. [For the full report, see ED611010.]