A new initiative is showing promise as a way to help teachers prepare Palm Beach County children for the growing rigors of kindergarten.
Why it matters: Children who enter kindergarten ready to learn are more likely to read proficiently by third grade. But if they fall behind, the odds are against them catching up to their classmates.
Stunning stat: State testing found that kindergarten readiness in Palm Beach County rose from 66% in 2022-23 to over 72% in the last school year — a six-point gain.
- The improvement is one of the most significant gains documented in Florida’s free and voluntary prekindergarten (VPK) system.
- The achievement is featured in the Florida Chamber of Commerce’s 2024–25 Kindergarten Readiness Report, which highlights Palm Beach County as a case study.
READ MORE: Teachers have left Palm Beach County schools as enrollment has grown
The initiative, led by the Early Learning Coalition of Palm Beach County, is happening in VPK programs with the school district, Head Start and private sites. It embeds learning technology, teacher training, and coaching in VPK classrooms.
- Technology: Programs called My Reading and Math Academy, developed by Age of Learning, a Glendale, Calif.-based technology company, are being used at 270 VPK sites in Palm Beach County, providing 15 minutes of daily instruction to more than 5,000 students.
- Training: Professional development supports teacher growth.
- Coaching support: Coaches work with teachers at each site, offering immediate feedback.
“Our readiness rate is evidence that what we are doing works,” Aruna Gilbert, chief program and policy officer at the Early Learning Coalition, said.
The big picture: Most counties in Florida have hovered around 50% to 60% in kindergarten readiness for some time, Erin Gallagher, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Early Learning Coalition of Palm Beach County, told Stet News. “A lot of other states are sitting in the same place.”
Context: Kindergarten in 2025 is a much steeper climb than it was a generation ago, Gallagher said. Today, the focus is on prereading, counting and patterns. The curriculum moves at a much faster pace.
“It’s important for children to feel like they can keep up,” she said.
Age of Learning came at a critical time: Many teachers left the field during the pandemic, Gallagher said. There was a need to support new teachers who were called on to rapidly develop their skills.
“We are thrilled VPK programs and their teachers have embraced Age of Learning and prioritize training,” she said.
How it works: Age of Learning gathers information on each VPK student, and the data guides teachers. The technology is designed to give teachers the ability to see where children are.
- “We can pull that report and say, ‘Oh, we didn’t know that they were struggling with that letter. We didn’t know they were struggling with this part,’” said Vanity Fields, director of Atkins Tender Loving Care of Riviera Beach.
- “Learning is not linear,” Gallagher said.
If a class is learning to count from 1 to 20 – and a child doesn’t get it – without an individual look at each student, that might be glossed over, she said.
“So when you ask a child to add, if they don’t have that number sense, that is going to be really cumbersome,” Gallagher said. That foundation was never set.
The technology is designed to give teachers the ability to see children where they are.
In the room: Children spend time on tablets for a maximum of 15 minutes a day during child choice time in learning centers. The program feels like a game, but each activity is designed to build math and reading skills.
“We grappled with screen time,” Gallagher said. “We wanted to make sure we were well below the recommended time for the age group. And we wanted to make sure that 15 minutes was worth it.”
The program gathers information on each student, and the data guides teachers.
Coaches provided by the coalition spend their time in the classroom, following up on training and guiding teachers on tactics like asking open-ended questions to help young children give longer responses and develop language skills.
- Tell me about your drawing.
- Tell me about what you built.
- What do you think will happen next in the story?
“You get all that rich dialogue,” Gallagher said.
What’s next: “For us, the biggest thing is to ensure these opportunities are available to as many children as possible,” Gallagher said. “We would like to engage more VPK sites as we go.”
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
