The Effects of the 4K Child Development Program on School Readiness

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental study was to examine the effects of attending a half-day 4K Child Development Program and school readiness scores as measured by the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) at a public elementary school. The following research questions guided this study: (1) What is the difference between the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) scores of kindergarten students who attended the 4K Child Development Program before starting kindergarten and students who did not attend the 4K Child Development Program? (2) What is the difference between the KRA scores for school readiness on the following domains: Social Foundations, Language and Literacy, Mathematics, and Physical Development and Well-Being for students who participated in the 4K Child Development Program and students who did not participate in the 4K Child Development Program? The researcher conducted a secondary analysis of archival data from the KRA for the following school years: 2017–2018, 2018–2019, and 2019–2020. Since archived data were used for this study, no active participants were involved in this study. This study took place at one elementary school in South Carolina, and data were provided to the researcher from the schools’ secure database. Data analysis consisted of descriptive statistics and conducting two-sample t-tests. Results of the study indicated that 4K Child Development Program participants’ scores were significantly higher on the domains of Mathematics (2017–2020, n = 120) and Language and Literacy (2018–2019, n = 40).