Did You Know That...
One benefit of pre-kindergarten programs is that they give disadvantaged children language rich experiences
One of the differences that explains the gap in school performance between children from low-socio-economic-status (SES) and their more privileged peers is that the higher SES children may be exposed to millions of more words in their pre-school years than those in the lowest SES. High quality pre-kindergarten programs that provide language-rich experiences benefit all students and can help close the gap between those with different home backgrounds.
For more on this topic, see From Rhetoric to Reality: The Case for High-Quality Compensatory Prekindergarten Programs by Susan B. Neuman (Phi Delta Kappan, December 2003, 85(4), pp. 286-291).