Kindergarten Readiness

The path to reading proficiency does not start in Kindergarten. It begins as soon as a child is born. And If we want every child to start school ready to learn—and stay on track—we need to focus on the factors that are known to improve Kindergarten readiness.

Every Alabama public school student takes an assessment, AlaKids, during the first few months of kindergarten. This "whole child assessment" helps teachers understand each child's independent skills and abilities across six crucial developmental areas.

Here in Montgomery, the AlaKids assessment paints a clear picture: two out of every five Montgomery children arrive at Kindergarten without essential language and reading skills, and about half are still developing the math skills they'll need for school. This tells us there's work to be done.

This chart illustrates the trends in Montgomery in kindergarten readiness scores across these six domains over the last three school years:

These trends underscore the urgent need to significantly increase the number of students entering Kindergarten who meet or exceed Alabama's school readiness standards across all six domains of healthy development.

To improve school readiness, we will WORK TOGETHER across the community to accomplish the following BOLD GOALS. In each section below, you will find details on each goal along with interactive dashboards measuring Montgomery’s performance against key metrics that impact kindergarten readiness.