Florida’s School Readiness Program
As part of a concerted national effort by experts in the fields of economics, national security, and education to promote school readiness for children entering kindergarten, Florida has enacted its own readiness program. The Florida School Readiness Program offers financial assistance to low-income families for early education and care so they can become financially self-sufficient and their young children can be successful when they reach school.
Florida’s School Readiness Program provides the following benefits:
Prepares young children to start kindergarten ready to learn
Helps working families afford quality early learning services
Keeps parents in the work force or participating in educational activities
Recognizes parents as a child’s first teacher
Provides parents information about child development and family well-being
Because of individual differences in development, there will always be a variation in the abilities and skills of children entering school; however, providing children with an array of hands-on, play-based, child-directed activities builds the foundation they need to enter kindergarten ready and eager to learn. Florida’s School Readiness Program makes a high-quality early learning environment available to children who are most at risk of remediation and academic failure. A cost-benefit analysis by the National Institutes of Health Investing shows that putting one dollar into an early education program for children from low-income families generates from $4 to $11 of economic benefits over a child’s lifetime.
