Summary

Many children begin school unprepared to meet its academic requirements. If this school readiness gap is not addressed, it can be a precursor to continuing low achievement. One promising approach to this problem is to provide high-quality early learning opportunities to low-income children. Many publicly funded early care and education programs in California target subsidies specifically to low-income children to encourage their participation. The children of immigrant parents constitute a large subset of disadvantaged children, and of special concern are linguistically isolated children, that is, children who encounter little or no English in their homes, who are most likely to be classified as English learners when they enter school. About half of preschool-age children in California are children of immigrants, and about 20 percent are linguistically isolated. However, we lack information on the early care and education experiences of children of immigrants, and particularly those who are linguistically isolated. What are the characteristics of this subgroup? What kind of early care and education do they receive? Do they use nonparental care at different rates than other children? What is the relationship between their participation in center-based preschool programs and their academic skills upon entering school? This report examines these questions by focusing on the early care and education experiences and the kindergarten readiness skills of four-year-old children in both California and the United States as a whole