Attendance

The effects of absenteeism on literacy skills start before kindergarten, two recent studies show. The University of Chicago Consortium of Chicago School Research followed 25,000 3- and 4-year-olds served by Chicago Public Schools’ school-based preschool programs and found that nearly half of 3-year-olds and more than one-third of 4-year-olds missed at least 10 percent of the school year. Chronic absence for 4-year-old students correlated with weaker kindergarten readiness scores, including letter recognition and pre-literacy scores. The effects were particularly pronounced for the children who arrived at preschool with the weakest skills. Once again, these are the students who were more likely to be chronically absent, the 2013 study found. And for every year a student is chronically absent, his or her chance for reading success diminished.vi The Baltimore Education Research Consortium also focused on prekindergarten and kindergarten attendance and followed these young students over time. The 2012 study found that students with low attendance in both pre-K and kindergarten often continue to have low attendance, are more likely to be retained by third grade and on average have lower academic outcomes than peers with better attendance.

-Taken from Attendance in the Early Grades: Why it Matters for Reading article published February 2013