The Big Lift Descriptive Analyses

The Big Lift™ (Big Lift), a collective impact initiative extending from preschool through third grade in San Mateo County, California, aims to boost reading proficiency and kindergarten readiness through four programmatic pillars: High-Quality Preschool, Summer Learning, Attendance, and Family Engagement. In this report, the authors present results describing the early learning outcomes of children from three kindergarten classes who were eligible to participate in Big Lift. This report — part of a multiphase evaluation of Big Lift services — is the third in a series of annual outcome studies that focus on two pillars: High-Quality Preschool and Summer Learning. In earlier reports, the authors examined the early education and summer learning experiences of the 2016–2017 and 2017–2018 kindergarten classes. In this report, the authors continue to follow these children through elementary school and add data for a new class of children, the 2018–2019 kindergarten class.

The authors found that Big Lift preschoolers were more likely to be kindergarten-ready than demographically similar peers who did not attend preschool, but were less likely to be ready than peers who attended other community preschools. They also found that most children who attended Big Lift Inspiring Summers (BLIS) before first or second grade maintained or improved their reading levels over the summer. Within a subgroup of lower-income children, children who attended BLIS in the summer after kindergarten had reading levels at the start of first grade that were higher than those of children who did not attend any summer programs.