FOUR PILLARS OF FAMILY LITERACY 

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

The ultimate goal of the Early Childhood Education (ECE) program is to prepare children for kindergarten. “Simply put, school readiness refers to the state of child competencies at the time of school entry that are important for later success” (Snow, 2006). While this is a widely accepted definition, early learning standards have been established, in part, to better define expectations for what children should know and be able to do prior to kindergarten (Scott- Little, Kagan, & Clifford, 2003).