Recent neuroscientific research strongly supports the belief that young children’s learning before they enter formal education is an essential foundation for later school success. Increasingly, state policy makers across the country are addressing readiness for school by improving the learning opportunities for young children before they enter school, particularly those who are enrolled in early care and education programs. In addition, many children require the necessary family and health support to thrive developmentally.

Since 1997, MSDE’s early childhood assessment initiative for prekindergarten and kindergarten has been named the Maryland Model for School Readiness (MMSR). The MMSR is a school readiness framework designed to support early educators to improve assessment and instructional techniques to support young children’s readiness for school.

The framework defines the domains of learning related to the ultimate goal that all children will be ready to succeed in school. The MMSR defines school readiness as the state of early development that enables an individual child to engage in and benefit from primary learning experiences. As a result of family nurturing and interactions with others, a young child in this stage has reached certain levels of:

		Social and emotional development;
		Cognition and general knowledge (in mathematical and scientific thinking, social studies, and the arts)
		Language development (in terms of listening, speaking, reading and writing)
		Physical and motor development.

School readiness acknowledges individual approaches toward learning as well as the unique experiences and backgrounds of each child.

In order to impact classroom instruction and individual support for young children, early educators who are working with young children receive intensive, on-going staff development. These staff development seminars emphasize research-based practices in early childhood education. Since 2000, the MMSR has been applied to kindergarten, most prekindergarten programs, as well as many Head Start programs in Maryland. Since early 2002, the MMSR has been available to child care programs that are working with children before they enter kindergarten.

The Maryland Model for School Readiness (MMSR) draws its foundation from recommendations by the National Education Goals Panel’s Goal 1 Technical Planning Group (1995) regarding two major principles for children entering school ready to learn:

		school readiness embraces all dimensions of young children’s early learning, including the social, emotional, physical, linguistic, and cognitive domains;
		school readiness requires the commitment to improve early learning opportunities through the alignment of the following components: assessment, professional development, classroom practice and instruction, communication with families, and coordinated policies among early education programs.

As the MMSR embraces these principles, it had to be examined for research evidence related to its components of:

		assessment,
		professional development,
		instruction in the classroom,
		family communication, and
		coordination of early childhood programs.

The sections below provide a brief description and research base of each component.