There is a long overdue movement in states and districts across the country to update K-3 reading and math curricula to ensure they adhere to research-proven practices. However, this movement has a big blind spot: preschool.

Close to half of all four-year-olds in the U.S. now start their formal education in a public preschool classroom, and this share is steadily growing. States invested well over $10 billion in pre-K programs in 2022-23, and the federal government invested $11 billion in Head Start.

Most public preschool programs succeed in offering children well-organized classrooms in which they feel safe to learn and explore. But they fall short in building the critical early learning skills on which a child’s future literacy and math skills depend.

Strong preschool experiences matter. The seeds of the large, consequential learning gap between children from higher-income and lower-income families in language, literacy and math skills in middle and high school are already planted by the first day of kindergarten.

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Many studies in widely differing locales around the country have shown that attending preschool boosts children’s kindergarten readiness, and that its effects can — but don’t invariably — last beyond kindergarten and even into adulthood. This readiness includes the ability to follow teacher directions and get along with peers, a solid understanding of the correspondence between letters and sounds, a strong vocabulary and a conceptual knowledge of the number line — all skills on which elementary school curricula can build and all eagerly learned by preschoolers.

But as with all education, some programs are more effective than others, and curriculum is a key active ingredient. Most preschool programs rely on curricula that do not match the current science of early learning and teaching. The good news is that we don’t have to start from scratch to do better. As a new National Academies report explains, we have ample research that points to what makes a preschool curriculum effective.

Three practical changes will help to move today’s curriculum reform efforts in the right direction.

First, public preschool programs need to update their lists of approved curricula, based on evidence, to clearly identify those that improve young children’s learning and development. In the 2021-22 school year (the most recent year for which figures are available), only 19 states maintained lists of approved curricula, and those lists included curricula that are not evidence-based.

Related: Infants and toddlers in high quality child care seem to reap the benefits longer, research says

Second, because the most effective preschool curricula tend to target only one or two learning areas (such as math and literacy), programs need to combine curricula to cover all vital areas. Fortunately, preschool programs in Boston and elsewhere have done precisely this.

Third, tightly linking curricula to teacher professional development and coaching is required for effective implementation. Too often, teacher professional development focuses on general best practices or is highly episodic, approaches that have not translated into preschool learning gains.

We can’t stop with these three changes, however. Children learn best when kindergarten and later elementary curricula build upon preschool curriculum.

None of these changes will solve the problem of the inadequate funding that affects many preschool programs and fuels high teacher turnover. But they can provide teachers with the best tools to support learning.

Getting preschool curricula right is crucial for society to receive the research-proven benefits of early education programs. Evidence shows a boost in learning when programs use more effective curricula.

What’s next is for policymakers to put this evidence into action.

Deborah A. Phillips and Christina Weiland are members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on a New Vision for High-Quality Pre-K Curriculum, which recently released a report with a series of recommendations to improve preschool curriculum, as is Douglas H. Clements, who also contributed to this opinion piece.

This story about preschool curricula was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s biweekly Early Childhood newsletter.

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