Aimed at improving student reading skills, free preschool in Billings shows promise

In Billings, the closest thing the city has to public preschool is showing early signs of progress. 

KinderREADy, a free preschool offered by Billings Public Schools to qualifying students, is in its second year. This year, the district added a teacher, enrolled two dozen more students and started a waiting list. 

Veronica Hernandez’s daughter completed KinderREADy in the spring, after first trying an online program for preschool-age children. Hernandez said the switch to in-person schooling was “huge.”

“Her personality opened up. She was talking more. She was more curious about books. She wanted to read,” Hernandez said. “She wanted to tell me about all of the letters she was learning, and every day, it was just something new.” 

Hernandez is a paraprofessional in the school district. She works one-on-one with elementary students who need extra help outside of regular classes. She said many kids aren’t fully prepared when they enter kindergarten. 

But after completing KinderREADy, her daughter made the transition easily. 

“The benefits of the program are massive,” she said.

Billings started the KinderREADy program in 2024, after the Montana Legislature authorized and funded the literacy programs in 2023. The district now serves roughly 150 students at four elementary schools: Orchard, Bench, McKinley and Miles. 

Sessions last two hours and forty-five minutes and are offered Monday through Friday in either the morning or the afternoon. All are taught by certified teachers. 

Mallory Hexum, a former kindergarten teacher for Billings Public Schools, now teaches the KinderREADy program at Orchard Elementary. 

Hexum said that most preschools teach important skills, such as cooperation, communication and managing emotions. The advantage of KinderREADy, she said, is that kids also learn to be part of a school community in a big building with older students. 

“So they’re used to walking in line. They’re used to coming in the school by themselves, sitting at the carpet, going to specialists, going to the cafeteria. They practice all of those skills before they even get to kindergarten,” Hexum said. 

KinderREADy is not what many think of as “public preschool,” also called universal pre-K, since it is not open to all students. It and other pre-K classroom programs across Montana are designed to help students who are at risk for not reading proficiently by third grade. Districts select their own screening tests, and students must score sufficiently low on them to be admitted. 

However, of the 211 children screened in Billings this year, just five did not qualify for KinderREADy, according to data provided by Billings Public Schools. There is no income criteria for eligibility. 

Lawmakers stated that programs like KinderREADy and other pre-K interventions were needed to help address the problem of falling third-grade reading scores. In 2023, when the legislation was passed, more than half of Montana’s third-graders were reading below grade level, Rob Watson told the House Education committee at the bill’s first hearing. Watson is the executive director of the School Administrators of Montana. 

Watson said that’s significant because third grade is when students pivot from learning how to read to using reading as a learning tool. Problems then can increase the likelihood that students will need remedial help later on or decide to drop out. 

Universal public preschool, popular among progressives, gets pushback from some conservatives who say it is too costly and leaves no room for parental choice.

But the concept is gaining support. In 2014, 54% of Americans supported universal public preschool, while in 2022, the support increased to 71%, according to annual surveys conducted by the journal Education Next. 

In Montana, lawmakers took care to distinguish the newly created Early Literacy Targeted Interventions — the umbrella of programs that encompasses KinderREADy — from universal public preschool.  

The legislation provided school districts with three options for Early Literacy Targeted Interventions. There are classroom-based programs like KinderREADy in Billings, which are funded on a per-pupil basis. There are also home-based computer courses and a Jumpstart summer school option, both available until kids reach third grade. Billings Public Schools offers all three types of programs. 

Pre-K classroom programs across Montana showed promise in their first year. Out of the 2,025 students across the state who participated, 57% learned enough in the program to no longer be eligible for it. 

The home-based programs are experiencing a surge in use: Last year, 129 Montana children were enrolled. This year, 738 are, according to McKenna Gregg, communications director and policy advisor for the Office of Public Instruction. 

Jumpstart programs, too, are expanding. In the program’s first year, 20 districts offered them. The next summer, 35 did, Gregg said. 

Education observers generally agree that schools have gotten more academically rigorous than in decades past, in part due to increased standardized testing. Traci Piltz, administrator of the Billings KinderREADy program, said she has seen the trend during her two decades of working in schools. 

She said KinderREADy helps by giving kids a smooth, year-long transition into kindergarten. The curriculum comes from the same company as the curriculum used in the district’s kindergarten classes, she said. 

In addition to teaching kids the basics they’ll need to succeed in kindergarten, KinderREADy aims to get kids excited about school. 

“What I tell families is that [KinderREADy] gives students a really positive first experience with schools,” said Hexum, the Orchard teacher. “That they like to come to school, they have fun. I focus on having a growth mindset and that we can do hard things, but then we also have time every single day to learn through play.”

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