Challenge
When Graves County reviewed their kindergarten readiness scores and had the funding to purchase a supplement that would positively impact preschool children’s literacy skills, they embarked on a careful review of high-quality literacy supplement offerings to select a solution that would serve these goals.
Utilize Kentucky Comprehensive Literacy 2025 grant, funded by the Comprehensive Literacy State Development (CLSD) program, to purchase a dedicated literacy curriculum
Improve kindergarten readiness and address literacy gaps specifically
Choose an age-appropriate, research-based preschool literacy curriculum that is easy for all teachers to implement
Solution
Early Education Consultant Courtney Hayden works as the liaison between Murray Head Start and Graves County and between Graves County elementary school principals and educators. Knowing there was room for improvement in literacy, she was able to find funding through the Kentucky Comprehensive Literacy (CLSD) grant to purchase a dedicated literacy curriculum for the four-year-olds in the district.
After a review of multiple curricula by Courtney; the Director of Special Education; coaches; teachers; and Charlotte Richards, School Readiness Coordinator at Murray Head Start, Graves County selected Kickstart Literacy because “everything Kickstart Literacy offered is exactly what we were looking for.”
Kickstart Literacy met the Kentucky Comprehensive Literacy (CLSD) funding requirements.
Kickstart Literacy focuses on three of the key pillars of the science of reading and important pre-writing skills.
- Phonological awareness addresses rhyming, alliteration, and segmenting and blending words and sounds.
- Phonemic awareness introduces the individual sounds that make up words.
- Phonics connects speech sounds to their corresponding letters.
- Children are authentically introduced to and encouraged to explore pre-writing skills as they learn phonemes and the letters that comprise them.
Kickstart Literacy is fun and engaging for children and would be easy for teachers to use alongside their preschool curriculum.
In the fall of 2025, eight Graves County classrooms began using Kickstart Literacy with the four-year-old children in their program, and the results they’ve seen in just under 6 months are proving its impact and promise on kindergarten readiness literacy scores.
Results
Assessment data of the four-year-old children in Graves County shows strong evidence of increased language and literacy progress after the introduction of Kickstart Literacy.
Literacy Growth in Just 6 Months
From fall of 2025 through the winter checkpoint in February 2026, children meeting or exceeding expectations in literacy skills increased by 26%, while those below expectations dropped by 55%.
Growth in literacy for this timeframe is 30% higher than the previous school year, when Kickstart Literacy had not yet been implemented.
Language Growth in Just 6 Months
In this same time period, children meeting or exceeding expectations in language skills increased by 15%, with a 45% reduction in those still below benchmarks.
Growth in language in this timeframe is 28% higher than the previous school year.
PELI Assessment Validates Gains
As part of the CLSD grant requirement, Graves County must also complete the PELI (Preschool Early Literacy Indicators)—a state-approved early literacy assessment that assesses key early literacy domains aligned to kindergarten readiness, including alphabet knowledge, oral language, vocabulary, phonological/phonemic awareness, listening comprehension, and early writing (print knowledge and writing), and combines all of these for an overall literacy composite score.
From the beginning of the year (when they began implementing Kickstart Literacy) to the middle of the year, PELI showed that children scoring at or above benchmark increased by 15%, with notable gains in three areas.
- Alphabet knowledge: +14%
- Comprehension: +46%
- Phonological awareness: +27%
Engaging For Children, Stress-free For Teachers
For an early literacy supplement to have consistent impact across classrooms, Courtney knew that she needed a literacy curriculum that was easy for teachers to implement within their already busy preschool days.
Graves County teachers agree that Kickstart Literacy is easy to use right out of the box, and teacher Amy Poe added that it is so easy to follow, “We knew we couldn’t mess it up.”
“Teachers have only positive things to say about Kickstart Literacy,” Courtney tells us. “It was an easy add-on for them.”
Both teachers and children have benefited from introducing Kickstart Literacy to their program. Long tenured and new teachers were excited to start using the playful, developmentally appropriate lessons and to see the four-year-olds engaging with language and literacy with joy and delight.
Courtney reflected that when she walks into the classrooms, “It makes my heart happy to see children having fun learning about literacy, and it’s evident by the data that they are gaining new skills.”
When asked about future plans for Graves County, she noted that she feels like they have “literacy in the bag” and is still deciding where to focus her attention next.
Murray Head Start
Graves County School District
Mayfield, Kentucky
- 8 preschool classrooms
- Children ages 3-5
- 42% are children with disabilities
- 8 teachers, 12 assistant teachers
