Commentary : Begin by Teaching Kids English in Preschool . . . : Education: When it comes to language skills, the earlier the better.

State law enacted in 1998 creates the expectation that students who don’t master essential skills will not be promoted to the next grade level. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, thousands of students are at risk of being held back, including many students who don’t speak English at all or well enough.

There are resources designed to address this problem, from teaching assistants to additional time in the classroom outside of regular school sessions. But these programs are not of sufficient scope to solve the problem. We must do much more for English-language learners, and we must do it early in their school careers if we want them to compete with their classmates whose first language is English.

We know that a quality preschool experience enables children to be more ready to learn when they reach school age. Why not apply this to English-language learners? A year of pre-kindergarten would give them significant exposure to oral English before they are expected to master English literacy skills and subject matter.

Each year, about 30,000 English-language learners enter the LAUSD kindergarten program. About 10,000 of these students already have a pre-kindergarten experience through the School Language Readiness Development Program or the Children’s Centers Program. We need to provide some help for the rest.

It would cost about $3,000 per child--or about $60 million--to provide three hours of pre-kindergarten daily for a year (220 days). The state has funded initiatives of this magnitude during the last few years and is interested in expanding pre-kindergarten opportunities for children.

Alternatively, there is enough money to pay for a year of pre-kindergarten if existing funding sources could be refocused. For example, most low-income students are eligible for federal and state funding of about $5,000 over their school careers. If we could borrow against future compensatory education revenues to pay for a pre-kindergarten year, it would be as or more valuable to the children than the supplemental resources they now receive.

Of course, adding instruction before kindergarten would require additional classroom space. Some schools have enough room. Others would have to build more classrooms or use facilities differently. Building more classrooms is the best solution, but it is also expensive.

A different approach could be to have students attend school fewer minutes per day but more days per year. One group of students could attend classes in the morning and have an afternoon activities program, while a second group could have activities in the morning and attend classes in the afternoon. This would provide space for pre-kindergarten and other enrichment programs. Also, students who need consistent exposure to English language instruction would benefit from the year-round classes.

Providing a year of pre-kindergarten for all English-language learners would require some significant changes, but unless we think outside of the box, we will continue to offer supplementary services that acknowledge but don’t solve the problems of giving children a good start in school and keeping them moving from grade to grade.