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As the country recovers from the pandemic and rebuilds education, policymakers should keep an eye on kindergarten – and take steps to shore up its power.

“Kindergarten is designed for young children, who learn best by doing,” an article in the Hechinger Report noted last year. “And while pre-literacy and math skills are covered, building block towers, playing make-believe and mastering the playground equipment are also key elements of this critical grade.”

“ ‘I don’t want to pit one grade against another,’ said Laura Bornfreund, the director of early and elementary education policy at New America, a progressive think tank. ‘But the foundational knowledge, the skills to be able to learn and do well in school later are so important. Kindergarten matters a lot.’ ”

This year, New America is sharing insights from the results of two studies that the organization conducted with “the Boston Public Schools (BPS) Department of Early Childhood before the pandemic, which found that kindergarten is a critical setting for supporting young children’s learning and development.”

One insight is about “fadeout,” the finding that the academic and cognitive benefits of attending high-quality preschool programs appear to fade in kindergarten and the early grades.

“However,” New America says, “a more accurate description is ‘convergence,’ because a closer examination shows that children who do not attend pre-K catch up to their peers during kindergarten and the early elementary school grades. Yet, few studies have fully explored how kindergarten contributes to these convergence effects.”

In one study, of “nearly 5,000 applicants to the BPS prekindergarten program, we found that as much as 61 percent of the convergence in literacy skills between program enrollees and non-enrollees occurred in kindergarten when children were followed through third grade.”

A second study found differences in how children learn “constrained” skills, like letter naming and counting skills, and how they learn broad “unconstrained” skills like vocabulary, problem solving, and critical thinking.

Specifically, BPS’ pre-k program was more likely to boost children’s broad, unconstrained skills and to sustain these skills through kindergarten.

Then, in kindergarten, teachers tend to focus on teaching constrained skills, like counting and letters. That works for kids who have gone to preschool. But it can also mean that kids who haven’t gone to preschool have fewer opportunities to learn unconstrained skills like acquiring new words and solving challenges.

These disparities have grown worse because of the pandemic.

To address this challenge, New America has come up with “five research-backed, equity-centered investments state and district leaders can make as the country recovers from the pandemic in the coming years:”

• “Hire assistant teachers (paraprofessionals) for kindergarten classrooms. Research has shown that assistant teachers support improved reading and math performance, particularly for students of color and students from households with low incomes. Before the pandemic, however, kindergarten classrooms might have had only part-time assistants or none at all.”

 “Adding assistant teachers can increase the amount of time students spend in small groups, which is a particularly effective instructional approach with young children.”

• “Expand summer learning opportunities to rising kindergarteners. Offering rising kindergarteners in-person summer learning would give children an evidence-based boost in their kindergarten readiness and give frazzled parents a needed respite. Our research shows that summer matters for equity; rising kindergarteners from households with low incomes do not make the same progress in their school readiness as their peers over the summer.”

• “Offer tutoring as early as kindergarten. Tutoring has been shown to be effective with children as young as kindergarten.”

• “Implement coaching and training for teachers tied to evidence-based curricula.” This would “support core learning domains are effective for boosting classroom quality and children’s learning,” and

• “Consider transitional kindergarten. Some states offer a two-year kindergarten program for children based on age cutoffs.”

“As the country emerges from the pandemic and continues to face challenges to supporting children’s early learning,” New America says, “policymakers should not forget about the lessons learned during this crisis. In addition to supporting continued expansion of high-quality early care and education, further focus on early childhood and kindergarten stands to make a crucial return on investment for our youngest learners.”