Kindergarten Boot Camp

It also gave them better odds at doing well. Children who attended K-Prep at the first schools to offer it have had better attendance and fewer disciplinary problems and were held back less often than those who did not. They also scored better on academic, work habits and social skills tests.

A year after attending K-Prep, one group earned an average score of 84.3 on tests of work habits vs. 76.2 for nonparticipants and a score of 80.5 on mastery of social and emotional skills vs. 72.2 among nonparticipants.

The K-Prep graduates were unconditionally promoted to first grade at a higher rate -- 85.7 percent -- vs. 80 percent of nonparticipants. About half as many participants as nonparticipants had to repeat kindergarten. "It was enough to make us realize this was a program we probably wanted to replicate," David said.

Craig Jerald, president of Break the Curve, a D.C.-based educational consulting firm, said that across the nation, school districts are adding "bridge," or orientation, programs but that they usually are geared to older students, such as those entering high school.

Although he had not heard of any such programs for kindergartners, he said it made sense. "Particularly for kids who have not had very systematic early childhood experience, kindergarten can feel like a sink-or-swim situation," he said. "A little bit of help goes a long way."

Criticism has arisen lately about students' free time, including summer vacation, being increasingly squeezed by academic and other structured programs, but Jerald said the K-Prep program did not worry him.

"If the teachers were drilling and killing kids on the alphabet, that could be some cause for concern," he said. "But if it's about understanding the social side of school, it can be very powerful. . . . There's nothing wrong with a program that will help prepare them for what they're going to face."

At Lyles-Crouch on Monday morning, the first day of this year's session, there was some crying and clinging, and even some running out the door after parents. But by the next day, the children were deeply immersed in their studies of sea fauna and seemed to have put their worries aside. The class had colored paper sea animals, and the girls who had drawn seahorses had, coincidence or not, generally decided to name them "Rainbow."

Ava Benbow whispered something about hers to her teacher, Tricia Hribar.

"It reminds you of your what?" Hribar said.

"My sister," Ava said.

Katherine Godigkeit gripped her seahorse. "She's special because she can hold the seaweed with her tail so she can rest," she explained. Justice Cokley, following the teacher's instructions, listened to Katherine talk before telling her about his fish, which, he said, was "sleeping on the bottom of the ocean."