Sheila Norris sat near her classroom whiteboard Monday at Hillsmere Elementary School in Annapolis, her kindergartners on the carpet, eager to ask and answer questions.

Norris, who has been teaching for 20 years, led her class through math lessons with games and songs, tailoring them to students’ strengths and weaknesses she recently learned by reviewing their Kindergarten Readiness Assessment scores.

The scores tell her, and other educators, that the achievement gap that exists in Anne Arundel County Schools begins and should be tackled at a young age.

“Early childhood, preschool and kindergarten are where it starts. If we attack the gap that is where we start,” Norris said. “(Students) are young and eager and want to do well. If we can give them the support they need now, that is our best chance to close the achievement gap.”

The achievement gap exists in the county before children enter the school system, data from the kindergarten readiness assessment shows. Since 2016, Anne Arundel County public schools have shown a 5% gap in kindergarten readiness between African American students and all other students.

Kindergarten readiness is a way to assess a child’s level of skills in a classroom. Children can demonstrate such readiness by showcasing curiosity in learning, exploring new topics like language and math, cooperating with peers and following instructions. The tests in the county take place at the beginning of the school year through random samples so that teachers can review the strengths and weaknesses of their students.

“It is a very strong formative assessment,” said Christy Tirrell-Corbin, director of the Center for Early Childhood Education and Intervention. “It is intended to inform teachers, school building administrators and the school system of the current level of children.”

According to the county data, the gap was calculated by comparing African-American students and all other students.

From 2016 to 2017, Hispanic, multi-racial and African American students all saw an improvement in readiness. Hispanic students went from 10% to 25%. Multiracial students increased by the biggest percentage, from below 10% to nearly 50%. Black students went from about 11% to 35%.

Yet the gap remains.

At the first meeting of the Joint Initiative to Eliminate the Achievement Gap in September, attendees left comments to reflect their thoughts on the achievement gap, particularly focused on the kindergarten data.

One participant said the kindergarten readiness assessment shows students are “unprepared from the beginning — some never catch up.”

Another said “the huge gap that exists in the kindergarten readiness data between whites and all minorities shows us that so many of the things affecting the ‘achievement gap’ are things that occur way before they ever enter school.”

Some factors that contribute to the lack of readiness go beyond the classroom. Tirrell-Corbin pointed to poverty, specifically the cycle of poverty, because it could mean an “environment where there is more likely to be issues around drugs, more likely to be violence, more likely to be food deserts,” she said.

As a result, access to “high quality early learning experiences” are low, Tirrell-Corbin said.

How brains grow

Norris, who recently reviewed the scores of her 16 students, said she tries to motivate students through her lessons to take risks and learn new things.

“I talk to my students about mistakes because that is how we learn and grow. One of my students had used the wrong pattern and he goes, ‘My brain just grew,’?” Norris said. “This is how we do things, we are not always going to be right and that’s OK.”

After finishing a book Monday, Norris began to instruct math through games, interactive maps and specific questions to get her students to do things like count to 100.

“Today in math we are going to start something new. Remember when we talked about patterns and 2D shapes and 3D shapes? Well, today we are going to start talking about something new numbers,” Norris said before turning to her interactive presentation.

Some of the main lessons were to learn how to count and write out numbers. With the help of a YouTube video, all of her students stand and follow along to the song.

The musician encourages movement along with shouting out the numbers so students began to reach up, shrug their shoulders, stomp or even clap. Once Norris finished her lesson, she turned on the lights and began to do separate math exercises.

The students were put into groups of three and worked together to do things like sort patterns, count with wooden blocks and even participate in a scavenger hunt throughout the class. One student had to add an answer to his worksheet and when he first attempted to draw an eight it began as an oddly shaped zero.

But he simply erased it and tried again because “if we mess up, our brains grow,” he said.

Before entering school

Before children become students in the school system, the county library encourages parents to become the first teacher.

“We help parents be their first teacher,” said Christine Feldmann, the spokeswoman for the county library.

The library system offers a number of resources for parents and guardians to not only cultivate a classroom experience for children but to also foster a relationship between adults and children.

“We want to provide the community with resources they need to be the most successful,” Feldmann said.

The early literacy programs provided by the library began because the library system expanded and there was also a need for programming to target kindergarten readiness, she said. Now the library has 40 specialists in early literacy and each branch hosts a weekly program.

One, in particular, Toddler Time, is meant to engage young children in a classroom-like setting said Kelly McCoy, a library associate.

“This is one of their first classroom experiences,” McCoy said.

On any given morning during Toddler Time, McCoy will pull out her books, her puppets and her toys for the children. Monday morning, eight children sat in a semicircle around her with the adults on the outskirts. She changed her voice to reflect what a happy cupcake may sound like or a stern mother cat. The children reacted to her books and when she asked to come up to the felt board to add decorations to the story, a couple of children would gather close to do so.

“I encourage them to come up and work with me,” she said. As part of the instruction to add or take the materials off the board, the children learn how to engage in a learning process, follow instructions, to focus and of course to receive praise, McCoy said.Throughout the entire reading, McCoy made sure to also congratulate kids who did a task.

“I am modeling behavior for the kids, and for the parents who may not have thought to do this kind of activity,” she said.