In my former life at this paper, I covered education issues in Howard County. The county had just completed implementing full-day kindergarten at all its elementary schools, and I had the pleasure of observing some of these classes.

I was amazed at what these 5- to 6-year-old kids were learning in school. Now, a new study shows that 81 percent of Maryland's kindergartners have the academic and social skills they will need to succeed in school.

Check out my colleague Liz Bowie's article on the state's Ready to Learn report.

The state's Ready to Learn report shows a 32 percentage-point jump in the past decade in the number of children ready when they enter kindergarten.

Each fall, kindergarten teachers fill out an assessment of how well their students are doing by the end of the first quarter in academic, physical and social development. The teachers look not only at whether a child knows the alphabet and numbers, but how well they get along with other children and whether their physical development makes them ready to learn.