The release of EdReports’ inaugural pre-K reviews marks an important milestone for the field and the beginning of an ongoing effort to bring greater transparency to early childhood instructional materials.

Like any inaugural review cycle, the first release includes a limited number of programs – in this case three programs used in classrooms across the country. Additional reviews will follow in the months and years ahead as EdReports continues to expand coverage. The goal is to build a credible and growing signal that helps educators and leaders better understand what high-quality pre-K materials should provide.

For educators and leaders making curriculum decisions today, the good news is that EdReports offers a wealth of resources to support districts in selection. However, if you are considering new materials, it is important to remember that EdReports is most useful when part of a comprehensive, educator-led adoption process.

Strong pre-K selection practices begin by clarifying your local priorities, establishing a shared instructional vision, and outlining the needs you want the curriculum to address. It is also vital to engage educators throughout the process, identify the outcomes that matter most for students, and consider how implementation will be supported over time.

Once those foundations are in place, EdReports reports, review criteria, and evidence guides can provide clear, complementary information about curriculum quality and what high-quality pre-K materials should provide. Together, these resources can strengthen learning about curriculum quality, support advocacy for high-quality instructional materials, and help educators and leaders engage publishers in more meaningful, evidence-based conversations.

Use the Criteria, Evidence Guides and Current Reports to:

1. Build a Shared Definition of Quality

EdReports pre-K review tools include two related resources. The review criteria identify the indicators, or specific dimensions of quality, that educator reviewers use to evaluate instructional materials. The evidence guide provides additional detail about each indicator, including its purpose, what evidence reviewers look for, guiding questions, discussion prompts, and scoring criteria. Used together, these tools help teams understand not only what quality includes, but also what stronger evidence of quality can look like within instructional materials.

Published reports then show how these indicators are applied through EdReports’ educator-led review process. Together, the reports and review tools provide valuable learning resources that can help adoption teams build a stronger understanding of curriculum quality. In addition, the resources provide a common language for discussing quality and a shared framework for evaluating instructional materials.

Curriculum selection processes often bring together individuals with different roles, experiences, and perspectives. Without a shared framework, discussions can become fragmented, with participants prioritizing different features of materials without a clear way to evaluate them together. The criteria help create coherence within the selection process itself.

They allow teams to anchor conversations in evidence rather than preference. They provide a structure for comparing programs and they help identify both strengths and gaps in materials in a consistent and transparent way.

In practice, teams can use the criteria to:

• Guide conversations about what matters in pre-K materials
• Compare programs against shared expectations
• Identify where materials are strong and where additional support may be needed
• Inform locally developed rubrics or evaluation tools

With this common foundation in place, adoption decisions are more focused, transparent, and grounded in evidence, making it more likely that selected materials will meet the needs of students.

2. Advocate for HQIM

Access to clear, research-based criteria does more than support program evaluation. It strengthens the ability of educators and leaders to advocate for high-quality materials.

When teams have a shared understanding of what quality looks like, they are better positioned to identify gaps, not only in individual programs, but in the broader landscape of available materials. In this way, the criteria function not only as a decision-making tool, but as a lever for improvement.

Published reports strengthen this work by providing concrete examples of how these indicators appear in real programs. Together, the reports and review tools help educators move beyond general impressions and engage in more informed conversations about curriculum quality, both within their own systems and across the broader field.

Educators can use the criteria as both a learning tool and as language and evidence to engage in conversations with district leaders, state agencies, and publishers (more on publisher engagement below). EdReports criteria help ensure that decisions are grounded in what matters most for children’s learning and development. And over time, they contribute to a stronger, more coherent market for pre-K instructional materials.

3. Engage Publishers Beyond Marketing Claims

One of the most immediate benefits of using EdReports pre-K tools and reports is how this changes the nature of conversations about curriculum. When available, published reports can help teams identify specific strengths and gaps in reviewed programs, while the review criteria and evidence guide provide additional detail about the underlying indicators and evidence. Together, these resources help educators engage publishers beyond marketing claims and toward concrete questions about instructional design.

For example, instead of asking whether a program supports learning across domains, teams can examine how that support is structured. They can look for evidence of a clear and developmentally appropriate scope and sequence, and consider whether learning builds intentionally over time.

Rather than asking generally about differentiation, educators can investigate how materials are designed to meet the needs of diverse learners. Are supports embedded within lessons and routines, or offered only as optional strategies? Do materials include built-in adaptations for multilingual learners and children with disabilities?

Similarly, conversations about what is included in a curriculum can move beyond surface-level descriptions. Teams can ask what constitutes the core program, what requires additional purchase, and whether key components for implementation are included or supplemental.

These kinds of questions shift evaluation from general impressions to specific evidence.

They also send an important signal to publishers. When educators consistently engage with materials in this way, they help raise expectations across the field, encouraging the development of programs that are more transparent, more coherent, and more responsive to the needs of young learners.

Don’t Wait to Begin

As EdReports continues to expand its pre-K reviews, more programs will be evaluated, and more information will become available to support decision-making. But the absence of a review should not be a barrier to action.

Educators and leaders already have access to a powerful set of tools. The criteria provide a clear, research-based framework for understanding quality. They support shared understanding, structured evaluation, and more meaningful engagement with materials.

They allow teams to move forward with confidence even in the absence of a formal report.

Ultimately, the goal is not simply to select a curriculum. It is to ensure that young children experience instruction that is intentional, coherent, and responsive to their development. That work does not depend on a single report. It depends on the decisions educators and leaders make every day and the tools they use to make them well.