In early childhood education, we talk a lot about building foundations. About preparing children for school. About closing gaps.
But 2025 reminded us of something simpler and more profound: Every interaction between an adult and a child is an act of hope.
Hope that all children will feel seen. That they’ll develop the language skills to express their needs. That they’ll enter kindergarten ready to learn. And that they’ll grow into their full potential.
LENA is grateful to have played our part in tackling the challenges the early childhood field continues to face in 2025. What we’ve learned and what we’ve shown is that when we give early educators the right tools, everything shifts. When we measure what matters — quality interactions — rather than just compliance, change happens fast.
So here’s to all the amazing milestones we’ve witnessed and been a part of in 2025 and the people who’ve helped us reach and help more children and early childhood educators.
Early Literacy and the Nation’s Report Card
Reading scores across America hit historic lows in 2024, according to the Nation’s Report Card. Children struggle with basic literacy skills. Teachers feel the pressure to fix problems that started long before elementary school. And early childhood programs face a challenge and an opportunity: to lay the foundation for learning to read when too few people understand how early it starts.
LENA doubled down on this message. “The Importance of Early Literacy in Early Childhood Programs” talks about this very issue and how early childhood programs can better support positive long-term literacy outcomes by teaching early literacy skills from birth.
Because we knew from talking with many early childhood professionals that educators are hungry for practical approaches to early literacy, we hosted a webinar around it. “Early Literacy Is an Open Book” was the most highly registered for webinar in LENA’s history.
The webinar tackles questions many educators and caregivers ask: What exactly is early literacy? Why does it matter so much? How can we support these skills every day with young children?
Whether you work with infants, toddlers, or preschoolers, understanding early literacy helps you make the most of daily interactions with children.
Not into watching replays of webinars? That’s ok! You can find the recap here.
States Make Unprecedented Investments in Interaction
The field’s hunger for solutions doesn’t go unnoticed. Not just early literacy solutions. States are seeing that adult-child interactions impact so many areas of child development.
States made huge, even multimillion-dollar, commitments this year that put conversational turns and empowering professional development at the center of quality improvement.
Arkansas Goes Big on Research
Excel by Eight, the University of Arkansas, and the Walton Family Foundation committed $1.9 million over 2.5 years to bring LENA Grow to 400 early childhood classrooms throughout Arkansas.
The partnership includes one of the largest randomized controlled trials in the early childhood field. In all, 230 classrooms will participate in the study examining how LENA Grow impacts CLASS scores across both rural and urban schools.
The goal? To show that LENA Grow can lead to 50% gains in language interactions for children who start with the fewest language skills.
Katherine Robinson from the Walton Family Foundation sums it up: “Every child deserves access to opportunity.”
New Mexico Makes History
New Mexico, the first state in the U.S. to provide free universal child care, raised the stakes even higher.
LENA’s largest state-level partnership to date, valued at up to $2.73 million, will launch LENA Grow in 100 New Mexico classrooms Spring 2026, with continued expansion over the following 2 years. Thanks to the state’s investment, participating early childhood education centers will enjoy the program at no cost.
Elizabeth Groginsky, Early Childhood Education & Care Department Cabinet Secretary, is clear about the commitment: “New Mexico is committed to giving every child the strongest possible start.”
Indiana Keeps Building
While Arkansas and New Mexico made headlines with new and growing partnerships, Indiana recently celebrated reaching over 1200 children with LENA Grow! With funding from Lilly Endowment Inc., Early Learning Indiana keeps expanding LENA Grow statewide.
The partnership celebrated progress with a webinar sharing results and lessons learned from bringing interaction-focused professional development to scale.
Early Childhood Legislative Breakthroughs in Florida
In Florida, legislature approved $975,000 in state appropriations this year. This means that 27 out of 30 Early Learning Coalitions will be implementing LENA Grow in 2026, reaching 4,000+ children across 400 classrooms. Children’s Forum coordinated the statewide rollout, and for that, we are grateful! Florida demonstrates what happens when years of local success — LENA Grow operating there since 2017 — catches legislative attention.
What the Investments Signal
Different states. Different political landscapes. Different funding mechanisms. But the same conclusion.
Quality in early childhood education isn’t just about physical environments or curriculum choices or teacher credentials. Those matter. But they’re not enough.
States are redefining quality through back-and-forth interactions between teachers and children throughout their day. They’re making a statement about what really moves the needle for children.
When Early Childhood Quality Frameworks Align
For even more early childhood programs to improve child outcomes, they need continued proof that their investments do or will work.
In November, LENA and Teachstone co-hosted a webinar called “Collaborating on Quality: Improving CLASS Scores and Child Outcomes”. Together, we demonstrated how LENA Grow plays well with observation tools like CLASS.
CLASS has been measuring teacher-child interaction quality for years. Our panel brought expertise from across the field to explore what happens when complementary tools work together instead of in isolation.
Veronica Fernandez from Teachstone explains it simply: “Development happens through co-construction. Children learn more when they’re actively participating with someone who is genuinely interested in what they think and what they’re trying to do.”
With this type of collaboration, quality becomes both measurable and improvable.
The data is there. The partnerships are forming. States are investing.
But programs still hit the same obstacle.
Moving from “We Can’t Afford This” to “We Can’t Afford Not To”
“How do we pay for it?”
Program directors believe the data. They see the CLASS improvements. They even see TS GOLD scores improve and teacher confidence go up. They want LENA Grow in their classrooms. But the reality is, budgets are tight. Funding is uncertain. Professional development competes with payroll, facility costs, and everything else that keeps programs running.
The question isn’t new. Programs have been asking it for years.
This is why LENA created “Your Quick Start Guide to Philanthropic Funding”, a complement to its comprehensive funding guide with plug-and-play language for grant applications. No more starting from scratch. No more wondering which funding streams work or how to justify the investment. Programs get ready-made text they can adapt for private philanthropy and public grants alike.
It’s also why LENA’s Chief Impact Officer, Katharine Correll, hosted a practical, actionable webinar called “Funding Your LENA Grow Program.” She walks early childhood leaders through finding funding opportunities, creating an effective logic model, and fine-tuning their narrative.
The data-driven applications work because they answer funders’ core questions. Which professional development actually moves the needle? Which initiatives improve quality and support teacher retention? Which approaches come backed by evidence?
And then conversations change from “we can’t afford this” to “we can’t afford not to do this.”
When programs calculate the cost of teacher turnover — recruitment, training, lost continuity for children — investing in teacher satisfaction suddenly makes financial sense. When they look at CLASS scores tied to quality ratings and reimbursement rates, professional development that boosts those scores becomes essential rather than optional.
The funding barrier doesn’t disappear. But it stops being the sole reason programs say no.
Which matters because teacher retention is where the real crisis lives.
What Keeps Early Childhood Teachers in The Field
Teachers stay when they see proof their work matters.
Annual turnover in early childhood education has reached 30% — even in well-resourced programs where teachers have strong support systems. And the average teacher stays just over two years before leaving.
In part because they can’t see their impact.
LENA Grow changes all that.
Teachers get objective data showing their influence. Increased interactions with children. Hour-by-hour feedback on which moments generate the most conversation. Individual child data revealing exactly who’s getting how much language exposure when.
The program highlights strengths first. What’s already working gets celebrated before addressing opportunities for growth.
Results speak clearly. Teachers respond positively: 96% recommend the program to colleagues and 92% report increased job satisfaction. Programs implementing LENA Grow see twice the retention rates of comparable programs.
Our webinar from mid-year, “The Right Way To Invest in Early Childhood Educators,” showed that when teachers have concrete evidence, they’re changing children’s lives. And burnout loses its grip. When data proves their professional prowess, they find renewed purpose.
The funding makes sense. Quality frameworks align. State investments follow evidence. And when teachers stay, everyone benefits.
That’s a Wrap on 2025
None of this happens without you.
The Child Care Resource & Referral services who champion quality improvement. The Early Learning Coalitions fighting for children across Florida. The Head Start programs proving what’s possible. The school districts bringing innovation into pre-K. The family child care providers doing essential work in their homes. The state agencies making policy changes based on data, not assumptions.
The researchers who keep digging deeper. The funders who believe in this work. The partners like Teachstone and Teaching Strategies that show how working together multiplies impact.
And most importantly: The educators who show up every single day for children — even when they’re exhausted, underpaid, and underappreciated.
You’re the reason 2025 mattered.
That’s not a small thing. That’s everything.
So, to everyone who made 2025 a year of meaningful conversations: Thank you. The children in your lives are better for it. And so is the world.
Here’s to 2026 — and to all the brain-building conversations still to come.
