Orange County’s 2025 Early Development Index (EDI)
Using data to create systems change in Orange County through policy change, targeted intervention, and will building.
Early Development Index Map
Kindergarten readiness is the measurement of skills and knowledge that young children should have to be successful in kindergarten; analyzed across five key domains including physical health & wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language & cognitive development, and communication & general skills.
The domains look at children who are on track (25th-100th percentile), at-risk (10-25th percentile), or not on track (0-10th percentile). The darker shades signify a lower degree of readiness. Use the map below to explore the readiness of young children across the community:
- Set your desired area of focus using the dropdown menus at the top; choose desired EDI domain and year of data
- Hover or click on a specific area for more information, including percentage of “ready for kindergarten” or “not ready for kindergarten” young children
- Click anywhere on the map to exit the specific area you originally selected
- Click the home button on the left side of the map to reset the zoom level
For more information, please contact Cristina Blevins at Cristina.Blevins@first5.oc.gov.
Over a Decade of Data
For the past 15 years, First 5 Orange County has been working with local districts to understand how ready young children are when they start kindergarten. We collect Early Development Index (EDI) data in every Orange County elementary school district and from some charter schools. Time and again, research shows that children who enter kindergarten ready are more likely to achieve key academic milestones, including third grade reading and math proficiency, middle-school achievement, higher grades and test scores in high school, and on-time high school graduation.
What is the Early Development Index?
The EDI is a questionnaire that kindergarten teachers fill out for each child in their class during the second half of the school year. The questionnaire looks at a child’s skills in five key areas (domains) of development and presents a population-level snapshot of where children are most on track (developmental area) or ready (developmental sub-area). The goal is to get a broad snapshot of child development at the community level in the kindergarten year and is not designed to screen, identify, or diagnose individual children.
In 2025, 53.0% of kindergartners were ready for kindergarten. This is an improvement of almost five percentage points from 2015, when 48.2% of the kindergarteners were ready for kindergarten.
How We Use the Data
EDI data helps us understand how groups of children are doing and lets us spot areas where kids might need more support. EDI is used to:
- – We share Early Development Index data in the community along with education on what to do to support early care and development.
- – We use Early Development Index data and other data sources to understand inequities and support advocacy and resident engagement in communities that lack resources.
- – We engage resource providers across sectors in all communities and invite them to join task forces.
We are committed to using this data to address inequalities in children’s health, development, and learning. We are careful to present data in a way that helps, not harms, families, and we work to include the voices of the families we serve as we use the EDI to improve programs and policies.
This important effort is a partnership between First 5 Orange County and the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities.
Snapshot
Snapshot of the 2025 EDI Data Collection in Orange County
The results presented reflect data collected by participating kindergarten teachers.
