In this white paper, we examine how children’s skills in the fall of their early childhood education (ECE) year and gains in these skills across the year predict their performance on kindergarten and Grade 3 measures of literacy and reading achievement. Relying on data from over 700 children across the state of Ohio, we find that while children’s initial levels of code-focused and language skills predicted their kindergarten literacy skills, only gains in their code-focused skills predicted this outcome. We also find that while initial levels of code-focused and language skills predicted Grade 3 reading achievement, gains in these skills were not predictive. Taken together, these findings suggest that children’s skills and skill development during early childhood education shape their later reading performance but that their influence is stronger in kindergarten than in Grade 3. (author abstract)