This quantitative study aimed to determine the growth of students who did and did not attend a state-funded pre-kindergarten program based on Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) reading achievement. The study occurred in a rural school district in the southeastern United States. The sample population consisted of one treatment group (n = 97) and one control group (n = 94). Student growth scores were calculated using the reading MAP Rasch UnIT and percentile scores from the fall of the kindergarten school year of 2022 through the fall of the first grade of the 2023 school year. Independent sample t-tests were used to test the hypothesis. It was shown there was no statistically significant difference between the students who were enrolled in a pre-kindergarten program as compared to non-enrollees. However, the students who were enrolled in state-funded pre-kindergarten programs scored slightly higher than the non-enrollees based on the reading MAP assessment. The effect size for each term was around 0.2, which is considered small. The present study contributes to the body of literature by determining state-funded pre-kindergarten programs' effects on students' reading achievement after pre-kindergarten. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]