A study examined the hypothesis that there would be no significant difference in first-grade reading achievement, in the first half of the school year, between children who attended kindergarten at an academic/formal type public school and children who attended kindergarten in an intellectual/experimental type private school. Subjects of the study were 29 first-grade students in an Irvington, New Jersey, public elementary school: group A had attended public kindergarten and group B had attended private kindergarten. A survey was completed by their first-grade teachers to compare reading readiness skills achieved by students. Results of the survey revealed that the majority of students in group A had mastered the reading readiness skills and group B students had mastered 5 out of 20 of these skills. Students were given a pretest and a posttest. Findings concluded that, although there was a mean difference, it was not shown to be significant in either test. Related research examined concepts underlying kindergarten education and evaluative testing practices. (Contains 30 references and 6 tables of data. Five appendixes contain additional data and the survey instrument.) (CR)