This report describes an attempt to break the socioeconomic educational poverty cycle of rural black children in Williamsburg County, South Carolina. Early childhood education was identified as the area for the greatest concentration of effort. Training and retraining of instructional staff was mandated. Twenty-two kindergarten classes were placed in the eight high priority elementary schools in the 1968-1969 year. Instruction was largely informal, but there were short periods when the emphasis was on language development. From these elementary schools, a sample of kindergarten children and a sample of first grade children were administered the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA) at the end of five months of school. The first grade children in the sample had no kindergarten experience. Kindergarten subjects scored significantly higher on seven of the ten subtests of the ITPA. It is concluded that kindergarten experience and instruction can lay the foundation for continued growth in achievement for rural, disadvantaged children. (Author/MC)