SEATTLE - The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $2 million over two years to five Washington school districts to help them work with preschools to better prepare kids for kindergarten.

AP File photo

Bill and Melinda Gates, June 26, 2006.

The foundation says only half of kids enter kindergarten ready to succeed in school. The gap is wider in the lowest-income classrooms. The foundation believes high quality preschool programs can help close that gap and insure children succeed in school.

The school districts benefiting from the grants are Anacortes, Nooksack, Olympia, Sedro Woolley and South Bend. They will be expanding the work they are already doing in the area of preschool-elementary school academic alignment.

The Gates Foundation also is involved in demonstration projects for high quality preschool in East Yakima and the White Center neighborhood south of Seattle.