Mount Pleasant Kindergarten is seeing results from its play-based approach to learning and extra efforts to help families continue their child's learning in the home.

Australian Early Development Census data showed almost 31 per cent of children in Golden Point and Mount Pleasant were developmentally vulnerable in one or more domain when starting school in 2012.

This dropped to 21.9 per cent in 2018, showing Eureka Community Kindergarten Association's (ECKA) focus on providing extra resources to Mount Pleasant Kindergarten has created positive results.

The kinder has had extra staff, smaller group sizes and more highly qualified staff for the past four years.

ECKA chief executive Jo Geurts said this allowed staff to spend more time forming relationships with parents and creating learning plans for children.

Mount Pleasant Kindergarten teacher Erin Mata said another initiative which had improved education outcomes were games nights, bringing the whole family into the kindergarten for learning through play.

The games nights are held twice a year, one focusing on literacy and the other on numeracy, with pizza on offer and showbags with educational games for families to take home.

"We are trying to build the capacity and the understanding of parents in how they can support their children at home in building the foundations they need to be ready to read, write and do maths," Ms Geurts said.

"Not all children will leave here being able to write their names or be able to do the whole alphabet but what they are learning are the basic things like how to hold a book, which way to turn the page and how the text goes from left to right."

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Ms Mata said activities children did at kindergarten to learn through play could be incorporated into the home.

"When you look at their reading capacity or their writing skills, you want them to be able to draw scribbles because that is the foundation of them learning to read and write," she said.

"We introduce a lot of those things and we might do it through playdough or sand or even water play. Lots of those things can be incorporated in the home.

"We want to build the capacity of the family as well as the child so they are getting it here in kinder and then they can extend on it at home."

Mount Pleasant Kindergarten uses an online platform as a communication tool with parents to post activity ideas for home learning and links to learning resources on sites like YouTube.

Ms Mata said the games nights, which brought the whole family into the kindergarten including grandparents, aunties and uncles, also helped build confidence.

"Sometimes it does feel overwhelming as a parent or you feel like you are not making the right choices," she said.

"When families come in they realise they do these things at home and it empowers them to keep going."

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Research shows 90 per cent of a child's brain develops by age five and there is a direct link between kindergarten and literacy and numeracy results.

Victoria missed its 96 per cent target for kindergarten attendance last year with, COVID-19 lockdowns leading to lower attendance rates.

Census data shows the number of children attending kindergarten in the year before school has declined every year since 2016 from 92.4 per cent to 85 per cent.

Ms Mata said the coronavirus pandemic did not affect attendance rates too much at Mount Pleasant Kindergarten.

She said the children who did stay home were those who had multiple school-aged siblings who had to do schooling at home, as it was difficult for parents to put all children in the car to drop one child at kinder.

The Victorian Government will fund five hours of kindergarten for all three-year-olds next year.

Ms Geurts said three-year-old kindergarten enrollment numbers were currently low because parents had to pay for the service, meaning low-income families were missing out.

"With three and four-year-old kindergarten both being funded next year we are hoping to see as many children as possible take up that extra year," she said.

"Next year it will be five hours for three-year-olds and remain 15 hours for four-year-olds. It is going to be amazing all children can access that."

Ms Geurts said a playgroup was also operated out of Mount Pleasant Kindergarten.

It had to be put on hold during the coronavirus pandemic, but she hoped it would be able to resume next term.

"That gets parents and children comfortable in a kindergarten space," she said.

"We want to make people really understand the importance of early learning."

Ms Mata said watching the children grow and develop throughout the kindergarten year was rewarding.

"We notice such a change from the start of the year to the end of the year," she said.

"Their growth is huge but also they are willing to learn and are wanting to be challenges and shown new things. It makes it really rewarding."

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