A history of poverty and low academic achievement in four urban schools pointed to the need to implement an early intervention focused on oral language and emergent literacy. The Kindergarten Early Literacy Tutoring (KELT) Program was designed to target senior (5 year old) kindergarten students most at-risk. The intervention consisted of an extra half-day of instruction 5 days a week in addition to the Ministry-mandated half-day kindergarten program. The evaluation of the KELT program compared the achievement of students in the program to a comparison group on a battery of oral language and emergent literacy skills. Results showed that students in the KELT program out-performed the comparison group on most of the assessments, thereby closing the academic gap. Based on the evaluation of the program, the school district has expanded the program to serve four other schools. (Contains 6 tables and 3 figures.)