What to Look for in a Preschool
by Naomi Karp, National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education
Every year families are faced with a big decision: where should their young children go to preschool? To decide, families need to be informed consumers.
The most important thing to remember is that a high-quality preschool program has long-term effects on young children's success in school and, perhaps, even later in life. Two key features of a high-quality preschool program are the teachers or caregivers and what is happening in the classroom environment. When evaluating a preschool class for your child, keep these things in mind:
Teachers or caregivers
- Adults who spend their days with young children must be responsive to each child's abilities, needs, language differences and overall development. Perhaps the single most important characteristic of a high-quality preschool is a teacher's relationship with the children in his or her class and the ability to be responsive to each child.
- Teachers have to talk to children--a lot. They should have interesting conversations with one child at a time; with small groups of children; and with the whole group. Make sure the adults are not only talking to other adults.
- A child's spoken vocabulary is one of the best ways to predict how well that child will read. The size of a child's vocabulary depends directly on how many words he or she has heard, beginning in infancy. It is up to teacher to make sure that children hear lots of words and take part in rich conversations every day.
- Teachers should know about child development and how young children learn about the alphabet and number concepts. They also have to know about the children's social and emotional development. For the most part, teachers with early childhood college preparation are well-qualified teachers.
- Because most early childhood educators are not paid very well, they tend not to stay in the professions very long. However, in a high-quality preschool, the average stay of teachers is longer, which fosters a sense of security and stability in the children.
The Environment
- Indoor and outdoor activities should develop all the child's skills. That means, every day, children should be doing things that develop their language, mathematics and problem-solving skills. They also need activities that build their social and emotional development. They should have opportunities for painting or coloring, singing, dancing, jumping, running and climbing. These activities all help build the skills needed to do well in kindergarten and elementary school. The adults should be engaged with and talking to the children.
- There should be lots of children's books and printed materials in the classroom. Teachers should read to the children for at least 30 minutes every day. The children should sit near the teacher, and the teacher should ask the children to predict what will happen next in the story, to find certain objects in a picture, to count objects in pictures, and to do other things that engage the children in conversations about the story. Even if the children are too young to talk, they should be read to every day.
- The room should be decorated with the children's recent artwork. (If it's January, the Halloween pictures should not still be on the walls). The alphabet should be on display where the children can see it. Number lines also should be visible. Children's names should be printed on paper and easily visible. Items in the room should be labeled so that children associate objects and the printed words that represent them.
- The preschool should use a curriculum or a set of educational activities that blend together opportunities for children to experience language, science, mathematics, physical education, art and music experiences every day. The activities should be well planned and help children develop the ideas, concepts and skills needed for kindergarten and elementary school.
- Small classes allow more opportunities for young children to explore the environment, more time for teacher-child interactions, and more time for teachers to devote to individual children's special needs and abilities.