Five Reasons All Children Should Have Access to Quality Preschools

Recently, President Obama proposed an initiative to expand access to quality preschools for all children.  Decades of research has shown that access to quality preschools can have a lasting impact on a child’s future.   One in three children will enter kindergarten unprepared.  Children who live in poverty often enter kindergarten one to three years behind in language and other kindergarten readiness skills.   If you ask any kindergarten teacher, they will tell you that many children enter kindergarten unable to identify letters or write their name.  This is especially true for children who live in poverty.  

In the United States, 76% of children aged three to four receive education and or care from someone other than a parent.  58% of these children attend a center-based program defined as preschool, childcare, or Head Start.  Unfortunately, not all of these preschools are considered high quality.  Not only is it important that these children attend preschool, but it is important that these environments offer high quality instruction and learning environments.  Ensuring that all children have access to high quality preschool not only benefits the child but it benefits schools and the communities these children reside in.

        Children gain the phonological skills necessary to become good readers.

Phonological awareness is a skill that is necessary for children to read and write.  Phonological awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate the sounds of the English language.  Children at risk for reading difficulty often have lower levels of phonological awareness skills. Children who do not attend preschool often enter school without the phonological skills necessary to begin literacy instruction. Quality preschools prepare children to become readers by building their knowledge and understanding of the alphabetic principle, which is necessary to acquire phonological skills. Children who attend quality preschools participate in activities that teach them to identify, name and write letters. Children's reading development is dependent on their understanding of the alphabetic principle. Children who cannot identify letters will have difficulty learning letter sounds and recognizing words.  Children who cannot identify letter sounds will have difficulty learning to read and write.

   

         Preschool education programs produce long-term benefits for children.

According to the National Institute for Early Education Research, children who attend quality preschools are more likely to score higher on achievement test, graduate from high school as well as go on to attend college.  Children who attend preschool have lower rates of retention and referrals for special education services.  There has been evidence that links quality preschool programs with reduced delinquency and crime in childhood and adulthood.  Children of all socioeconomic backgrounds especially those who are economically disadvantaged benefit from quality preschool programs.

  

        Preschool education programs can allow school districts to save money.

Special education services account for a large portion of a school district’s budgets.  In a report issued by the Center for Special Education Funding, in 1999 schools in the United States spent $78 billion dollars on special education services.  Current research shows that on average schools spend an additional $10,000 dollars per student for special education related services.  Studies suggest that children who attend preschool are less likely to be referred for special education services.  In a time where many schools face shrinking funding, quality preschool can save school districts money by reducing the number of students requiring special education services.

       Preschools prepare children to enter school.

On average 40 percent of children, enter kindergarten one to three grade levels behind.  Children who enter school behind their peers will more than likely never catch up with their peers unless they receive intense intervention services. The implementation of the Common Core standards has raised the expectations for kindergartners. In order for children to be ready to learn these new rigorous standards they must enter school prepared to learn. Quality preschool programs ensure that children will enter kindergarten with the skill necessary to achieve.

      Preschool helps to build cognitive, language and social skills. 

Early Childhood education data compiled by the Rauch Foundation found that 85 percent of the brain is developed by the time a child is five years old.  Quality preschools have been linked to the development of cognitive, language and social skills.  Research has shown that economically disadvantaged students who attend quality preschools have higher IQ’s than those who did not attend preschool. Quality preschools help students to develop oral language skills.  As children grow, they use their environment to build their oral language vocabulary.  A child’s vocabulary is learned through exposure to language. By age three, children have acquired an oral language vocabulary of about 1,000 words.  By age five or six, students may have 5,000 or more words in their oral language vocabulary. The major influence on the size of a child’s vocabulary is the quantity and quality of the exposure they have had with oral language. Quality preschools expose students to learning that will build their oral language skills as well as increase their vocabulary.