Preschool

High Quality Preschool Programs

Last Updated Nov 20, 2008 10:08 PM

Executive Summary

Research tells us a great deal about the skills and knowledge children need to be successful in school. Among preschoolers, vocabulary, letter knowledge, and phonological awareness, in addition to social and emotional factors, have a significant impact on later success in school. For example, reading scores in the 10th grade can be predicted with surprising accuracy based on a child's knowledge of the alphabet in kindergarten. We must ensure that children are equipped with the basic skills necessary so that they begin school ready to learn.

More than 40 states have initiatives aimed at helping preschool children prepare for kindergarten, because they know that children from poor families enter school behind children from more privileged families in academic skills. Schools often have difficulty as they compensate for this difference. At a time when only 38 percent of children from birth through age five receive care solely from their parents, and the remaining 62 percent of these children receive care through a variety of arrangements, it is important that these settings provide high-quality care to ensure that children begin school ready to learn. States were recently given an additional reason for developing high quality preschool programs with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which holds states accountable for ensuring that all children are proficient in reading and math. Given what we know about the positive effects of high quality preschool programs in conjunction with states being held accountable for student performance, states should have a more prominent role in the delivery of Head Start programs to provide a high quality preschool experience before children enter kindergarten.

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