Preschool Education in The United States Essays

The article by Erika Christakis, informs future teachers and parents how preschool today may not be benefiting their children as much as they thought. She talks about how preschool has changed drastically over the years as well as kindergarten. She states that “kindergarten may be the new first grade”. Her statement shows how children today are expected more then they were years ago in all grades, especially preschool and at such a young age. Many think this is helping our children or will benefit them in the future if they know more as a child but this may not be the case. The article talks about multiple studies done throughout America to children are learning and how school curriculum changing affects children. A studied showed that children

Did you know that if your child doesn't go to preschool your child is 25 percent more likely to drop out of school, 40 percent more likely to become a teen parent, and 70 percent more likely to be arrested for a violent crime? My aunt did not go to preschool therefore, she had to be held back in kindergarten twice because it was her first time being in a school environment, and so she didn’t know how to act or how to pay attention at the age 5, that’s just insane. She also became a teen parent, causing her to drop out of school at the age 17 so that she had to take care of her baby. All children should be required to go to preschool because it helps with brain development, child behavior development, and it can be cheaper (Five Surprising Facts

In the book Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited, the authors, Joseph Tobin, Yeh Hsueh, and Mayumi Karasawa, look into preschools in three cultures: China, Japan, and the United States. Prior to writing this books, the authors did research on one preschool in each of the countries to see what the learning styles were and how they compared to one another. Then they went back some twenty years later to see if there were any changes in the preschools. The changes, or lack thereof, brought about the book Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited.

     Preschool is something very important for toddlers. Preschools were established in Europe around the late 1800’s. They were later introduced to the United States in the 1920’s. According to the Encyclopedia of careers and vocational guidance 9th edition “preschools expanded rapidly in the united states during the 1960’s”.

The National Preschool Curriculum states that ‘the preschool curriculum promotes the holistic intellectual, languages, social, art and creativity, psychomotor, cognitive and spiritual development of the children’ (Ministry of Education, 2003, p.5,re trieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/22301974/Malaysian-Preschool-Education )

My philosophy of Early childhood education is based on research that indicates that a child’s growth is developmental. Every child is unique in terms of life experiences, developmental readiness, and cultural heritage. A high quality early childhood program that provides a safe and nurturing environment, which promotes physical, social, emotional, language and cognitive development will ensure a positive continuation of the child’s education process

To start off, many students aren’t ready yet for the basis of kindergarten as they never finished, or even attended preschool. Attending a preschool gives children an early advantage, and stimulates an early mind. When a child starts their educational journey at the age of three, they get a two year “Head Start,” for themselves, compared to kids who have not attended preschool. This early advantage is a physical and significant benefit for them as it helps strengthen the child from early on. According to greatschools.org, “To sustain children’s excitement and motivation for learning, high-quality preschool and child care programs introduce early literacy and math skills

The Abbott Preschool Program is administered through New Jersey’s Department of Education and the Department of Human Services. It was designed to provide all of New Jersey’s children an opportunity to succeed. The Abbott Preschool Program Longitudinal Effect Study (APPLES), published in 2013, investigated the impact of the Abbott program on children’s learning through the end of kindergarten. The findings of this study demonstrated that children who attend the Abbott Preschool Program, whether in public schools, private settings or Head Start, improve in language, literacy, and math at least through the end of their kindergarten year.

Early childhood education has many benefits and there is the potential for many significant outcomes if universal preschools were put into place. Some feel that children who start kindergarten without previously attended preschool sometimes lack certain skills such as social and communication skills and an inability to follow routines. There were also studies done that found attending preschool could help to close the achievement gap in the grade school years. A child’s first few years of life are most important, and they absorb the most during those years. By providing universal preschool, all children would be benefiting, especially those who are in at-risk families or part of the lower class. As a society, we have a responsibility to help the children in our communities and provide them with the education they need in order to help them succeed in life.

As many parents know, the amount of preschool tuition is outrageous in prices. In fact, many parents strongly believe, that preschool tuition payments are one of the few most unexpected astonishing expenses of having children. On behalf of all parents, many of us have no other choice but to pay the tuition fee weekly or monthly in full, but is that cost really necessary? What other choices are out there for my child? Is preschool itself really all that important for my child at such a young age? Is my child getting the proper care and learning curriculum that she/he needs, for the amount I am paying?

Children should not be required to go to preschool because they do not learn anything they will not learn later. They also will not remember learning anything from preschool, and they need as much time as they can get at home, learning from their parents. In preschool, children learn the colors and how to speak some words, but not an expanded vocabulary, so they should just wait until k-12 to learn these things. This means that since they will just relearn it, they should not go away to preschool. In preschool, children don’t pay attention too often, and their brains are not yet developed for memory, so they should just not go, because it would waste their time learning from books instead of experience, and the teachers time by having to teach

My older daughter started preschool when she was two years old. It was a memorable day because she had a hard time being separated from me. She was crying when I left her at school. She was a little bit shy and feared playing with other children. I also had a hard time, and I felt very bad too because she had never separated from me since she was born. I started to think about whether it was necessary to put her in the preschool, and was the preschool suitable for her? I thought she might be happier if she stayed home with me until she was old enough. I had been confusing for quite a long time. Two years after her first day of preschool, now I have the answer. Now she is four years old and is not crying anymore and makes lots of friends at school. She always tells me that she loves to go to school, and school is her favorite place because she has lots of fun with her friends. Obviously, she grows a lot in school. Unfortunately, there are still a number of children who do not go to preschool because of various reasons; for example, some parents believe that preschool is not necessary for their children, and home is much better than preschool. Furthermore, some people complain that public preschools provide poor quality for children, and the private preschools are so expensive and not affordable. Preschool truly matters for young children. Going to preschool is good for children because it helps with brain development, learning, and it assists low-

There are many advantages on going to preschool and helps children develop many things. Preschool encourages better language skills and cognitive development. It also builds opportunities for early social development. Going to preschool helps children be more prepared for entry into kindergarten. This is built through educational curriculum that involves reading, writing, and numerical skills. Preschool encourages children’s creativity through music, art projects, movement activity, and telling stories. Full day programs did better than part-day programs which did decent. Children interact more with peers at a younger age. Children’s are better prepared when it comes to entering kindergarten because they have already developed social interaction

It is a clear and worthy investment. The question lies in which preschool program is the most effective. Previous reviews of programs have focused on if they contributed to later success, but a few of them compared the programs on their effectiveness. A number of programs showed positive results continuing to the end of kindergarten and beyond, signifying that the preschool involvement had impacts aside from early exposure to academic content. (Johns Hopkins University, 37). Also, several programs had effects on oral language skills, which are emphasized in most preschools.

All children have an opportunity to start learning ahead of the kindergarten curriculum. Preschool is a fantastic tool to use on all of the children. Preschool helps children learn all of the basic tools they will need to better grasp later schooling. The cost for preschool does differ from region to region. However there are cost effective ways to help support the children’s educational growth. The differences between day care and preschool are very different in many aspects.