Preschool is a crucial time for a child’s schooling career. It lays the foundation for kindergarten, and so on. Research shows that three and four-year-old children who attend high-quality preschool programs are more successful in school later on. You should be on the lookout for what a high-quality preschool program looks like, but first, you have to know what to look for! That’s why Heritage Learning Center is here to tell you what a good Mckinney preschool program is made up of so you know what to look for in the environment. You can also formulate questions to ask the program leaders when you visit based on what you read.
What’s Important for the Children?
Quality Care
The children need to be respected, nurtured, and challenged. You should see strong relationships between the children and their teachers. Ignoring, isolating, or making a child wait too long for things or to talk to you is not a good quality in a preschool program. The teachers should be attentive and ready to listen to or help the students. The children should be excited to go to school.
Multiple Learning Opportunities
The students should also have multiple opportunities to learn new things and practice new skills. When you look around the room, you want to see individual and team activities, experiments, and reading or building activities. The kids shouldn’t be wandering or forced to sit and listen for long periods of time. You want your child to learn in every way possible!
Basic School Skills
Basic school readiness skills should be a core part of the environment, as well. This means that kids should be learning and practicing things such as their alphabet, phonics, vocabulary, numbers, shapes, measurements, early scientific thinking, and the world and how it works.
What’s Important for the Families?
Family Inclusion
Families should be partners in every aspect of the education program. Not only should the family be helping the child learn at home, but the teacher should be communicating with them as well. Meeting a teacher that is open about communication and wants to keep you in the loop about how your child is learning is a vital aspect of a good preschool program.
Respect for the family
You also want to make sure that the preschool will respect you as a family. This means that they are willing to listen to what you value and believe as a family or culture and are open to following those values and beliefs even in the classroom. Consulting you about how they can evolve the program to respect your wishes for your child is an even better indication of a high-quality program.
There are so many programs out there for preschool-age children. Most of them are not up to par in a way that will set your child up for success. Be on the lookout for things like these listed to ensure your child attends a high-quality early education program. If you are looking for a preschool, call the award-winning Heritage Learning Center today. And be sure to read our other blogs for more information on McKinney preschool programs or activities.