What Makes a Great Preschool?

After you determine what a preschool should offer to fit your child and family's particular needs, it's time to learn about preschool quality, or truly Great Preschools. In great preschools, children of all types and abilities learn dramatically more in critical developmental areas than similar children in other preschools. Preschool research tells us what developmental content is essential for all children to be successful in later schooling and life. Decades of research about preschools and other schools where children learn the most tells us what kind of process schools use to ensure high levels of learning of desired content, whether social, emotional, physical or cognitive/academic. A bonus: great preschools are more likely than others to meet both your child's changing fit needs in core developmental areas and to meet the needs of your multiple children.

But if a preschool meets the particular needs of your child and family, is quality truly a big deal? We answer with an analogy familiar to many growing families: cars. Just because a car has the right legroom, seats for your growing brood, and storage you need for those family vacations does not mean that it has the ubiquitously-needed acceleration to merge onto a highway safely and an engine that will last. Fit matters, but so does quality.

Many preschools are mediocre and some are truly awful. Research in the 1990s found that only about one quarter of preschools in the U.S. met basic quality standards. Since then, many preschools have begun scrambling to meet the quality bar, but meanwhile the bar has gone up as we've learned more about what makes a great preschool.

A Great Preschool =

one in which children of all abilities and types learn significantly more and perform betterin core developmental areas than similar students in other preschools.

Core Developmental Areas =

ones that all preschool-age children must develop for later success in education and adult life, including at least cognitive/thinking, social, emotional/behavioral and physical.

What is "High Quality"?

Our definition of a Great Preschool is this: one where children's development is significantly greater cognitively, socially, emotionally/behaviorally and physically compared to similar children in other preschools. Most research focuses on cognitive outcomes. But we include the other core developmental areas as essential because all children ages 2 - 5 have a high need for intensive social, emotional/behavioral and physical development.

Studies have shown that social and emotional/behavioral development at the end of preschool predicts later school performance and adult life success. Similarly, physical habits are best developed very young: fine motor skills are important for showing knowledge in most elementary programs, and early gross motor activity is predictive of long term health. By elementary school, some children are very well-developed in these areas and do not need continued learning of the same intensity. Of course, any habits and skills can be developed later; it's just harder work for the child, teachers and you the parent.

The Seven Great Preschool Quality Factors:

So, what makes a preschool where children develop more and are more successful in life? To explain, we've boiled down the research findings into seven Great Preschool Quality Factors. We describe them each here, and in our preschool selection eBook , we provide short tables with a few, simple questions to ask about each. If you need a short cut, screen schools using The Savvy Source and ask follow-up questions focused on Great Preschool Quality Factors #2, 3 and 4. A preschool pursuing these vigorously will be forced to address other factors over the long haul.

#1: Clear Mission Guiding School Activities means everyone in the preschool understands the preschool's goals and how to implement them every day.

#2: High Expectations for All Students means all children are expected and helped to meet age-appropriate developmental goals essential to long-term success. But age is no ceiling: developmental goals are raised for individual children as soon as they are ready, beyond what is "typical" for same age children. More advanced materials and activities are deployed to advance children's learning, even when it feels like "just playing" to the child.

#3: Monitoring Progress and Adjusting Teaching means teachers assess individual developmental progress often and change teaching approaches and materials to ensure that every child continues to develop.

#4: Focus on Effective Learning Tasks means that the preschool spends significant time on activities proven to induce continued learning and development in critical areas. Critical developmental areas for all children in preschool include at least cognitive (e.g., literacy, number concepts, and thinking skills), social, emotional/behavioral, and physical (including fine motor and large/gross motor). Teachers bond emotionally with children and use those bonds to make the most of learning in all important areas.

#5: Home-School Connection means you know what your child's preschool is doing, how well your child is developing, and how to play your part in your child's development.

#6: Safe and Orderly Environment means children are safe and can focus on learning.

#7: Strong Instructional Leadership means the school leader ensures consistent excellence across classrooms in Great Preschool Quality Factors #1 - 6. If you've already had a child in preschool, you may find yourself saying, "I knew it!" to several of the seven Great Preschool Quality Factors. They each affect real, tangible activities in the classroom that you and your child cherish when they're present and sorely miss when a preschool is lacking.