School Readiness
High-quality early education supports healthy development and early learning for preschoolers, providing children with a foundation for school readiness and academic success. Early learning experiences outside the home also allow children to build trusting relationships with adults other than their parents, and with other children their own age. The preschool a child attends can have a strong impact on the child’s future academic success. Recent research suggests that children who attend preschool are more likely to do well in school, perform better on tests, and are more likely to continue into higher education. Generally, children who attend high-quality preschool programs:
- Demonstrate greater social skills throughout their school years
- Have higher self-esteem and value achievement, receive higher scores on tests of thinking ability and language, and maintain intellectual gains later on in school
- Excel in reading and math skills, and are better prepared for school
- Demonstrate better classroom behavior
- Are less frequently held back or assigned to special education classes
- Have better school attendance rates and are more likely to graduate from high school and pursue higher learning
