School is beginning earlier and lasting longer, as more adults choose to go back to college to make a career transition. This phenomenon has become more popular over the last decade; but what about the importance of early childhood education?
Curious parents may be wondering if a full day preschool can have a long-term effect on the future of their child’s education.

What is the best preschool?

Few people can resist the sticky dimpled hands and chubby cheeks of very small children. Pushing such little people into an academic environment may seem unnecessary, but even a full day preschool schedule is carefully conscientious of their tiny charges’s needs. Key developmental indicators, or KDIs, are used by some preschools to monitor the children’s emotional and social development. School has long been viewed as a way of teaching children how to essentially ‘play nice’ with others, which obviously includes understanding both their own and others emotional vicissitudes.

Just who is in preschool?

Childcare centers, along with preschools –also called pre-kindergarten when the curriculum is more academically focused– are attended by an estimated two-thirds of four year olds in the U.S. At times, full day preschool programs are seen as being utilized by working-parents more so than other family arrangements. However, there research pointing to another advantage besides the immediacy of good childcare.

How does it help early education and development?

A child does not need to attend a full day preschool program to experience the following benefits, of course, but the following results have been observed by researchers. In one ongoing federal study of over 1,300 children, it was found that the children who had attended a preschool for some time had improved memory and language skills over those children who had not attended any preschool at all.

Preschool curriculum teaches children fine motor skills, shapes, numbers, letters, and how to behave in a classroom setting. These are all things kindergarteners are expected to master fairly quickly. It makes perfect sense that the children who are already used to these activities will shine when asked to do them again in the ‘big-kid’ classroom.