A recent report by the Child Care and Early Education Policy and Research Analysis provides a comprehensive review on the expansive short and long-term impacts of high-quality early childhood education and care for young children.
High-quality early childhood education can be defined as the enrichment beyond the minimal health and safety requirements, which is more likely to benefit children’s cognitive and social emotional skills.
According to the report, the majority of children from birth to age 5 in the United States regularly attend early childhood education (ECE) programs and notes specifically that children from families with low incomes have a larger-than-average benefit from these programs
Academic skills and self-regulations are key foundations that children obtain in a high-quality ECE program. The implementation of researched based curriculum and best practices through the hands of a quality trained early childhood educator enriches their environments, plays a crucial role in healthy brain development, and increases benefits in reading and math scores as the child reaches third grade.
Many studies report that high-quality ECE positively affects child development into kindergarten. Findings on the effects later in life are mixed, and may reflect the program, policy, and/or sociocultural contexts where the studies took place and the ways these contexts affected the participating children and families.
4C for Children’s Quality Programs Department offers a variety of in-person and virtual professional development to meet the needs of early childhood professionals. The 4C coaches develop individualized coaching to deliver the following outcomes:
- Introducing curriculum to benefit a child’s language, literacy and other aspects of learning.
- Building relationships between educators, children and families.
- Personal development: setting goals for the educator and children in their care.
A child’s brain develops rapidly between the ages of birth to 5. Children benefit tremendously in a high-quality ECE program with a nurturing, safe and enriching environment, and later enter kindergarten with lifelong skills. Additionally, the parents with children in these programs are able to participate in the workforce by securing the necessary care, which immediately impacts the economic stability of the family.
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