Early childhood education is about so much more than just academics.
Early learning fosters social development, emotional well-being, and academic growth. At this age, children are learning foundational skills that they’ll carry with them throughout their entire lives. This makes choosing a preschool a big decision. The right early childhood education center will focus on your child’s development across many areas, with qualified educators and excellent on-site facilities.
So, what makes early childhood education so vital?
Early Childhood Education As A Foundation For Growth
The early years mark a period of tremendous growth. While your child grows physically, their brains never take in more information than during this period. Preschoolers are learning how to walk, run, and play sports; they’re learning to use fine motor skills for early writing and feeding themselves. On top of this, they’re starting to soak in the world around them and ask questions about how it works. As a parent, you may be plagued by a single-word question: “Why?”
In this stage of “why”, children are setting the foundations for the rest of their academic career and the rest of their lives. Why is the sky blue? Why are we eating vegetables? Why do we need to share toys? We take some of these for granted– we share because it’s polite, and we eat vegetables because it’s healthy. But the stage must be set for early learning, picking up healthy habits, and preparing ourselves to develop emotionally and academically.
Early childhood education is often a child’s first experience in a group or classroom environment. They’ll have to get along with children that they may nof be friends with outside of a classroom, and they’ll have to learn appropriate classroom behavior like rule following and respect. Socialization, confidence, and resilience are essential components of an early learning classroom and are linked to improved emotional well-being in later years.
Linking Early Education And Lifelong Learning
The skills learned in early education are directly linked to learning outcomes and personal development in later years. We see early childhood education as a foundation on which children can grow their interests, emotional well-being, and physical and academic achievements. They learn how to work with others, how to deal with failure, and apply themselves academically and physically.
Language And Literacy
Language makes us human. Communication is how we make ourselves understood, and for preschoolers, this is a new development in their lives. In learning core language skills, they’re learning how to express themselves and their feelings. This means that they can tell you if they’ve had a bad day, but most importantly, they can tell you why.
Early literacy skills like reading and writing also make further education simpler. Ifreading is easier, they can focus more on the texts they’re learning about or the stories they’re reading.
Working With Others
Young children experience a lot of support and attention, which by the early years makes them very self-centered. This isn’t a bad thing– empathy and understanding others’ emotions naturally come after they learn their own. Socialization in an early learning environment helps teach children that others have feelings, too. We share toys to be kind, we speak nicely because we don’t want to hurt feelings, and we work together to help each other. Through socialization, children learn essential skills to center their own emotions and take into consideration the emotions of others.
Confidence And Self-Esteem
Even adults struggle with confidence. However, confidence and a good sense of self-esteem are extremely beneficial in the early childhood education period. Confidence and resilience are what prompt a child to attempt tasks, repeat tasks, and try again when they fail. Confidence can be both internally and externally supported.
Confidence from within concerns how intrinsically motivated a child is to try something new or present to the class. Externally motivated confidence can come from friends and classmates, as seeing and supporting their peers in completing an activity can boost their perception of their abilities.
Physical Development
Young children make leaps and bounds in early physical development– literally! At this age, they’re learning what their bodies can do, how fast they can run, and how long they can balance on one leg.
Early childhood education encompasses both gross and fine motor skills, and good childcare facilities will foster a love for physical education and sports. Fine motor skills, learned through early writing tasks and arts and crafts, help ease the transition into writing for academics from kindergarten. With more essential skills from preschool, your child will have an easier transition into kindergarten.
Academic Development
High-quality early childhood education sets the tone for academic success. Through a combination of all of these skills, especially teamwork, confidence, and resilience, you’re setting your child up to make it through their school years with a focus on working hard, doing their best, and learning from their mistakes.
Success in early literacy and mathematics also makes it easier for them to transition into a more focused classroom environment. The preschool curriculum covers all necessary academic requirements while also leaving time for learning through play, experiencing nature, and playing outdoors.
Emotional Well-Being
Emotional well-being is multifaceted, and it stems from the development in all of the above areas of development. The confidence to try, and fail, and try again is wonderfully beneficial to those of all ages, but especially to preschoolers. This confidence and resilience follow them through middle and high school, teaching them to reach for the stars but consider their mental health at the same time. By taking care of their emotional well-being, they will be better prepared to make lifelong friendships and work well in teams.
Early Childhood Education In Parkland
Here at Parkland Children’s Academy, we know how important early childhood education is. We know it’s about so much more than academics, but also that a solid academic foundation sets children up for success in their later school years. Contact us at (954) 688-5877 to see how we’re committed to providing excellence in early education.