Yellow Jacket Times - Jefferson County Public Schools

Courtland Haynes
Early childhood education is something that
should be a requirement for every child Every
child should have to go to school at the age of 3.
The earlier the child goes to school the better,
because it gets the children ready to go to real
school.
Children should be in school when they are
able to talk, because it gets their brain working
and gets them prepared for the real world.
www.edutopia.org states, “Nationwide, almost
64% of children attend preschool centers in the year prior to kindergarten, typically at age
four. On any given day, more than five million American youngsters attend some early
childhood education.” That seems like a lot, but you have to realize that www.childstats.gov
says that there are 25.7 million children in the U.S. between the ages of 0-5 years.
While in school, children practice many key components of the school day, including the
importance of routine. That’s key to early learning. They understand carpet time, clean-up
procedures, how to share crayons or even getting their pants off and on without the teacher’s
help. Children that young only have a certain amount of what’s called active working memory.
If a large portion of their brain is figuring out what they’re going to do next, there’s less room
there to spend on learning. Result: Early childhood education has a huge impact on their
ability to keep up in class.
Diane Flynn Keith, founder of Universal Preschool, says, “The only way to prepare
children for standardized testing is to teach a standardized curriculum. Standardized preschool
curriculum includes reading, writing, math, science, and social sciences at a time when
children are developmentally vulnerable and may be irreparably harmed by such a strategy.” If
you try to keep children home until it’s required for them to go to school, they won’t be ready
for school like other students who actually went to an early childhood education institute.
While working at a childcare center, I realized that parents think that their children just
go to school and daycare to play, and that’s not the case. Other parents think that their child
will be scared and over-whelmed going to school at an early age, but most kids actually like
going to school because they get to play and learn with kids that they don’t usually hang with.
The children learn and play all at the same time. If kids play while they are learning, they will
remember more.
While going to these early childhood education centers, children learn to play and play
to learn. Going to school at an early age is good for children for multiple reasons. I encourage
everyone to sign up their children for early childhood education.