Every family must have access to high-quality early childhood preparation and education and be aware of the role they play in enabling each child ot reach developmental milestones.
Why Is It Important?
Both research and experience show that investment in students, families, and community early childhood education strategies can:
- reduce variation in children’s achievement that persist and widen over time,
- increase children’s cognitive and social skill development, which is mostly complete by age 5,
- make children’s home environments safer and reduce the likelihood that they will become victims of abuse and neglect,
- be less costly and provide a higher rate of return on investment than student remediation or other attempts to reduce education deficits later in the life of a student, and
- increase a child’s likelihood of graduating from high school, adult earning potential, and employability.
The first three years of a child's life, when the human brain develops more rapidly than at any other subsequent period, are a time of enormous social, emotional, physical, and intellectual growth. The pace of this growth depends on whether the child's eagerness to learn is stimulated by his/her environment. For children to grow into successful adults, they need a supportive and healthy early foundation.