Reply to When do you think structure and curriculum start to matter?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Kinder at the earliest.  Don’t mess up a good thing over “curriculum” for a three or four year old.  [/quote]

We chose our preschool by visiting every preschool within a 15 minute radius and picking the one that felt the best and had the most nurturing, engaged teachers. And zero regrets -- this was the right choice. We can walk to school, our child loves going, and we just get a really good vibe from the place. They do an Emilio Reggio approach (very play based) though they also incorporate some kindergarten prep in the 4yo class. I have actually been impressed with how much DD gets out of the fairly limited academic focus -- she is already sounding out words and can do basic addition/subtraction just based on the 15 minutes a day of academic instruction combined with some reinforcement both at school and at home. She's also learned some basic Spanish because one of the instructors will do little songs and games with them in Spanish. Exceeding my expectations on that front.

But the vast majority of her school day is focused on play, social development, and emotional regulation. And that's how it should be. Most kids will learn to read in K or 1st (and this is considered on time) and need only basic academic awareness (numbers, letters, and some instruction/exposure to basic things about how the world works) before that. But the main benefit of PK, in my experience, is that they learn to navigate a classroom, start figuring out how to deal with friendship, disagreements, collaboration, etc. That's where the action is. So I'd recommend choosing a school largely based on the quality and engagement of the teaching staff because that aspect of preschool education takes a much more experienced, measured approach than just teaching the kids letter sounds. You can't learn emotional regulation through rote memorization. You want teachers who understand how to build it into the curriculum and use play to help kids figure this stuff out.[/quote]

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