Before we can understand the importance of early childhood education, we should be on the same page about what age early childhood education refers to. Typically, early childhood education encompasses any education a child receives up until the age of eight.
During these initial years of life, children’s brains are growing and learning at a rapid rate, and learning typically comes very easy to them. The purpose of education at this stage is to build a solid foundation for children to build upon for the rest of their lives.
“The quality of life for a child and the contributions the child makes to society as an adult can be traced back to the first few years of life. From birth until about 5 years old a child undergoes tremendous growth and change. If this period of life includes support for growth in cognition, language, motor skills, adaptive skills and social-emotional functioning, the child is more likely to succeed in school and later contribute to society.”
J. Rolnick
The better foundation they have from an early age, the more likely students are to find success and not get frustrated. When students struggle due to poor early childhood education, the more likely they are to give up. A solid foundation is protective against falling behind, which is imperative, because once students begin to fall behind, it becomes very hard to catch back up.
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