Great Preschools: What to Look for in the Classroom

You want the best preschool for your child, and so you tour school after school trying to find the best fit. But what should you look for when you peer into the classroom? According to our Great Preschool Quality Factors, you should see children who are focused on effective learning tasks. In high quality preschools, teachers use well-planned, well-tested approaches to instruction and learning in all core developmental areas. Class time, material purchases and facilities are all allocated according to the preschool's mission; more important content for the school's students is given more time and the best materials and facilities. Classroom interruptions are minimal. Materials and curriculum are frequently reviewed, and altered, to ensure they are working as planned for most children.

Examples based on current research include:

• Materials and activities address all four major developmental areas - cognitive/thinking, social, emotional/behavioral and physical - in addition to topics in school mission and goals.
• Cognitive/thinking: some activities and materials address numbers, literacy and thinking skills. Research indicates that preschools not including these topics in activities are most likely to have children who are "unoccupied" in play or work at preschool. Activities may be teacher-lead or child-initiated and may be imbedded in learning about other topics. Advanced cognitive materials/activities are provided for advanced children. More time and more teacher intervention (e.g., explanation of content, availability for questions, support when a task is hard) is provided for children who are lagging age-typical development.
• Social: some activities are done in pairs and small groups working together, and teachers coach children on social skills (initiating relationships, listening, appropriately speaking to others, conflict resolution, etc.), not just cognitive content. Also, research indicates that children who choose some activities (rather than all teacher-lead) in preschool have better long-term social outcomes.
• Emotional/behavioral: teachers and/or activities teach children to understand and respond to their own emotions and those of other people. Boys are allowed some time for interactive physical play, which research shows to improve emotional understanding and regulation. All children are allowed some time for pretend play, which research shows to improve emotional understanding (boys and girls) and regulation (girls only).
• Physical: all children have a chance to play outside (or indoors with large space for movement) and to do fine motor skill work (beads, pencil work, art with small tools such as crayons and colored pencils). A large quantity of gross motor activity in preschool is a negative indicator for cognitive development, so time spent on this should be balanced with other activities. Boys on average need more interactive physical play than girls (for emotional development, not physical, as noted above).
• Classrooms include some pretend play.
• Classrooms include some cognitive content-focused activities, either teacher-lead or child-choice.
• The teacher who interacts with children the most (often but not always the "lead" teacher) smiles and is positive in verbal interactions with individual children. (Yes, teacher niceness is correlated with preschool cognitive advancement - and we would guess with other developmental areas, too.)
• Children act attached to the teacher who interacts with them the most - look for smiles, hugs, positive conversations and children who are happy to stay at preschool.

Effective Learning and Your Preschool Search