Virtually every nation provides some early-childhood education, sometimes financed by the government, sometimes privately, sometimes only for a privileged few, and sometimes for almost every child (Georgeson & Payler, 2013).

In France, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, more than 95 percent of all 3- to 5-year-olds are enrolled in government-sponsored schools. Norway also uses public funds to provide education for 1- and 2-year olds, and 80 percent of them attend (Ellingsaeter, 2014). One message from developmental research has reached almost every parent and politician worldwide—young children are amazingly capable and eager to learn.

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However, beyond the amazing potential of young children to learn, another robust conclusion from research on children’s learning seems not yet universally understood: Quality matters (Gambaro et al., 2014). If the home learning environment is poor, a good preschool program aids health, cognition, and social skills. If, instead, a family provides excellent learning, children still benefit from attending a high-quality program, but they do not benefit as much as less fortunate children.

Indeed, it is better for children to be in excellent home care than in a low-quality, overcrowded center. One expert criticizes inadequate subsidies that result in low-quality care: “Parents can find cheap baby-sitting that’s bad for their kids on their own. They don’t need government help with that” (Barnett, quoted in Samuels & Klein, 2013, p. 21).

A U.S. program to subsidize early child care, with no regard for quality, did not help all the children learn. It was designed to allow low-SES mothers to enter the labor force, and it did increase female employment. For most children, center care had no impact. However, compared to children who stayed home, immigrant children in subsidized center care became better readers, but U.S.-born children became less proficient in math. The researchers suggest that quality—and trained staff—is crucial (Johnson et al., 2014).

Quality cannot be judged by the name of a program or by its sponsorship. Educational institutions for 3- to 5-year-olds are called preschools, nursery schools, day-care centers, pre-primary programs, pre-K classes, and kindergartens. Sponsors can be public (federal, state, or city), private, religious, or corporate. Further, children, parents, and cultures differ, so an excellent program for one child might be less effective for another.

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For many parents, cost is crucial. “[B]ecause quality is hard for parents to observe, competition seems to be dominated by price.” To make a profit, some programs hire fewer qualified teachers—which reduces quality (Gambaro et al., 2014, p. 22).

As a result, the United States has some excellent early-childhood programs, but most are not that good (Magnuson & Waldfogel, 2014). Generalizations may be wrong. Some people think mother-care is better than care by another relative or nonrelative, but some mothers are fabulous, others disastrous. That is true for fathers, grandmothers, day-care centers, and so on.

Professional assessment of quality is also complex, as sometimes the aspects measured do not correlate with math, reading, and social skills (Sabol et al., 2013). However, one aspect—child–teacher interaction—does correlate with learning. Teachers who sit, watch, and criticize suggest low quality; ideally teachers talk, laugh, guide, and play with the children.

In order to sort through this variety, we review here some of the distinctions among types of programs. One broad distinction concerns the program goals. Programs that encourage the child’s creative individuality may be called child-centered, whereas those that prepare the child for formal group education may be called teacher-directed. A program that remedies the educational deficits of low-SES children could be called an intervention program.

Many programs are called child-centered, or developmental, because they stress each child’s development and growth. Teachers in such programs believe children need to follow their own interests rather than adult directions.

For example, teachers in child-centered programs agree that “children should be allowed to select many of their own activities from a variety of learning areas that the teacher has prepared” (Lara-Cinisomo et al., 2011, p. 101). The physical space and the materials (such as dress-up clothes, art supplies, puzzles, blocks, and other toys) are arranged to allow exploration.

Most child-centered programs encourage artistic expression. Because they are not yet logical, young children are more imaginative than older people are. According to advocates of child-centered programs, this creative vision should be encouraged; children need many opportunities to tell stories, draw pictures, dance, and make music for their own delight.

That does not mean that academics are ignored. Advocates of math learning, for instance, believe that children have a natural interest in numbers and that child-centered schools can guide those interests as children grow (Stipek, 2013).

Child-centered programs are often influenced by Piaget, who emphasized that each child will discover new ideas if given a chance, or by Vygotsky, who thought that children learn from other children, with adult guidance. Some childhood educators believe that Piaget and Vygotsky advocate opposite approaches, with Piaget less likely to want the teacher to guide and instruct the child. Both, however, seek to bring out the child’s inner strengths, so both can be considered child-centered.

MONTESSORI SCHOOLS One type of child-centered school began in the slums of Rome in 1907, when Maria Montessori opened a nursery school (Standing, 1998). She believed that children needed structured, individualized projects to give them a sense of accomplishment. Her students completed puzzles, used sponges and water to clean tables, traced shapes, and so on.

Contemporary Montessori schools still emphasize individual pride and achievement, presenting many literacy-related tasks (e.g., outlining letters and looking at books) to young children. Specific materials differ from those that Montessori developed, but the underlying philosophy is the same. Children seek out learning tasks; they do not sit quietly in groups while a teacher instructs them. That makes Montessori programs child-centered (Lillard, 2013).

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This philosophy seems to work. A study of 5-year-olds in inner-city Milwaukee who were chosen by lottery to attend Montessori programs found that the children were advanced in prereading (such as recognizing letters), math, and theory of mind, compared with their peers in other schools (Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006).

Some benefits of Montessori education became more apparent by middle school (a phenomenon called a sleeper effect, because the benefits seem to hibernate for a while) (Lillard, 2013). The probable explanation: Montessori tasks lead to self-confidence, curiosity, and exploration, which eventually motivate children to learn to read, calculate, and so on. How much this happens without teacher direction is debatable, of course.

REGGIO EMILIA Another form of early-childhood education is Reggio Emilia, named after the town in Italy where it began. In Reggio Emilia, children are encouraged to master skills that are not usually taught in North American schools until age 7 or so, such as writing and using tools, including hammers and knives.

Reggio schools do not provide large-group instruction. There are no lessons in prereading skills such as forming letters or cutting paper. Instead, “every child is a creative child, full of potential” (Gandini et al., 2005, p. 1), with personal learning needs and artistic drives.

Measurement of achievement, such as standardized testing to see whether children recognize the 26 letters of the alphabet, is antithetical to the conviction that each child should explore and learn in his or her own way. Each child’s learning is documented via scrapbooks, photos, and daily notes—not to measure progress, but to help the child and the parent take pride in accomplishments (Caruso, 2013).

Appreciation of the arts is evident. Every Reggio Emilia school originally had a studio, an artist, and ample space to encourage creativity (Forbes, 2012). Ideally, as schools in many nations follow the Reggio Emilia model, they all try to have a large central room with many hubs of activity and a low child/adult ratio. Children’s art is displayed on white walls and hung from high ceilings, and floor-to-ceiling windows open to a spacious, plant-filled playground.

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Big mirrors are part of the schools’ décor—again, with the idea of fostering individuality and self-expression. However, individuality does not mean that children do not work together. On the contrary, group projects are encouraged.

Often those group projects include exploring some aspect of the natural world. One analysis of Reggio Emilia in the United States found “a science-rich context that triggered and supported preschoolers’ inquiries, and effectively engaged preschoolers’ hands, heads, and hearts with science” (Inan et al., 2010, p. 1186).

Teacher-directed preschools stress academics, often taught by one adult to the entire group. The curriculum includes learning the names of letters, numbers, shapes, and colors according to a set timetable; every child naps, snacks, and goes to the bathroom on schedule as well. Children learn to sit quietly and listen to the teacher. Praise and other reinforcements are given for good behavior, and time-outs (brief separation from activities) punish misbehavior.

In teacher-directed programs, the serious work of schooling is distinguished from the unstructured play of home. According to a study of preschool educators, some teachers endorse ideas that indicate teacher-directed philosophy, such as that children should learn to form letters correctly before they write stories (Lara-Cinisomo et al., 2011).

The goal of teacher-directed programs is to make all children “ready to learn” when they enter elementary school. For that reason, basic skills are stressed, including precursors to reading, writing, and arithmetic, perhaps through teachers asking questions that children answer together in unison. Behavior is also taught: Children learn to respect adults, to follow schedules, to hold hands when they go on outings, and so on.

Children practice forming letters, sounding out words, counting objects, and writing their names. If a 4-year-old learns to read, that is success. (In a child-centered program, that might arouse suspicion that there was too little time to play or socialize.) Good behavior, not informal social interaction, is rewarded—leading one critic to suggest that “readiness” is too narrowly defined (Winter, 2011).

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Many teacher-directed programs were inspired by behaviorism, which emphasizes step-by-step learning and repetition, with reinforcement (praise, gold stars, prizes) for accomplishment. Another inspiration for teacher-directed programs comes from information-processing research indicating that children who have not learned basic vocabulary and listening skills by kindergarten often fall behind in primary school. Many state legislatures mandate that preschoolers master specific concepts, an outcome best achieved by teacher-directed learning (Bracken & Crawford, 2010).

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Several programs designed for children from low-SES families were established in the United States decades ago. Some solid research on the results of these programs is now available.

HEAD START The best known of the intervention programs began in the early 1960s, when millions of young children in the United States were thought to need a “head start” on their formal education to foster better health and cognition before first grade. Consequently, since 1965, the federal government has funded a massive program for 4-year-olds called Head Start.

The goals for Head Start have changed over the decades, from lifting families out of poverty to promoting literacy, from providing dental care and immunizations to teaching Standard English. Although initially most Head Start programs were child-centered, they have become increasingly teacher-directed as waves of legislators have approved and shaped them. Children learn whatever their Head Start teachers and curricula emphasize. Not surprisingly, specific results vary by program, home environment, and cohort.

For example, many low-income 3- and 4-year-olds in the United States are not normally exposed to math. After one Head Start program engaged children in a board game with numbers, their mathematical understanding advanced significantly (Siegler, 2009). Especially when parents provide little education at home, Head Start boosts math scores (E. Miller et al., 2014).

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A 2007 congressional reauthorization of funding for Head Start included a requirement for extensive evaluation to answer two questions:

The answers were not as dramatic as either advocates or detractors had hoped (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010). Most Head Start children advanced in language, math, and social skills, but by elementary school, the comparison children often caught up, with one exception: Head Start children were still ahead in vocabulary.

One explanation for this catch-up is that, unlike when Head Start began, many children in the comparison group were enrolled in other early-childhood programs—sometimes excellent ones, sometimes not. Another explanation is that the elementary schools for low-SES children were of low quality, so the Head Start children sank back to the norm.

The research found that benefits were strongest for children with the lowest family incomes, for those living in rural areas, and for those with disabilities (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010). These children were least likely to find other sources of early education.

That finding supports what we know about language development. Any good program will introduce children to words they would not learn at home. Children will fast-map those words, gaining a linguistic knowledge base that facilitates vocabulary throughout life.

A recent study of children born in 2001 found that those who went to Head Start were advanced in math and language, but, compared to similar children who had only their mother’s care, they had more behavior problems, according to their teachers (R. Lee et al., 2014). Of course, one interpretation of that result is that the teachers reacted negatively to the self-assertion of the Head Start children, rating the children’s attitude a problem when really it was the teachers who had the problem.

As already mentioned, Hispanic children are less likely to attend Head Start, even though they are more likely to benefit. This troubles developmentalists, because without preschool education, many Spanish-speaking children begin elementary school behind in English, and their disadvantages increase each year.

Four possible reasons have been suggested. Already mentioned is that parents do not agree with the child-centered emphasis of many teachers. Another possible reason is fear of deportation. Although almost all young Latinos are citizens, their parents might be afraid that enrolling them would jeopardize other members of the family. A third reason is that the parents may be unaware of the educational benefits of preschool education. Finally, since few Head Start teachers speak Spanish, parents and teachers have difficulty communicating, so parents stay away.

LONG-TERM GAINS FROM INTENSIVE PROGRAMS This discussion of philosophies, practices, and programs may give the impression that the research on early-childhood cognition is contradictory. That is not true. Specifics are debatable, but empirical evidence and longitudinal evaluation find that good early education advances learning, especially in language. Ideally, each program has a curriculum that guides practice, all the adults collaborate, and experienced teachers respond to each child.

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The best evidence comes from three longitudinal programs that enrolled children for years, sometimes beginning with home visits in infancy, sometimes continuing in after-school programs through first grade. One program, called Perry (or High/Scope), was spearheaded in Michigan (Schweinhart & Weikart, 1997); another, called Abecedarian, got its start in North Carolina (Campbell et al., 2001); a third, called Child–Parent Centers, began in Chicago (Reynolds, 2000). Because of the political context that existed when these programs began, all were focused on children from low-SES families.

All three programs compared experimental groups of children with matched control groups, and all reached the same conclusion: Early education has substantial long-term benefits that become most apparent when children reached third grade or higher. By age 10, children who had been enrolled in any of these three programs scored higher on math and reading achievement tests than did other children from the same backgrounds, schools, and neighborhoods. They were less likely to be placed in special classes for children with special needs or to repeat a year of school.

An advantage of decades of longitudinal research is that teenagers and adults who received early education can be compared with those who did not. For all three programs, early investment paid off.

In adolescence, the children who had undergone intensive preschool education had higher aspirations, more pride, and were less likely to have been abused. As young adults, they were more likely to attend college and less likely to go to jail. As middle-aged adults, they were more often employed, paying taxes, healthy, and not needing government subsidies (Reynolds & Ou, 2011; Schweinhart et al., 2005; Campbell et al., 2014).

All three research projects found that providing direct cognitive training, with specific instruction in various school-readiness skills, was useful. Each child’s needs and talents were considered—a circumstance made possible because the child/adult ratio was low. This combined child-centered and teacher-directed aspects, with all the teachers trained together and cooperating, so children were not confused. Teachers involved parents in their children’s education; each program included strategies to enhance the home–school connection.

These programs were expensive (ranging from $7,000 to $20,000 annually per young child in 2015 dollars). From a developmental perspective, however, the decreased need later for special education and other services made early education a “wise investment” (Duncan & Magnuson, 2013, p. 128). Additional benefits to society, including increased adult employment, more tax revenues, and reduced crime, are worth much more than the cost of the programs.

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International research points in the same direction. For instance, Chile now subsidizes early education for 4- to 6-year-olds. Some aspects of the Chilean schools seem teacher-directed (emphasis on whole-group instruction) and some child-centered (responding to individual children).

Overall, researchers found that encouraging teacher–student interaction and promoting classroom organization are effective (Leyva et al., 2015; Yoshikawa et al., 2015). Few student benefits from the intervention are evident so far, but a sleeper effect may appear here as well.

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES The greatest lifetime return from the three intensive U.S. programs came to boys from high-poverty neighborhoods in Chicago: In manhood, the social benefit to society was more than 12 times the initial cost (Reynolds et al., 2011).

Unfortunately, costs are immediate and benefits are long term. Some legislators and voters are unwilling to fund expensive intervention programs that do not pay off until decades later. Further, these programs were small; the United States has about 15 million 2- to 5-year-olds who could benefit from an excellent preschool program, yet few of them are enrolled.

That is slowly changing. In some nations, preschool education is now considered a right, not a privilege: Young children from families of all incomes are educated without cost to the parents. Beyond those nations already mentioned, many others offer everyone some free preschool or give parents a child-care subsidy. For example, England provides 15 free hours per week, New Zealand 20, and Canada pays $100 a month for each child under age 6.

Among developed nations, the United States is an outlier, least likely to support new mothers or young children. However, in the past decade some states (e.g., Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois) and some cities (e.g., New York, Boston, Cleveland, San Antonio, and Los Angeles) have offered preschool to every 4-year-old. Although this investment is likely to result in less need for special education later on, implementation and results are controversial—a topic for further research.

Almost every state in the United States now sponsors some public education for young children—usually only for 4-year-olds, although high-quality education for 2- and 3-year-olds also advances later school achievement (e.g., Li et al., 2013). In 2012–2013 in the United States, over a million children (1,338,737) attended state-sponsored preschools, including Head Start. That is 28 percent of all 4-year olds, twice as many as a decade earlier (Barnett et al., 2013).

Most state programs fund only children living in poverty, but many wealthy families pay for early education, sometimes beginning before age 2. Private schools may be very expensive—as much as $30,000 a year. Not surprisingly, in the United States, families in the highest income quartile are more likely to enroll their 3- and 4-year-olds.

The increases in preschool for 4-year-olds is good news, but developmentalists ask why not start earlier? Children younger than 4 are capable of learning languages, concepts, and much else. Every child benefits from academic stimulation, in school and at home. The amazing potential of young children continues as a theme of the next chapter, where we discuss other kinds of learning—in emotional regulation, social skills, and more.

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