Children have the skills and abilities deemed important for success in kindergarten when they attend higher quality child care programs:
Children who enter school without the skills they need for success oftentimes continue to remain behind their peers. A child's ability to learn begins at birth, quality child care aims to teach children how to learn in order to prepare them success in school.
Children who arrive at school healthy and prepared:
Require less grade repetition
Outperform others on achievement test
Are more likely to graduate high school
Are more likely to be employed at age 40
Are more likely to own a home or have a savings account
Are less likely to be arrested or commit crimes
Smart Start contributions to School Readiness:
Studies have shown a correlation between these Smart Start activities and improving child care center quality and school readiness:
• On-site child care technical assistance
• Quality improvement and facility grants
• Teacher Education Scholarships
• Child care star-rating upgrades
• Teacher salary supplements
• Higher subsidies for higher child care quality
Results:
Child care quality has steadily and significantly increased and participation
in Smart Start-funded activities is related to child care quality.
Children who attended higher quality centers score significantly higher
on measures of skills and abilities deemed important for success in kindergarten
than children from lower quality centers.
Children have better cognitive and language skills and demonstrated fewer
behavioral problems when they attend child care centers that participated
in Smart Start funded activities.
All children benefit from Smart Start funded activities regardless of gender,
income and ethnicity. Children from poor and non-poor families were equally
influenced by quality.
Children from poor families are more likely to have lower kindergarten readiness
skills, and thus be in greater need of positive early childhood experiences,
however, all children benefit from improved programs.
Information taken from the following studies:
Smart
Start and Preschool Children Care Quality in NC: Change over Time and Relation
to Children's Readiness (FPG-UNC, March 2003)
A
Six-County Study of the Effects of Smart Start Child Care on Kindergarten
Entry Skills (FPG-UNC, Sept. 1999)
High
Scope Perry Preschool Project