Thursday, December 08, 2005
Is it child care or day care or preschool or pre-k?! In fact, all of these terms describe early care and education programs for young children. Regardless of what they are called, these services must all be safe, affordable, developmentally appropriate, and high quality.
The term "Child Care" is generally used when talking about early care and education provided for children from birth through school-age. There are many forms of child care (or day care), including:
- in-home child care
- care by relatives
- family day care homes, and
- center-based child care.
The term 'Preschool' or 'Pre-K' is generally used to describe early care and education programs that help prepare three and four year olds to enter kindergarten ready to succeed. These programs are usually conducted in group settings and include a curriculum focused on early literacy and cognitive, social, and emotional development.
So when you look at your family child care, the difference between whether it is a "child care" and "preschool" is up to you. A good quality child care does all of the aspects of a preschool. One way to improve the quality of your child care if you are located in Minnesota is to take the "Not By Chance" trainings to learn how to improve school readiness and give you some tools to help with that improvement.
Even if you don't bill your program as a preschool, you should be doing all that you can to ensure that the children in your care are growing in cognitive, social, and emotional skills.
