Preschool education is the provision of education for children before the commencement of statutory education, usually between the ages of three and five, dependent on the jurisdiction. Preschool is also known as nursery school, or kindergarten.
Preschool work is organized within a framework that professional educators create. The framework includes structural (administration, class size, teacher-child ratio, etc.), process (quality of classroom environments, teacher-child interactions, etc), and alignment (standards, curriculum, assessments) components that are associated with each individual unique child that has both social and academic outcomes. Arguably the first pre-school institution was opened in 1816 by Robert Owen in New Lanark, Scotland.
The areas of development which preschool education covers varies from country to country. However the following main themes are represented in the majority of systems.
* Personal, social and emotional development
* Communication, including talking and listening
* Knowledge and understanding of the world
* Creative and aesthetic development
* Physical development
* Mathematical awareness and development
* Playing
Allowing preschool aged children to discover and explore freely within each of these areas of development is the foundation for developmental learning. While the National Association for the Education of Young Children has made tremendous strides in publicizing and promoting the idea of developmentally appropriate practice, there is still much work to be done. It is widely recognized that although many preschool educators are aware of the guidelines for developmentally appropriate practice, putting this practice to work effectively in the classroom is more challenging. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) published that although 80% of Kindergarten classrooms claim to be developmentally appropriate, only 20% actually are.