You are here

Benefits - Children

Quality early education opportunities have profound lifelong benefits for children. Communities throughout Wisconsin have adopted a community approach to 4 year old kindergarten (4KCA) to ensure that all four year olds have equitable access to quality learning opportunities.

The below are a few stories, from providers, about how the 4KCA has had positive effects in their communities.  

  1. Fewer transitions during the day.

  2. Increases the continuity of care.
  3. Increases the ability to provide inclusive settings for four-year-old children with special needs.
  4. Easier transitions for three-year-olds entering 4K.
  5. More information shared between the 4K teachers, the early childhood staff, and the public schools.

1. The 4KCA has resulted in fewer transitions for children, allowing them to stay in one place for 4K and Child Care.

With the 4KCA, children have opportunities to remain in one location for both 4K and child care; thereby reducing the stress of transitions and of being away from home.

Transitions, as many parents know, are difficult for young children. Fewer transitions maximize time available for learning, facilitate the children's adjustment to kindergarten and Head Start/child care programming, and reduce the stress of being away from home. Time in Head Start or child care, when the 4K program is not in session is often referred to as "Wraparound Care). 
 

Jim Ruder, Principal of West Kindergarten Center and Baraboo Early Learning Cooperative in Baraboo, explains about wraparound services:

"Wraparound services are child care {services} available to families after the hours of the four-year-old kindergarten session, before or after the program….An additional advantage is children don't have to spend time on the bus nor contend with a different facility, with a whole different set of rules and expectations. More continuity between the programs when they're just down the hall from each other compared to taking the bus across town

2. The 4KCA has increased the continuity of care.
 

The 4KCA enables young children to attend four-year–old kindergarten in a familiar facility with consistent rules, routines, and expectations.

When children attend 4K in one location and receive Head Start/child care programming in another location, they have to learn rules, routines, and expectations that may differ for each locale. This lack of continuity may be confusing. The 4KCA provides the opportunity for  children to have only one set of rules, routines, and expectations that need to be followed. Additionally, there's more continuity of care and instruction when the 4K staff and Head Start/child care staff  know each other and work in the same facility. 
 

Dennis Krueger, the Assistant Superintendent of the Howard-Suamico School District, notes,

"…Many of the children were able to stay where they were already attending – a preschool or early learning environment where they were as infants, one, two, and three- year-olds – and were able to continue as four year olds at 4K in the same setting. That means there is consistency for the child, and some of the process and pedagogy for children from the 4K trickles down to three-year-olds."

3. The 4KCA can increasethe ability of communities to provide inclusive settings for four-year-old children with special needs.
 

The greatest source of pride for many educators involved in the 4KCA has been its impact on educating children with special needs in inclusive settings with their typically developing peers. Heather Cramer, the 4K Coordinator for the Stevens Point School District, describes the benefits of inclusion for children and parents:

"{I am most proud of} bringing children with special needs into the community in an integrated setting-not a separate classroom- because of what they can or cannot do. We're giving them the experience of being in a regular educational setting. We now are looking at that child, what's best for them, which program best fits them, and moving that forward."

Jim Ruder, Principal of West Kindergarten Center and Baraboo Early Learning Cooperative in Baraboo, details the social and academic benefits: 

"It's really rewarding to see those social relationships benefit everybody. Beyond social skills, we've seen our students with special needs take off academically and in many different ways in their development along with their social skills—that pops out.

4The 4KCA makes transitions easier for three-year-olds when they enter four-year-old kindergarten.
 

The success of the 4KCA results in making transitions smoother for three year olds as they enter four year old kindergarten. Three-year-olds in community sites often know or at least have seen the teachers of 4K in their facility and have some familiarity with who will become their teacher. Teachers may also know the child and can more easily learn about that child from others in the setting. Lori Brandt, a special education teacher, Manitowoc School District, describes how the 4KCA make transitions easier for children with special needs by facilitating continuity in the practices between teacher: 

"…Getting to go out to partner sites and people getting to know me and feel comfortable with me and see me as a resource so that I can help direct them to whatever resources they might need. I also provide services to three-year-olds out in our community sites. At the Y for example, I go out to the four-year-old classroom and I also see a child in the three-year-old classroom. Next year, that child will transition into the four-year-old classroom. In that instance, there have been partnerships built not only with me, but also between the teachers of three-year-olds and four-year-olds. The four-year-old teacher and I can be mentors to the three-year-old teacher, specifically around the need to provide visuals in the classroom for certain children with special needs. We're starting to see more and more supports happening that way to the classrooms for younger children. And, there have been occasions when there has been training for the teachers of four-year-olds that have been opened to the teachers of three-year-olds, too."

5. In the 4KCA children benefit from information shared between the 4K teachers, the early childhood staff, and the public schools.

If indeed it "takes a village to raise a child," the 4KCA helps create a village of adults within the 4KCA communities who work together for the betterment of children. 4K teachers, Head Start/early childhood staff, and public school personnel collaboratively solve problems, share ideas, partner throughout transitions for young children and families, identify children needing special evaluations, and much more.