Enrolling your child in a preschool program provides them with a wealth of developmental benefits. Not only does it give your child a chance to meet new friends and engage in a new environment, but it will prepare them for primary school. Attending preschool for the first time can be a big adjustment for both the child and the parents, but it is well worth it! There are numerous benefits to enrolling your child in a preschool; below are five top reasons you should consider preschool for your little one!

Socialization

Socialization is one of the primary and essential skills your child will learn in a preschool program. Learning how to interact with others is a skill your child will need for the rest of their life, and a preschool program is a healthy and supportive environment to develop social skills. 

Strong social skills give a child confidence, enhance self-esteem, and provide a solid foundation to enter primary school. Beyond making friends, social skills involve following a teacher’s directors, gaining empathy for others, and learning how to respect someone else’s opinion.

In addition, the preschool environment encourages your child to interact with others and solve problems in a group setting.

Basic Academic Skills

Most children will pick up the academic skills they need to start primary school at home, but a preschool environment will enhance their learning and reinforce academic concepts. Children learn best through play, so a playful environment like a preschool promotes natural learning of letters, colors, shapes, and numbers. 

Preschool teachers choose meaningful toys and activities to encourage learning through play, so even though it may seem like your child is “just playing,” there are layers upon layers of meaningful development occurring each time they pick up a toy. 

Expands their Creativity 

Preschool is an environment that fosters imagination and creative development, both of which promote cognitive development and problem-solving. In a preschool classroom, your child has the chance to explore and discover new things and bring those ideas home to share with you!

Children love to ask questions, and preschool is the perfect place to explain “Why” and “How.” Preschool classrooms offer in-depth, meaningful free play that promotes learning with their hands and healthy brain development. 

Exposure to New Ideas

Attending preschool takes a child out of their natural setting and exposes them to new people and ideas. They will meet children with different likes and dislikes, different family structures than their own, and different strengths and weaknesses. 

In addition, children are exposed to new books, music, and art. Music and art are excellent tools to develop a child’s cognitive development and mathematical and language skills. Art teaches shapes, colors, distance, and perception, while music involves rhythm, spatial awareness, and counting and often tells a story. Exposure to new ideas promotes cognitive development, empathy, understanding, and tolerance of others. 

Develops Language Skills

The more exposure a child has to language, the more words they will learn. Experts recommend talking, reading, and singing to infants from the start, long before they can answer back, so they are immersed in language.  

Because preschool is a thriving social environment, not only will your little one learn new words, but they’ll learn the structure of a conversation, waiting their turn to speak, how to follow verbal directions and ways of interacting with others.

Language is also developed through music, reading, drama, and creative play. Children with advanced language skills tend to have better self-esteem, are more likely to read at a younger age, and enjoy reading.