I came across United Kingdom-based research this morning that shows both medium and high quality preschools pay dividends by bolstering math and English achievement later in school.

Children gained most benefit from having attended high quality pre-school provision, but medium quality provision also led to better Mathematics and social/behavioural outcomes in Year 6 than low quality or no pre-school (the ‘home’ group). – Effective Pre-School and Primary Education 3-11 Project (EPPE 3-11): Influences on Children's Cognitive and Social Development in Year 6.

The research brief suggests low-quality preschool offers little long-term social and cognitive help, and can hinder some development.

Low quality pre-school has little enduring benefit in terms of academic and social/behavioural outcomes in the longer term and was even associated with some poorer social outcomes in comparison with the ‘home’ group, although not for ‘Pro-social’ behaviour. – Effective Pre-School and Primary Education.

The paper is full of interesting findings, such as how quality early learning helps girls versus boys, kids with special needs and disadvantaged children. 

For academic outcomes, particularly Mathematics, and for all social/behavioural
outcomes, having attended a high quality preschool is found to be of particular benefit for boys, children with special educational needs (SEN) and disadvantaged children – Effective Pre-school.

In fact, researchers suggest children from poor families benefit more from quality preschools than their more advantaged peers. Plus, they highlighted the importance of a good home life.        

Thus the disadvantage of not attending pre-school is countered if children have good early years learning experiences at home. Similarly, the disadvantage of poor Early years HLE is ameliorated by high quality pre-school. Both aspects of early influence still show an impact on longer term development up to age 11.

I would love to hear the thoughts of researchers and advocates on the benefits and limits of these findings.

Any thoughts?

(Thanks to the National Institute for Early Education Research for highlighting this report.)