Pre-K Matters

You could probably guess that sending a child to pre-kindergarten results in better kindergarten readiness, improved vocabulary, and enhanced reading skills. But did you know that the benefits of Pre-K go far beyond their school years and into their adult lives? Starting at age four, nationwide studies reveal that investing early in a child's education by sending them to pre-kindergarten yields a long list of benefits that go beyond test scores, and into the very fabric of their — and our — futures.
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It's the time of year when we look back at the past year and make resolutions for the new one. It's no different at The Urban Child Institute, as we step back to consider what has been done for children's brain development in 2011 and what our plans will be for 2012.

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There are frequent conversations in Memphis about what our city brand should be. Some people suggest that it should be about transportation, other say logistics, and some say our river heritage. Those are important assets of Memphis, but they are things. They don't really speak directly to our community values and who we are as a people.

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No one in our community should care more about optimal brain development for our youngest children than our business leaders. Their competitiveness, their profits, their tax burdens, and ultimately, their corporate futures depend on it. The fact is that there are no economic strategies that pay greater returns on investment than strategies to give every child a fair start in life.
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The importance of early years experience on the developing brain and children's developmental trajectories is a message the science community has long sent – and it's a message that has been well received by policy and practice over the past decade. Indeed, the upsurge in pre-school provision such as Head Start in the US and Sure Start in the UK indicates the importance placed on early years by policy makers.

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