PRESCHOOL TO GRADUATION Keeping Your Student On Track, Every Step Of The Way By Julie Unger
Navigating through how best to educate a child doesn’t come with a road map. However, being mindful of some key tips can make the journey from pre-preschool to graduation more enjoyable and successful for both parents and children. “The most important thing is to read to them constantly,” Little Place owner Susan Russell said. “Language is the most important thing, and if you can’t read and can’t comprehend, you can’t be successful in any field out there right now, or anytime. The importance of reading, even when they are infants, is known. It gets them ready for succeeding
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for the rest of their lives in whatever field they go into.” Russell, who runs one of the oldest preschools in Wellington, said that across the nation, not enough children are able to read and comprehend. Taking the time to work with children is imperative. Ordinary, everyday things, such as asking a child to bring a ball or red socks pro-
vide a foundation of language and interaction. “If you have that foundation, everything else will come,” Russell said. “It also gives the child self-worth. If you feel good about yourself, you can almost conquer anything.” Having a good, strong foundation is the way to success, she stressed. “Your fate is determined by how you feel about yourself and also your foundation in being able to conquer what is out there,” Russell said. “Language is one of the most important things, because with language comes math and everything else, science and history, and if you have that, everything comes together.” There is a stark difference between children — even at the preschool level — who have been read to and who haven’t been read to at home, she explains. The time commitment isn’t much. Even a few short books, depending on the child’s attention span, will increase comprehension and language abilities. Discussing colors, shapes, numbers and other everyday items that are encountered daily should be introduced to children through interaction, Russell said, pointing out that with the rise in technology, she has seen a decrease in children’s awareness. “The more you expose them to things, the more they learn and the more vocabulary you’re using,” she said. “Taking them