Shopping for Childcare?

Here's a review of what parents should look for when shopping for childcare.

At 3, in preschool, children should learn to listen, to recognize their names, to count to ten and then twenty, to recognize their colors and shapes, be able to play and do a puzzle to completion. They should begin to use crayons, glue, scissors, clay and paint.

At four, in pre-K, a child should learn to count to 50 or 100, write his or her name properly, recognize all the upper and lower case letters and know the sounds. They should be able to listen to a chapter book, work a free piece puzzle, and color and draw just about anything and find glue, paint, clay and scissors a tool not a hurdle.

At five, or in kindergarten, a child should begin to put it all together and begin to add and subtract, write sentences, sound out words and ask intelligent questions about the world.

Can a child do all this in kindergarten?

Children actually want to do this. There is rarely a push to get children who are in the habit of learning to learn. Just sitting in front of a group of children with something new will quiet the whole group. "Look what I have," and every eye is on you. But when the habit is not learning because the attitude of childcare governors is "don't teach" they will have to do age 3 and 4 while they are doing age 5.

The view from the cave represents how a child who is not taught early looks at the world.