Early childhood education in the United States is the result of an increased number of households of younger families with children in which both parents work. It is something that has evolved, from providing basic day care and play time for children into some experimentation with the addition of basic learning objectives and instruction in social skills that students would normally learn at home. The research that was done showed that children as young as three can benefit from an early learning experience.
There have been some early education programs around for quite a while. Head Start, which is primarily for children from lower income families, has been operating for over 60 years. And while many public school systems have only recently added pre-school programs for four year olds, child development centers, early ed programs and "junior kindergarten" or pre-kindergarten programs operated by private, religious-based schools have a long history.
MCA Operates a Pre-Kindergarten Program for Three and Four Year Olds
Pre-Kindergarten, which was once known as "junior kindergarten," is what we offer in early childhood education at MCA. We are not a child development center, by definition. Our program operates under full recognition of the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) as an academic extension of our school program. Our curriculum incorporates basic learning objectives, primarily related to language development and early reading skills through some phonics objectives. Students also learn to write letters and numbers, identify colors, count, and in the four year old class, do some basic reading.
The structure of the class provides some practice in learning readiness. Students get used to being around other students their age, they learn some basic socialization skills, they get used to being away from their parents for a few hours a day which helps prepare them for their school experience and they learn some social skills.
The Pre-Kindergarten students also participate in the same "out classes" as the older students, including Physical Education, vocal music and art.
There is research which indicates that being involved in pre-kindergarten education gives students an academic advantage all the way through their educational experience. Early development of language arts skills leads students to a clearer understanding in all subject areas by improving their vocabulary, reading comprehension and communication skills well above the expected grade level performance. At MCA, over 80% of our Pre-Kindergarten students are proficient at the Kindergarten level in reading and language arts skills before they enter Kindergarten. That advantage goes with them all through school.
You Have Chosen a Quality Program For Your Child
MCA offers a high quality early learning program in pre-kindergarten 3 and 4. And while our program is an academic boost, our primary goal is to provide a Christian atmosphere for students and families, where children are cared for and loved during the day. Our staff is quite experienced, one of our teachers is now a grandmother, who has more than 20 years of experience in Pre-K instruction, and the other three are long-term parents of students here at MCA, so they are dedicated to helping provide the same kind of caring, safe, nurturing environment they have received for their own children.
Our school operates on a philosophy of education that begins with the acknowledgement that the greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind," and the second is like the first, to "Love you neighbor as you love yourself." We desire for all of our students to see the love of God in their teachers. We have succeeded if we accomplish that goal.
Our academic standards are high. We have a low student to teacher ratio, with a qualified instructor and a teacher's aide in each classroom, limited to an enrollment of 15 students. We use Abeka curriculum, which is one of the top providers of pre-kindergarten curriculum materials and which has a language arts program that is aligned with objectives from Pre-K4 through 12th grade. We see a high level of success among our students in English/Language Arts using Abeka materials.
MCA is an Illinois-Recognized private school meeting ISBE standards, and operates our Pre-K as an academic extension of Kindergarten for ages 3 and 4 as a religious-based school program. As such, our staff is fully qualified under those standards. We do not offer specialized programs or instruction in social skills such as might be found in a school labelled as a child development center.
MCA is also fully accredited by the Commission of the Association of Christian Schools International, which is nationally recognized, and which offers dual accreditation through NCASC, MSACS and SACS-CASI, and Cognia.
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