Our Programs
Decades of research have demonstrated that the early years are the most critical in our development and have long-term effects. At PreSchool Partners we have the incredible opportunity to positively shape these early experiences to make a lasting impact on the children and families we serve. Our program has always taken a two-generation approach by providing a consistent, structured school year to our students and weekly classes for our parents.
Children’s Program | Parent’s Program | Families Reading Together
Children’s Program
We provide a program for two-, three-, and four-year-olds focused on school readiness and success beyond the classroom.
Our mission is school readiness, so our program is very structured and teaches letter, number, color, and shape recognition, rhyming, beginning sounds, and name writing as well as social and emotional skills. We have small pupil/teacher ratios - 5/1 in the 2-year-old classrooms, 6/1 in the 3-year-old classrooms, and 7/1 in the 4-year-old classrooms. All lead teachers have degrees in education and the majority of the classes have 2 teachers with education degrees.
Curriculum: It is our belief at PreSchool Partners that children learn best through play. Our curriculum is based on research and best practices. We use the Creative Curriculum for Preschool, PATHS (Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies) Social Emotional Curriculum, Houghton Mifflin Every Day in Pre-K Math Curriculum, and the Zaner-Bloser Handwriting Curriculum. Teachers meet regularly to write, plan, and evaluate the curriculum. Our teachers and our curriculum encourage a life-long love of learning.
PreSchool Partners is a nonprofit program that primarily serves low-income families. However, we recognize the importance and demand for diverse classrooms and offer a limited number of full-tuition spots (no more than 35%). We are proud to promote diversity in our classrooms and actively participate in bridging communities.
Parent’s Program
What sets us apart from other programs is that we don't just educate kids, we also educate their parents or a primary caregiver as well. Families that receive reduced tuition commit to attending school one morning a week with their child. Over the course of a school year, parents in our program receive over 60 hours of instruction on a variety of subjects such as age-appropriate expectations, nutrition, conscious discipline, and money management. We train the parents to support their child’s educational progress while also offering them opportunities to improve their parenting and life skills. We strongly believe that success in school requires parental involvement, and research shows the earlier parental involvement begins, the more powerful the effects.
Families Reading Together
Another cornerstone of our approach is a family literacy program called “Families Reading Together,” where parents are given a storybook every week to build a home library. The parents read the book along with a trained instructor and discuss different ways to engage their children in reading. At home, the parents and child read the book together and complete homework activities. “Families Reading Together” encourages parents to regularly set aside time to participate in their child’s education and for literacy skills learned in the classroom to be reinforced at home. Families receive over 28 books during the school year.
