An expert in early childhood development, Sue Bredekamp is director of research for the Council for Early Childhood Professional Recognition and is coauthor of Houghton Mifflin PRE-K, a pre-kindergarten curriculum.

Hardly a day goes by without more good news on the preschool front. Politicians on both sides of the aisle in states as diverse as Oklahoma, Georgia, New York, Massachusetts, Tennessee, California, and Florida are calling for increased funding for prekindergarten programs.

Some states have made considerable progress toward universal, voluntary preschool. These trends reflect growing public recognition of the benefits of preschool especially for children at risk of later school failure. A recent poll by the North Carolina Partnership for Children showed a remarkable 81% of respondents supporting pre-K, with 60% agreeing that they would be more likely to re-elect a candidate who favored increased funding for early education. Research on the lasting positive consequences of preschool, plus growing understanding of the importance of early learning experiences to later success in school, is clearly at the root of these political success stories.

The promise of preschool leading to later academic success depends on preschools having high-quality early childhood programs. Unfortunately, some of the state efforts are inadequately funded and will only result in more mediocre or poor-quality programs. A recent multistate study of state-funded prekindergartens by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill demonstrated the need to improve existing programs even as pre-K experts try to expand the numbers nationally. The researchers found that on a frequently used observational measure of global quality, classrooms averaged less than good quality. And while the researchers found that teachers were generally warm, positive, and responsive to children's needs, they also found that large percentages of children's days were spent waiting, transitioning, or involved in routines, and many opportunities for learning were missed. On the whole, teachers did not engage children in intellectually challenging content, or in discussions that stimulate children's language development. If the promise of pre-K is to be kept, the quality of pre-K teaching must be improved.

High-quality pre-K programs manage to accomplish several important developmental goals simultaneously. Such programs help children acquire the language ability necessary not only to communicate, but also to think, reason, question, and experiment. Such language and background knowledge are also the foundation for future reading comprehension. In these programs, children learn foundational school readiness skills such as phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, and concepts of print while also acquiring appreciation for books and the motivation to learn to read and write. Good pre-K also helps children acquire self-regulation—the ability to regulate one's emotions, behaviors, and attention depending on the demands of the situation. And equally important, in high-quality preschools, children learn to make friends. All these abilities not only predict academic school success but later success in life as well.

To keep the promise of preschool, educational leaders must know what to look for in a good pre-K curriculum and also recognize it when they see it. Here are some guideposts. You'll want to see evidence of 1) positive teacher-child relationships, 2) comprehensive curriculum, 3) a range of effective teaching strategies, and 4) a variety of grouping strategies with children spending more time working and playing individually and in small groups than in the whole group.

Look for lots of smiles, eye contact, and one-to-one conversations between teachers and individual children. Such warm, positive, responsive relationships not only form the basis for children's social and emotional development, but also for their academic achievements. Comprehensive, integrated curriculum plans are also needed. Such curriculum engages children in the study of topics that are of interest to them through which they can learn new vocabulary words, solve mathematics problems, acquire literacy skills, ask questions, and investigate answers. For example, in studying construction, children learn new words such as zone and building , and the names of tools. They count and measure. They solve the problem of how to build higher without the structure falling over. They share blocks and talk with other children and teachers. They also engage in literacy experiences as they "write" a sign for their building or look at books of construction sites.

The preschool years are the peak developmental period for pretend play. Children's play is often the best context for them not only to acquire self-regulation and learn how to get along with other children, but also to practice language and other newly acquired skills. Good teachers are not passive while children play. They set up the environment with props, a theme, time, and space to encourage such play, and they may take on a role in the play to encourage language interaction and learning.

Think of a four-year-old child. What are the first words that come to mind? Curious? Eager to learn? Good preschools take advantage of young children's deep desire to actively engage with and make sense of the world around them. Good pre-K programs prepare children for later success in school and life, and they also provide them with joyful, intellectually interesting learning experiences every day of their four-year-old lives.