Supporting arts eductation at the preschool age

Supporting arts education in preschool children is important for a wide variety of reasons:

• Preschool care and education, except for certain low-income programs, is considered a private service and receives little or no federal funding.
• While the importance of early childhood arts education has received greater attention in recent years, the majority of funding and programming is directed to grades K–12, with preschools being largely underserved.
• Arts education should not be considered a frill, but a necessity. Since preschools are not part of the public school system, funding sources vary greatly. When budgets are tight, arts programs, teachers, and supplies are often cut first.
• More than four million children attend preschool programs nationwide.
• Preschool-age children are primed for learning and greatly accepting of most art forms.
• Compelling evidence exists that early arts experience has an impact on all aspects of a child’s learning and development and that, in many ways, “earlier is better.”
• Early childhood thus presents both a unique opportunity and a unique challenge; a part of that challenge is to engage and support all who care for and educate young children in making the arts an integrated and vital part of their earliest experiences.
• We know that “art,” understood as spontaneous creative play, is what young children naturally do—singing, dancing, drawing, and role-playing. We also know that the arts engage all the senses and involve a variety of modalities including the kinesthetic, auditory, and visual. When caregivers engage and encourage children in arts activities on a regular basis from early in life, they are laying the foundation for—and even helping wire children’s brains for—successful learning.

Source: Arts Education Partnership, Children’s Learning & the Arts: Birth to Age Eight

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