Not every child is afforded the ability to attend a preschool. Many preschools are not free, and in some areas, they are only available to people who meet certain income eligibility requirements. Before you count out the possibility of your child attending preschool, be sure to do a little preschool homework of your own. There are some programs that your child might be eligible to attend. If your child is not elible for those programs, there are also numerous ways to ensure your child has the foundation he or she needs before beginning formal school.
Head Start is a not for profit program that offers a preschool type program to children based on statistical data. The idea of Head Start is to offer this program to children who come from situations that might lend them toward not having the same academic advantages as other children. These advantages include having parents who were not educated, being born into low income families, being born as a twin or having multiple brothers or sisters in the same age group, and being a children. If you feel that you have a decent income and do not fall into these categories, don’t count this program out. After all the applications are evaluated, depending on the available space, your child may be accepted into the program.
Sure Start is the military version of this program. The stark difference between Sure Start and Head Start is that Sure Start is based primarily on the rank of the sponsor. This means that if the sponsor is a junior enlisted person, he or she will have a higher chance of enrolling his or her child into the program than someone of a higher rank. One of the main drawbacks of this kind of system is that it doesn’t take into account that the sponsor’s spouse may have a very well paying job, or may be a higher rank military person. A junior enlisted sponsor may be married to a successful lawyer and will have a higher chance of getting his or her child enrolled into Sure Start than someone who is one rank higher, and whose spouse is unemployed. In short, Sure Start isn’t based primarily on income, as Head Start is.
Both Head Start and Sure Start are family and community focused. This means that, in many cases, family involvement is highly encouraged. Since family involvement is crucial to your child’s overall success in life, don’t be put off by the fact that you may be asked to volunteer certain hours of your time into these programs.
Child Find is a program that usually offers free developmental screenings for children ages 3-5. If you think that your child may be either physically or verbally delayed, you should check your local elementary schools or day care centers to see if there is a Child Find program near you. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), requires all states to identify and evaluate all children who may be in need of early developmental intervention, i.e. special education. Child Find is a component of this act. This program can be especially valuable for parents whose children have limited interaction with other children, and who may have hard to identify developmental delays.