Guide to Selecting High Quality Pre-K Curriculum

The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a landmark report, A New Vision for High-Quality Preschool Curriculum, in April 2024. The report reflects the findings from a comprehensive study of preschool curriculum quality for children ages three to five, with special attention to the needs of Black and Latino children, multilingual learners, children with disabilities, and children experiencing poverty in the United States, led by a committee of experts with a wide range of early childhood expertise. The committee’s findings were informed by an extensive literature review and a series of public sessions through which input was gathered from researchers, policymakers, and practitioners.

The final report synthesizes valuable insights from the latest empirical and theoretical research and offers actionable guidance on how to select and implement high-quality preschool curricula. Importantly, the committee calls for a shift in mindsets, rejecting false dichotomies that often hinder curriculum decision-makers and instead embracing both-and approaches that leverage the wide base of research on what makes curriculum developmentally appropriate and effective for preschool children and their teachers.

In 2024-25, the EdSolutions team interviewed over 30 state and district early childhood education leaders regarding A New Vision for High-Quality Preschool Curriculum. The leaders said they valued the research and guidance on preschool curriculum quality in the report, but that they could use a shorter distillation of its guidance. In response, EdSolutions developed this Guide to Selecting High-Quality Preschool Curriculum. Below, we offer an introduction to the report and provide content and links to learn more from the guide.

What is a curriculum and why is it important in preschool?

The report defines curriculum as “a cohesive set of principles, learning goals, intentional teaching strategies, activities, experiences, and materials designed to help children learn and thrive,” and as a critical support for educators, saying, “A well-planned, research-based, and preferably validated curriculum provides an essential scaffold that can guide early childhood educators on what to teach and when; how to engage children; and how to support adaptation for individual, cultural, and linguistic diversity” (p. xix).

The report notes that “curriculum has been shown in research to be a key ingredient in the quality of preschool programs, and… is an important building block in realizing the promise of preschool to improve developmental outcomes equitably, for all children” (p. 15). In preschool, high-quality curriculum addresses both the content of children’s learning and the ways in which they learn. This combination of content and pedagogy, unlike many K-12 curriculum, reflects the science of early learning, indicating that young children’s learning is grounded in caring and trusting interactions with adults who offer a joyful approach to the discovery of knowledge and the mastery of skills.

What constitutes a high-quality preschool curriculum?

There are 29 elements of high-quality preschool curriculum discussed in the NASEM study, including:

• Research-based and Evidence-based for child outcomes
• Includes scope and sequence
• Covers content and learning domains in depth
• Emphasizes responsive, intentional teaching
• Supports culturally relevant and responsive teaching and learning
• Supports multilingual learners
• Provides individuation and effective supports for children with identified disabilities
• Supports family engagement
• Emphasizes playful learning and guided play
• Includes teacher educative content
  

All elements of quality are provided in this summary guide, which distills the consensus study into a shorter, easily searchable resource. We highlight a few elements of quality briefly below:

Covers content and learning domains in depth

The report calls for preschool curricula that contain meaningful content that centers child engagement and agency, and that offer guidance for content-specific teaching within rich and varied learning experiences. A pre-k program leader explained this element of quality by drawing the distinction between curricula that have units focused on things, like clothes or boxes, compared to curricula that have units focused on concepts, like light and shadow or growing and changing, which offer opportunities for deep content exploration and complex thinking. (Read more here.)

Supports multilingual learners

A high-quality preschool curriculum should take a strengths-based approach to supporting bilingualism by teaching English systematically while actively supporting home language development. Recognizing that not all teachers are multilingual, the curriculum should include adaptations of instructional practices that scaffold language development and comprehension (including frequent, responsive, and enriched language interactions), as well as materials and learning experiences that accurately reflect and build on the cultures and languages of multilingual children and their families. (Read more here.)

Provides individuation and effective supports for children with identified disabilities

High-quality curricula are designed for inclusive settings with evidence-based adaptations and accommodations embedded throughout to facilitate the active engagement and learning of children with disabilities. They provide scaffolded supports that increase opportunities for effectively integrating children with disabilities in general education early childhood settings while effectively meeting their unique developmental needs and fostering healthy peer relationships. The strengths and needs of students with disabilities should not be an afterthought or addressed only in high-level accommodations offered in the margins of curriculum. Instead, the study calls for curricula to provide integrated, specific guidance for teachers to meet the needs of children with disabilities throughout classroom activities and routines. (Read more here.)

How can early education leaders use the study (and the guide) to inform the selection and implementation of high-quality preschool curriculum?

The new vision of preschool curriculum quality is intended to serve all children, especially those who have been denied equitable access to high-quality preschool programs. State early education leaders can consider how current preschool curriculum policies, curriculum review processes, quality improvement system (QIS) indicators and supports, and/or other curriculum resources provided by the state reflect the elements of quality and where there might be opportunities to increase alignment with the report’s findings. Preschool program leaders can further use the elements of quality to support improvements in curriculum implementation and to inform any new curriculum choices.

Our hope is that the guide will expand access to the wealth of information in the NASEM report and thereby support the selection and use of high-quality preschool curriculum and, in turn, the quality of public preschool programs that serve the nation’s children. If you are a pre-k leader seeking to understand the NASEM study and how you can apply its guidance in your context, please also feel free to access these brief guides to learn more: How State Leaders Can Support Use of High-Quality Preschool Curriculum and How District and Program Leaders Can Support Use of High-Quality Preschool Curriculum.

Read more about improving pre-K assessment, data, and curriculum at the New America collection page.