Pre-kindergarten

Pre-kindergarten (also called Pre-K or PK) is a voluntary classroom-based preschool program for children below the age of five in the United States, Canada, Turkey and Greece (when kindergarten starts). It may be delivered through a preschool or within a reception year in elementary school. Pre-kindergartens play an important role in early childhood education. They have existed in the US since 1922, normally run by private organizations. The U.S. Head Start program, the country's first federally funded pre-kindergarten program, was founded in 1967. This attempts to prepare children (especially disadvantaged children) to succeed in school. Pre-kindergartens differentiate themselves from other child care by equally focusing on building a child's social development, physical development, emotional development, and cognitive development. They commonly follow a set of organization-created teaching standards in shaping curriculum and instructional activities and goals. The term "preschool" more accurately approximates the name "pre-kindergarten", for both focus on harvesting the same four child development areas in subject-directed fashion. The term "preschool" often refers to such schools that are owned and operated as private or parochial schools. Pre-kindergartens refer to such school classrooms that function within a public school under the supervision of a public school administrator and funded completely by state or federally allocated funds, and private donations. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that the percentage of U.S. three-, four-, and five-year-olds enrolled in pre-primary programs (including kindergarten and preschool programs) has stayed roughly stable from 2000 to 2017. U.S. participation rates in 2017 were 40% for three-year-olds, 68% for four-year-olds, and 86% for five-year-olds. As of 2016–17, a total of 44 states, plus the District of Columbia, provide at least some state funding for pre-K programs. Nine states (Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Oklahoma, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) plus D.