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How to Build the Best Preschools

Ashley Rzonca teaching a prekindergarten class at the Woodside Community School in Queens.Credit...Edu Bayer for The New York Times

As an education reporter and 30-something Brooklynite, I often field questions from friends about the city’s free preschool program. What my college-educated peers seem to worry about most is that their 4-year-olds will be stifled by overly academic classrooms; after all, parents in my demographic tend to spend time at home reading and reviewing numbers and letters. At school, they want their children to play dress-up, make art and learn to cooperate with others.

So I was immediately intrigued when I received an email from Bruce Fuller, a prominent education researcher. Mr. Fuller told me about the results of his latest study: He and a group of colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, found that white and black children who attended more “academic-oriented” pre-K programs — similar to New York City’s — had stronger reading and math skills by the end of kindergarten, without negative social or emotional effects.

The study could have implications for parents as well as politics. The school reform movement has pushed to bring more formal math and phonics concepts into the preschool curriculum. At the same time, education experts I trust say academics and play don’t exist on opposite ends of a spectrum. Rather, in an effective classroom, they are intermixed.

To bring the research alive, I visited two programs with ostensibly different approaches. (Read the story I wrote about it here.) The first was the Woodside Community School in Queens, part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Pre-K for All program. It serves a diverse working- and middle-class neighborhood, with many immigrants from Latin America, South Asia and the Middle East. The school offers plenty of playtime, but also has a strong focus on getting its students, many of whom are learning English for the first time, academically ready for kindergarten.

The classrooms at Woodside exploded in bright posters and student artwork, and were saturated with text. Practically every object was labeled, including the “teacher’s chair.” (The idea is that the more words children see, the sooner and better they will learn to read.) Students used computers to play educational games. The school rules included “share,” “pay attention” and “gentle hands.”

At first, I was surprised to see the teacher Ashley Rzonca conducting a whole-group geometry lesson — a teaching strategy usually associated with older grades. But the lesson lasted less than 10 minutes, and Ms. Rzonca transitioned the class into guided play. She carefully observed the children, stepping in to reinforce relevant concepts, like how to write a complete sentence to label one’s artwork. This “academic” pre-K looked like fun.

I chose the second school, Aster Montessori in Cambridge, Mass., expecting a stark contrast. After all, the small private school serves a highly educated group of parents, exactly the demographic that is often skeptical of formal instruction.

Compared with the colorful exuberance of Woodside, Aster was spartan. Much of the white walls remained bare; there was also no dress-up, no “cooking” in a pretend kitchen or discussing favorite characters from Disney movies. Among the principles of a Montessori education, developed a century ago, is that students eschew fantasy play during school hours in favor of “real-life” activities, like squeezing juice from an orange and then drinking it (as I saw one 3-year-old proudly do).

But Aster’s lead teacher, Kanan Patel, had much in common with Ms. Rzonca in Queens. One moment, Ms. Patel was teaching a one-on-one phonics lesson; the next she was introducing a different student, who was counting wooden pegs, to the concept of a “remainder” in division. Both classrooms had caring teachers who created stimulating environments.

I finished the reporting thinking that I would gladly send a child of mine to either school. Indeed, as publicly funded pre-K expands, the division may be not between academics and play, but between programs with well-trained and well-paid teachers and those without. That’s the message I’ll be sharing with my friends: Consider the staff as much as the curriculum.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: How to Build the Best Preschools. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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