Early Childhood Programs

High-quality early childhood education is essential. Early educational experiences can have well-documented long-term positive impacts on young children’s cognitive and social emotional development. Early childhood programs not only provide formative experiences for our nation’s youngest children but they also provide safe and high-quality care for children while parents and caregivers work.

View Resources

Throughout the pandemic, early childhood providers continued to provide high-quality education and care in extraordinary times. Programs and providers in the fields of early childhood education, early intervention, and early childhood special education responded quickly to provide services in modified learning environments and meet the health, safety, social, emotional, and other needs of children and their families. Now, as early childhood programs and providers work to maintain safe in-person operations and help their communities recover from the impacts of the pandemic, these supports must remain responsive and ongoing.

The resources on this page share information for supporting the nation’s youngest children and their families; maintaining safe and healthy environments; and ensuring teacher, faculty, and staff well-being, professional development, and supports that are specific to early childhood education providers. Early childhood providers may use these best practices and lessons learned to inform their strategies for responding to young children’s and their families’ needs as children and their families continue to recover from the impacts of the pandemic.

Preschool children singing together
Three young girls of different ethnicities smiling with arms around one another

Supporting Multilingual Learners

This informative brief for educators and school leaders denotes how states are using Federal funding to build capacity, create infrastructure, provide direct services, and pilot work that is new for them — all as part of strategic efforts to provide a high-quality education to multilingual learners.

Action Planner for Reengaging Students to Support Everyday Attendance

This printable action planner provides a reflective process for state education agencies, local education agencies, school and district leadership, educators, and families to collaborate on reengaging students who have disengaged or unenrolled from school. The planner shares guiding questions, examples, a root cause analysis tool, and additional resources.

Action Planner for Reengaging Students to Support Everyday Attendance
Two young elementary students shaking hands in a classroom

SEL Center - From Vision to Action: Transforming Kindergarten Into a Sturdy Bridge From Early Learning to K-12 Education

This webinar features presenters from the Transforming Kindergarten Collaborative discussing their states’ efforts to support young children transitioning into kindergarten.

Submit Your Lessons Learned and Best Practices

Have a lessons learned or best practice for helping early childhood centers continue to recover from the pandemic? Visit the Best Practices Submission page to view details on submission requirements, and then e-mail bestpracticesclearinghouse@seiservices.com to share your lessons learned or best practice.

Provide Feedback

Have feedback to share on a resource accessed on the Clearinghouse site? We want to hear from you. Select the button below to share your feedback with the U.S. Department of Education and the Clearinghouse team.

The back of a reading group of children in the background with a smiling young boy in the foreground turning around to face the camera

Integrating Language Into Early Childhood Education: Effective Instructional Practices, Examples, and Practice Shifts for Early Childhood Education Teachers

Designed for early childhood educators and staff, this teaching brief shares key instructional practices that advance outcomes for young multilingual learners. Each practice recommendation is accompanied by implementation tips and examples as well as supplemental tools and resources to further learning.

Pages of the 'Research-Based Resources to Support Early Literacy' newsletter

REL Resource | Research-Based Resources to Support Early Literacy

REL Northwest developed two products that list readily accessible resources for caregivers, practitioners, and policymakers to use to support early literacy. The resources to support children ages 0–3 are organized into two parts: (1) effective and promising programs and (2) research-based practices.

Submit Your Lessons Learned and Best Practices

Have a lessons learned or best practice for helping early childhood centers continue to recover from the pandemic? Visit the Best Practices Submission page to view details on submission requirements, and then e-mail bestpracticesclearinghouse@seiservices.com to share your lessons learned or best practice.

Provide Feedback

Have feedback to share on a resource accessed on the Clearinghouse site? We want to hear from you. Select the button below to share your feedback with the U.S. Department of Education and the Clearinghouse team.

View Resources