As your constituent, I ask you to support and expand access to high--quality early care and education for Infants and Toddlers. High-quality care and education is fundamental for children in their primary years of life when they are first learning and discovering. Infants and toddlers need early care and educators who have specific knowledge of the development of infants and toddlers, offer a reliable relationship, respond to their individual needs, and cultivate their growth and development. A young child’s relationship with his or her caregiver influences the child’s cognitive, language, social, and emotional growth. Very young children need high-quality care during the critical early years.
According to the research, …show more content…
Far too few child care programs offer the high-quality care that infants and toddlers need to learn and grow. High-quality infant and toddler care is often more demanding to find than high-quality care for preschoolers. Many child care workers working with infants and toddlers lack adequate exercise for working with young children.
Although there are some federal resources such as early head start to support high-quality early learning chances for very young children, these resources fall short of meeting the need.
Only less than 4 percent of qualified infants and toddlers are able to participate in this high-quality early learning program.
In general, child care offers early learning chances to children and assists parents to work so they can support their families. And the research is clear: high-quality early learning opportunities put children on a path to success in school and in life. Unluckily, many young children don't have access to these opportunities. Therefore, I'm counting on you to support in our country's future by expand access more in high-quality early care and education.
Yours sincerely,
Changcan