NAESP outlines three PreK-3 levers

Early learning is where schools either build momentum or quietly lose it. Kids can make real gains in pre-K and the early grades, but those gains often fade when each classroom feels like a reset. That is the gap NAESP is trying to name in a new May 2 piece for school leaders. The group’s argument is simple — PreK–3 improvement is less about one clever program and more about whether a school behaves like one connected system. (naesp.org) ### What changed here? NAESP’s new article, written by Ashley Watts in the May 2026 issue of *Communicator*, boils that system idea down to three levers: cohesion, change mindset, and continuity. The framing is aimed at principals, not just classroom teachers, which matters because the article treats this as an organizational problem — something leaders have to design into schedules, routines, staffing, and expectations. (naesp.org) ### What does “PreK–3 continuum” actually mean? Basically, it means children from pre-K through 3rd grade should experience school as a sequence, not a series of disconnected rooms. A strong continuum aligns what adults expect, how learning is supported, and how progress carries forward from year to year. NAESP has pushed this idea for years through its broader (naesp.org)e usual divide between early childhood systems and K–12 systems. (naesp.org) ### Why is cohesion one of the levers? Cohesion is the “same team” part. NAESP describes it as bringing the campus and community together around whole-child approaches, so teachers are not improvising separate definitions of readiness, behavior, or success. In practice, that means shared expectations across grades, collaborative routines among adults, and resource decisions that reinforce the same approach instead of pulling in different directions. (naesp.org) ### What is a “change mindset”? This is the part that goes beyond buying a curriculum. In NAESP’s example, one principal saw a growing population of multilingual learners and decided the school’s usual approach was not working well enough. The response was a play-based, experiential model spanning Pre-K through 3rd grade. But the real shift was cultural — adults(naesp.org)and how young children learn. (naesp.org) ### Why does continuity matter so much? Because young children pay a tax every time adults make them start over. Continuity means each year builds on the strengths, routines, and developmental progress of the last one. NAESP’s point is that early gains become “durable progress” only when leadership protects them through clear expectations and intentional handoff(naesp.org)nd rediscovering what students can already do. (naesp.org) ### What example makes this concrete? The article uses one first-grade student who was not yet fluent in English and often became frustrated during instruction. In the new play-based model, that student connected with peers and showed creativity, problem-solving, and social strengths that might have been missed in a narrower setup. That is the article’s real arg(naesp.org)rlook. (naesp.org) ### Is this just about pre-K buildings? No — and that is part of why the piece matters. Plenty of elementary schools are mixed-age, mixed-model places where pre-K, kindergarten, and early grades sit under one roof but do not actually function as a continuum. NAESP is saying the job of the principal is to make those grades cohere, so the building does not feel like four or five separate schools sharing a hallway. (naesp.org) ### So what’s the bottom line? NAESP is trying to move the conversation away from isolated early-childhood wins and toward system design. The new three-lever framing gives principals a compact way to think about that work: get adults aligned, get them genuinely open to changing practice, and make sure each grade inherits progress instead of erasing it. If those (naesp.org)ng a foundation. (naesp.org)