What Skills are Important for a Successful Career in Preschool Education?

If you want to be a preschool teacher, you know that a degree in early childhood education is the first step. A successful career in preschool education is so much more than having a degree. Great preschool teachers share specific skills that make them successful, and while some of those skills are developed and refined in the classroom, others are innate to those who are drawn to teaching young children.

Successful Preschool Teachers Have a Passion for Working with Children

Without a passion for working with young children, you can be an adequate preschool teacher, but you won’t achieve the same level of success as someone who is fully dedicated to teaching preschool. Passion for working with young children can’t be taught. To be a successful preschool teacher, you should enjoy watching children of all backgrounds grow, learn, explore, as well as possess the desire to help them succeed. Seeing a young child learn and develop skills and helping to build that strong foundation is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching preschool.

Preschool Teachers Have Strong Organizational Skills

When you are working with a large group of young children, organization is a necessity. You’ll need to have well-planned lessons, easily accessible materials, and an organized classroom with designated spaces. Preschool teachers need to always manage their space and time wisely. When everything is structured and organized, children feel comfortable and safe, and when they feel comfortable and safe, they can focus on learning. Keeping the class on track with students who know what to expect will make your classroom a successful one.

Preschool Teachers are Excellent at Communication

Communicating with young children is a skill. A successful preschool teacher will be able to clearly and concisely explain activities, rules, and expectations to very young students. They need to be good listeners to meet the needs of their students, especially as children are developing language skills themselves. In addition to communicating with students, successful teachers know how to best reach the families of their students, keeping them involved and up to date. Not only that, but communication is evolving. Many preschools are now using digital sites to share and communicate with families, so good digital communication skills and the ability to work with technology are now just as important as being able to communicate face to face. 

Successful Teachers Have Strong Classroom Management Skills

Without strong classroom management, it won’t matter how strong you are in lesson planning or teaching concepts. If the students are off task and undisciplined, they aren’t learning. Keeping a class of preschool children focused and engaged is a challenge, and a skill that will need to be developed. The best way to build this skill is to avoid downtime and create consistent daily schedules with structured routines. Young children are not always predictable and can act out when frustrated, so successful preschool teachers will need to develop a system to respond to challenging behavior. Patience, compassion, and clear expectations with consequences are all necessary for a well-managed classroom.

Great Preschool Teachers Combine Excellent Planning Skills with Flexibility

Great preschool teachers are creative with a high level of energy, but these skills aren’t enough on their own. A good preschool teacher will be able to plan developmentally appropriate lessons that will meet the needs of each child. They need to know what skills need to be taught and teach them in an engaging way. Your early childhood education classes can help you develop the skills to plan a good lesson, but you also need to do that with a great degree of flexibility. Successful teachers are able to adjust on the fly as needed.

How a Degree in Early Childhood Education Can Help You Hone These Skills

When you pursue a degree in early childhood education, you will develop knowledge of how children grow and learn during the formative years. You will develop strategies to hone this development, strategies for classroom management, instruction in how to build a lesson plan, and how best to structure a day as a preschool teacher. But being a successful preschool teacher is more than just mastering your coursework. In a good early childhood education program, you will also get the chance to work on skills such as organization, flexibility, and communication, and most importantly, you’ll understand why working with young children is so important. 

With a degree in early childhood education and the right skills, you can be a successful preschool teacher with a fulfilling career. Not only that, you will know that you are making a difference in the lives of young children and their families. If you have always felt like you’d be a great teacher, contact Athena Career Academy. We offer a comprehensive early childhood education degree program, and our caring staff and faculty are here to support you and help you succeed.