Preschool is a time for learning 1-2-3s and ABCs, it’s true. But effective early learning isn't just about teaching letters and numbers. It's about designing materials that match how preschoolers think, learn, and develop.
School Zone's 45-year history of creating educational products for preschoolers and observing how they learn has shaped every workbook, game, and activity we make for that age group. According to multiple sources a child’s brain reaches 90% of adult size by age 5, forming critical neural connections along the way. To suggest little ones are like sponges is not just a saying.
As a company founded by a two-teacher couple who were raising five kids and saw a need for learning materials that moms and dads could use at home, we have long relied on teacher input and parent feedback, combined with research that includes classroom observation and experience, to guide product development. In turn, we believe parents can learn from the principles behind products from School Zone Publishing, and we invite you to take a look!
Independence Starts with Simple, Child-Friendly Design
Thoughtful product design matters in preschool education. It matters a lot. Little ones are taking in and soaking up so much, forming not just a knowledge base but habits, mindsets, and attitudes that will color their lifelong learning journey.
One of the biggest goals when creating products for 3–5-year-olds is helping kids work as independently as possible, even at such a young age. That is part of preschool readiness.
Here are a few elements that contribute to that goal:
• Making directions easy and age-appropriate
• Keeping pages clean and simple to avoid distraction—less is more at a young age
• Using rebus images and other visual clues to support understanding
• Presenting whimsical, relatable scenes and characters in bright colors that engage and motivate
• Reducing frustration through intuitive design based on observing kids at work and play
• Applying repetition to reinforce new concepts and skills, but also a variety of strategies to sustain interest
These elements allow children to understand activities even when an adult isn't sitting right beside them. They gain confidence to work independently, and in a full-circle, reciprocal cycle, working on their own further boosts their confidence.
For example, Jaz’s Preschool Learning Pack comes in a carrying case that features Jaz the Tiger. Unfolding it instantly reveals a panoply of playful possibilities including a Meet Jaz DVD, a workbook, two books—one of them about big cats—flash cards, game cards, and five games. Among them is Jaz’s Rainbow Razmatazz game printed right on the pack. The materials introduce and reinforce foundational skills in so many different ways.
With the Preschool Fold-Out Fun! Write & Reuse Workbook, kids ages 3-5 try their hand at early readiness activities, then wipe it all away to start over and do it even better, building their skills and confidence. It has a game board too, and a sheet of reward stickers that add to the fun and deliver a tactile experience that develops fine motor skills. By teaching colors, shapes, letters, primary phonics, numbers, early math, and more, this great play set sets the stage for school success. This kind of playful reinforcement of learning, using multiple approaches, is perfect as both a school aid and as a great addition to homeschool preschool teaching.
Children Learn Best with Clear Examples and Gradual Progress
Preschoolers benefit from seeing exactly what's expected before trying a new skill themselves. School Zone products introduce new concepts with visual examples, solve the first problem as a model, and build skills progressively from easy to more challenging over time.
To examine these features in a bit more detail, our products:
• Give pictorial examples for new concepts – A 2024 study in the Journal of Intelligence, posted to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central, notes, “In young children, vision accounts for from 75% to 85% of sensory input, followed by hearing and touch, making it the most dominant sense in early learning.”
• Complete the first activity as a guided example – Modeling gives clear expectations and makes activities easier to understand and “copy.”
• Progress from simple to more advanced skills – Moving from easier to harder challenges helps develop critical thinking, increases motivation, and reduces frustration. This may seem intuitive, but not all children’s learning materials flow this way.
• Build confidence through small successes – Kids learn that tasks can be broken down into smaller steps, and when they see their efforts and progress celebrated, it boosts their confidence and motivation.
Young Learners Need Focused, Age-Appropriate Activities
In an article titled Reducing Overwhelm for Kids posted to her website, Angela Lockwood, an occupational therapist based in Australia, says, “When a child is in overwhelm it feels like their brain and their body just can't take any more in and they either switch off and withdraw or they lash out to free the overwhelm.”
She adds, “At home overwhelm could look like your child racing to their room and slamming the door, going straight to the fridge and eating like it's their last meal, or annoying their sibling or even being physical with them.”
It’s easy for little learners to get overwhelmed, and it’s fairly easy for adults to overestimate their child’s tolerance. That’s why it’s so important to design activities that match developmental milestones, recognizing too, that different kids reach those milestones at different times.
To help kids avoid getting overwhelmed, School Zone materials:
• Limit activities to one or two concepts per workbook page or screen to reduce cognitive overload and overwhelm and help children focus
• Combine key concepts with tasks like tracing lines to support the development of fine motor skills
• Provide large tracing and writing spaces for developing and refining fine motor control
• Use age-appropriate pacing to keep little learners engaged
Practice and Review Help Preschool Skills Stick
It’s also important to remember that learning happens through repetition. Practice may not always “make perfect” as the old saying says, but it does almost always make better! The website for Active Learning Space, a collaborative project of Penrickton Center for Blind Children, Perkins School for the Blind, and Texas School for the Blind & Visually Impaired, includes a post on the value of repetition. Though targeting a specific student population, it notes that repetition is important for all learners because it “creates and strengthens neural connections in the brain.”
The article goes on to say, “The more ‘automatic’ a skill becomes the less energy it takes for the learner to use that skill and the more likely he/she will use it in many different situations and environments.”
School Zone intentionally revisits newly learned concepts throughout a workbook or learning path (in the case, for example, of our Anywhere Teacher online learning program) to reinforce understanding without feeling repetitive.
Our learning materials:
• Review recently introduced skills
• Reinforce learning through repeated practice
• Strengthen retention and confidence
• Help kids master foundational concepts before moving ahead
Parents and Teachers Are Essential Learning Partners
First Things First, an Arizona-based program dedicated to early childhood health and education, observes in a newsletter article that “A child’s relationships with adults are the most important influences on their brain development.” Although School Zone products are designed to encourage independent use, adult support remains not just valuable but essential. Like most aspects of raising kids, the goal is to yes, teach them to be independent, but also to offer guidance, guardrails, and training wheels along the way.
Of course, it can be challenging to know when—or how much—to step in, especially with really young children. A good general guideline is to get them started and then let them go and see what happens. Resist the urge to fix things immediately if they get stuck or frustrated. Offer some prompts and guiding questions like “It looks like you’ve almost got it” and “What else can you try?”
Praise the process, not just the results, noting, for example, how hard they worked on a problem or activity. Also encourage reflection by asking how they felt while working on it.
Recognizing that parents are their kids’ #1 teachers, School Zone products encourage parent participation and make it easy.
To help parent/child collaboration, most School Zone workbooks:
• A front-of-book Parent Guide
• Color-coded skills focus listed at the bottom of each page to guide targeted work
• Strategic tips throughout
• Back-of-book list of Activities to Share that extend the learning
Preschool Learning That Grows with Every Child
Our 45 years of designing learning resources have positioned School Zone as a long-time leader in childhood education, including preschool development and preschool learning skills. Parents who used our workbooks as kids are now introducing their kids—and grandkids—to dynamic new workbooks, online learning, and other early learning activities.
Here are a few key takeaways from School Zone educational research:
• Effective early education begins with understanding how preschoolers learn
• Small design choices can make a big difference in confidence and success
• Different children learn differently at different times in different ways
• Parents and educators are partners in every child's learning journey each step of the way
These elements all work together to prepare children not just for preschool, kindergarten, and overall school success but for lifelong learning. Barb Peacock, managing director at School Zone, says, “It takes a lot of work and research to make something so simple that a preschooler can use it.”
She adds, “There’s a saying that writers use: ‘If the reader struggles, then the writer didn’t, but if the writer struggles then the reader won’t.’ The same is true with our products, whether apps or workbooks. If a child struggles with them then we didn’t work hard enough. Simplicity is the key word, and it takes a lot of maturity in development, years of research, and a child’s view of the world to achieve simplicity.”
Explore School Zone preschool learning tools to see how that deeply considered simplicity sparks joy and curiosity.
