Results from the study indicated that participants believe that the learning environment is another important dimension to consider when working with children who are getting ready for kindergarten. Five factors were coded as important aspects of the learning environment: (1) safety, referred to as an environment that is emotionally and physically safe and without risk of injury so the child can explore; (2) age appropriateness, defined by participants as providing specific activities and materials that match the specific cognitive and verbal skills of the children in their programs; (3) teacher resourcefulness, defined as making use of a naturally occurring phenomenon, such as rain, to illustrate a specific lesson, as well as making use of other resources in the classroom, such as the various colors that surround the children, to demonstrate what each color looks like rather than simply using teacher-made materials; (4) clear rules and consequences, which refers to making the classroom rules and expectations consistently clear to the children while providing some boundaries within which children can learn and grow; and (5) predictability, defined as providing a routine that is predictable—one that the children can count on and that minimizes teacher stress.
Table 3 shows the distribution for each of the factors by program type. The results show that three of four Private and Family focus groups said that safety was an important preschool experience compared to none of the Public focus groups. With regard to age appropriateness, our coding scheme revealed that all four Family focus groups reported this as a key preschool experience compared to two of three Public and one of four Private focus groups. Center-based programs (whether Public or Private) did not report teacher resourcefulness as an aspect of their preschool teaching beliefs, whereas two of the four Family groups did.