Nearly eight million children under the age of five miss preschool entirely every year in America. They are not falling behind; they are starting behind, walking into kindergarten without the developmental foundation that the research is unambiguous about. The window to build that foundation does not stay open while the system figures out how to reach them.
Shannon Penrose, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Operating Partner of Growing Brilliant, the nation’s leading live virtual preschool, has spent 30 years inside American education at every level: classroom, district, national publishers, including Lakeshore Learning and Discovery, EdTech, and nonprofit, arriving at a conviction that shapes everything she builds. “The first six years decide the next 60,” Penrose states. “And we are leaving half a generation behind.”
The Window Is Real, and It Does Not Wait
Brain development between ages two and six sets the trajectory for academic performance, emotional regulation, relationships, and mental health well into adulthood. This is one of the most replicated findings in early childhood research. When children miss this window, the education system spends the next 12 years trying to remediate what could have been built in four years. Prevention is faster, cheaper, and more effective than intervention at every subsequent stage. What is not yet reflected in how the country treats early learning is what science has shown for decades.
Penrose urges that treating preschool as optional is a policy decision with measurable generational consequences. The children who arrive at kindergarten without that foundation do not catch up on the same timeline as their peers. This gap, once established, widens across every subsequent year of schooling.
Build the Mind, the Heart, and the Will
The most consequential insight from early childhood research is not about content acquisition. A child’s belief in their capacity to learn predicts academic success more reliably than the specific knowledge they bring to school. Emotional regulation developed in early childhood produces measurably better life outcomes. Focus, self-control, and problem-solving ability outperform intelligence quotient (IQ) and family income as predictors of long-term success.
Penrose organizes Growing Brilliant’s curriculum around three pillars – mind, heart, and will – precisely because these capacities are trainable in the years before formal schooling begins. They are not personality traits that a child either has or lacks. They are skills built through repetition, relationship, and the right developmental experiences during the window when the brain is most receptive to building them. Getting these right early does not just prepare a child for kindergarten. It sets the neurological foundation for how they will approach challenge, setback, and learning for the rest of their lives.
Meet Children Where They Are
The traditional preschool system cannot reach every child. Geography, economics, family circumstance, and, for 350,000 children annually, hospitalization create access gaps that no federal program currently closes. Growing Brilliant’s live virtual model brings research-backed early learning into any home, any zip code, and any hospital room. The Bridge Project, a floating seat initiative developed by Penrose, specifically targets hospitalized children who would otherwise receive no mandated developmental support during what may be one of the most disruptive periods of their early lives.
The model change Penrose is advocating is not simply about technology. It is about rejecting the premise that high-quality early learning is a resource available only to families who can access it geographically or afford it financially. Every child is born with the potential to be unstoppable. Whether that potential gets built or buried depends entirely on the adults around them and the decisions made during the years that carry the most developmental weight. The window is open. The question is whether the adults with the means to act will treat it with the urgency the research demands.
Follow Shannon Penrose on LinkedIn for more insights on early childhood development, virtual preschool access, and building the educational models that reach every child during the years that matter most.
