Selecting pre-K curriculum is one of the most important and complex decisions early learning leaders make. The pre-K landscape is diverse, with programs varying widely in structure, approach, and how they support development across domains. 

At the same time, educators are often navigating this complexity without consistent access to high-quality materials. In fact, 85% of pre-K teachers use multiple curricula, frequently  supplementing to meet student needs. 

Because of this, choosing materials requires more than reviewing available options. It requires a thoughtful, structured approach to decision-making. Strong selection processes begin with clear goals, a shared understanding of quality, and alignment to local priorities before turning to specific programs. Just as important, districts must consider from the outset how they can create the conditions and support needed to implement strong materials well over time. 

EdReports reviews can support this work by providing independent, educator-informed insight into curriculum quality. The reports offer valuable evidence when used alongside educator expertise and thoughtful planning.

The steps that follow outline a clear process for moving from vision-setting to evaluation and implementation, helping teams make informed, context-specific decisions for young learners.

1. Establish a Strong Foundation for Decision-Making

Effective curriculum selection begins with establishing clear direction and structure for decision-making, along with a realistic understanding of the conditions needed for successful implementation.

First, define the goals of your selection process and the purpose for adopting new materials. States and districts should clearly articulate what they aim to accomplish through the adoption and how new materials will support that work. This includes establishing a clear rationale for change, identifying desired outcomes for teaching and learning, and defining how success will be measured over time. 

In pre-K, priorities may include strengthening coherence across developmental domains, ensuring materials support developmentally appropriate learning experiences, and improving access for all learners, including multilingual learners and children with disabilities. 

Grounding the process in a shared theory of action helps ensure that decisions are intentional and focused on improving instructional practice, not just selecting new products. It also helps teams consider not only which materials are high quality, but whether they can be supported well in the local context from the outset.

Next, establish the conditions for the adoption process. Set key parameters, including budget, timeline, procurement requirements, and approval processes. These should align with district and state policies and extend through implementation. Strong upfront planning is essential, as gaps early on often lead to challenges with stakeholder buy-in and implementation later in the process.

Finally, build a representative and well-structured adoption committee. Districts should intentionally assemble a diverse group of stakeholders including teachers, school leaders, and specialists to guide the evaluation and selection process. 

Teachers, in particular, must play a central role. Their understanding of pre-K classroom realities, student needs, and existing materials strengthens the quality of decisions and increases the likelihood of successful implementation. Centering educator voice is crucial, as meaningful stakeholder engagement is closely tied to stronger adoption outcomes and sustained use of materials.

Together, these steps create a clear, structured foundation, ensuring teams evaluate materials with shared purpose, strong processes, and the conditions needed for classroom impact.

2. Develop a Shared Lens for Quality 

Once the process and committee are established, the next step is to define how materials will be evaluated.

This requires more than a list of criteria. It requires a shared understanding of what quality looks like in practice and how it applies in your local context. Through learning about early childhood development, curriculum design, and research-aligned practices, teams can build a common language for discussing quality and support more focused evaluation.

At the center of this work is an instructional vision that articulates what teaching and learning should look like within a program. Your instructional vision defines what strong classroom experiences entail, how children are expected to engage with content, and how development across domains is supported over time. In pre-K, for example, an instructional vision might highlight the importance of every classroom fostering curiosity, agency, and joyful learning through play, exploration, and intentional teaching that responds to each child’s interests and developmental needs.

This vision should be informed by a clear understanding of your program’s current state. Reviewing data from student outcomes, classroom observations, and educator feedback helps identify strengths and gaps. Based on these insights, districts should identify a set of local priorities that will help shape the selection process. These priorities reflect what matters most in your pre-K context, such as strengthening supports for multilingual learners, improving early language and literacy development, or ensuring specific materials are usable for educators in daily practice.

Critically, these priorities should not remain abstract. Districts should translate them into additional criteria used to evaluate materials, building on, but not replacing, research-based frameworks like EdReports review criteria. In doing so, teams create a local evaluation lens that ensures materials are assessed not only for general quality, but for how well they align to the specific needs of children and educators in their system.

These criteria guide the review process, shaping comparisons, focusing discussions, and grounding decisions in both evidence and context.

3. Explore the Curriculum Landscape and Narrow Your Options

With a clear lens in place, teams can begin exploring available options.

This stage is often where EdReports reviews are first introduced. They provide a valuable starting point, offering independent analysis of how materials align to key dimensions of quality. 

However, one of the most important shifts teams can make is moving beyond summary ratings. Ratings such as “meets” or “partially meets expectations” are useful signals, but they are not conclusions. They are entry points into deeper analysis.

The full reports, particularly the evidence and explanations within each gateway, provide the context needed to make these distinctions. By the end of this step, you should have between two and four high quality programs you intend to investigate more deeply.

4. Investigate Materials in Practice

As teams narrow their options, the focus shifts from initial exploration to deeper investigation.

Reviewing sample lessons, examining teacher materials, and engaging directly with the structure of the curriculum allows teams to see how materials function in practice. It reveals not only what is included, but how a program is intended to be used.

Conversations with publishers can also play an important role. When guided by clear criteria and priorities, these conversations become opportunities to probe beyond marketing claims and understand the design of the materials more deeply.Piloting materials can often provide additional, valuable insight. While not always feasible, even limited opportunities to test materials in real classroom settings can surface important considerations about usability and fit.

5. Make a Decision and Plan for What Comes Next

By the time teams reach a decision, they should have a clear understanding of both the strengths and tradeoffs of each option.

At this stage, the goal is not to identify a perfect program. It is to select materials that best align with your pre-K program’s goals, your district’s local priorities, and your capacity for implementation.

But selection is not the endpoint. In many ways, it marks the beginning of the most challenging and critical phase of the process:  translating a strong choice into strong classroom practice.

Research on curriculum adoption consistently highlights a gap between selection and implementation. While most leaders express confidence in their ability to choose high-quality materials, far fewer report having strong systems in place to support implementation or assess effectiveness over time. 

This gap has real consequences.Implementation requires more than distributing materials. It requires preparing educators, aligning systems, and creating structures for ongoing support and improvement.

Professional learning is central to this work. Educators need time and support to understand not just what the materials include, but how instruction shifts when those materials are used effectively. Leadership and coaching also play an important role. School leaders and instructional coaches must be equipped to support teachers, provide feedback, and ensure that materials are used as intended.

Equally important are systems for feedback. Implementation evolves over time, and strong systems allow leaders to gather input, monitor progress, and adjust supports as needed.

The most successful adoption processes are those that treat implementation not as a final step, but as an integral part of the process from the very beginning.

Making the Right Decision for Your Community

Selecting pre-K curriculum is not about finding a universally “best” program.

It is about making informed, context-specific decisions that align with what children need and with what a local system can realistically support and implement well.

EdReports pre-K reviews provide valuable insight into curriculum quality. And the reports are most effective when used as part of a broader, thoughtful process, one that centers educator voice, reflects local priorities, and plans for implementation from the start.