Nature preschool offers school readiness skills comparable to those of a typical preschool

There is a rapidly growing trend in Western countries to offer preschool education in nature. More information is urgently needed on whether the use of nature as a learning environment has beneficial or debilitating effects on the development of children’s general school readiness skills. This study examined the differences in parent-reported language and math, motor and visual skills, and social skills of Finnish children attending a nature preschool (N = 85) and peers attending a typical preschool (N = 65) at age 6. The moderating effects of gender and parental level of education were examined. The two preschool groups did not differ significantly from each other in their language and math skills (p = 0.380), motor and visual skills (p = 0.275), peer problem scores (p = 0.451) or prosocial behavior scores (p-value = 0.142). None of the non-significant effects were moderated by either gender or parental level of education. These results provide useful evidence for policy-makers that children can achieve equally good language, math, motor and social skills irrespective of whether nature or the typical classroom is used as a learning environment during the preschool year.