Introduction
Children have a lot to learn, and when at the right age, they are taken to kindergarten school, where they start to pursue education. Today, parents in the United States introduce their children to pre-schooling before kindergarten admission to have the upper hand in class. The pre-exposure to schooling makes the students conversant with learning; thus, while the newly admitted students who have no pre-schooling start from scratch, the other schooled students are way ahead in classwork.
The decision to pre-school children by other parents led to the writing of this action research proposal. Is it beneficial for students to have prior schooling before entering kindergarten at public schools?
PPR Competency
Pre-school is beneficial to students learning and academic achievements; however, most parents do not know about it. I asked my friends if their families implemented pre-schooling on their homestead, and only a few were familiar with this practice. Despite its benefits, I am convinced that pre-schooling is not practiced because of a lack of awareness.
The teachers who tutor the children should be able to relate well and understand how to maximize the benefits of pre-schooling. Competency 001 of “Pedagogy and Professional Responsibilities” states that a teacher should acknowledge the stages of human development and apply them to plan instructions and assessments that are respective to their developmental needs, characteristics, and student motivation. Teachers need to understand the development stage of a child to maximize pre-schooling.
Description of the Problem
The problem that needs addressing is whether it is beneficial to have pre-schooling before entering kindergarten in public schools. Some students are beneficiaries of this early schooling, while others have suffered late admission into kindergarten. When the child starts to talk and understand words, the child can learn. Early introduction to learning enhances the development of the child as a thinker. Children who start learning early before others are better positioned to communicate and comprehend information quickly.
Pre-schooling makes children exposed to new ideas and concepts, thus becoming familiar with and starting to apply them, such as counting numbers and greetings. The familiarity allows the student to understand and use, thus becoming more active in the classroom. Pre schooling makes students confident in themselves compared to those who start schooling in kindergarten. The students who had no pre-school tend to be shy as they are afraid to make mistakes. The concern is on the instructional strategies as the educators get the opportunity to nature independence and strategic learning in these students early enough.
Instructional Strategies
Instructional strategies are teaching techniques used by teachers to promote independent strategic learning among students. Instructional strategies help the student by motivating and helping them focus their attention and evaluate their learning process, organizing information to remember and understand. The strategy needs the involvement of the student, and the teacher as the pre-schooling students are young and thus delicate to handle. The plans are effective in improving the child’s ability to remember and understand the concepts being taught. The instructional program includes; graphic organizers, student-centered, relevant vocabulary, little lecture, and student movement.
Graphic organizers are learning materials in chats, shapes, or paintings that help the children understand what is being taught. The graphic organizers enhance learning in children by visually organizing new information, thus easier to remember and apply because of their visual quality. The teacher uses these materials to explain concepts about the lesson to the child since they cannot quickly understand.
The graphic organizers allow them to make use of the vision, which is highly memorable to the student. The strategy will work because children have a quick response to images than verbal communication, abling them to learn new information quickly compared to when it’s done verbally.
Student-centered learning is where you let the student dominate the lesson by allowing them to learn from themselves. Students are allowed to coordinate the education by themselves while the teacher becomes the supervisor. The strategy involves the children and helps boost their confidence as they are allowed to dominate; for instance, a teacher might ask the child to narrate a story. Through this narration, the student can express themselves and thus boost the child’s communication and confidence.
The strategy is effective since children are usually open with one another, especially when there is minimal supervision from the teacher or an elder. The freedom will allow students to participate, making the lesson interactive. As the teacher, the strategy will allow me to learn how to manage a classroom from a disruptive to a controlled learning environment.
The use of relevant vocabulary is a structural strategy that allows learning by using simple, appropriate language that the student will understand. A common understanding between the teacher and the student during the learning experience makes learning and teaching easier. Therefore the teacher is expected to use relevant vocabularies that the student interacts with more often. The strategy would work because if communication between the student and the teacher is established, learning is likely to occur, which is different if the teacher uses vocabulary that the student did not understand. Terminologies used in teaching play a significant role in the students’ understanding of the information conveyed.
The limited lecture is critical in the students’ understanding of what the educator is teaching. A child’s concentration span is limited to a few minutes; therefore, if the class becomes too long, the student will be distracted throughout the rest of the lesson, thus restricting understanding. The teacher should realize this when dealing with pre-schooling students and limit the lecturing time to a period in which all students will be attentive. The strategy is effective since limited lecture maximizes the student’s attention, enhancing understanding compared to when the student is already distracted and unable to pay attention.
The student movement is essential in between learning as it makes the students actively engaged. When the students are let to move about once in a while, it makes them active; hence the teacher will notice improved participation among the students. Students’ engagement in class leads to improved learning as they become attentive and listen to the teacher. When the students are kept sited in the same place for a long time, they become inactive encouraging sleep in the classroom. I believe the strategy can work since increased participation in class increases student-teacher engagement, thus promoting learning.
Literature Review
The book “The Current State of Scientific Knowledge on Pre-Kindergarten Effects” supports my proposed strategy of student-centered learning. The author says that the benefit of responsiveness between the teacher and the children increased child engagement (Duke University, 2017). The interaction between the teacher and the learner is productive in that the students are left to dominate the lesson by sharing their experiences and expressing themselves through various means.
Student-centered learning can include student story narration, drawing of chats, and oral recitation of numbers. The strategy is effective since, in most cases, a student can quickly memorize numbers and letters more than any other thing.
A study researched to determine the student-centered learning effectiveness found that students are more active when managing themselves (Cheung, Ling & Leung, 2017). The students tend to be more actively involved when they have the freedom to do what they want than when an elder or teacher supervises them.
Take, for instance, the student’s involvement during the break period and class sessions when they are supposed to be learning. The students take to heart their freedom and are more involved in the games when playing than in class. The same concept applies to learning as it improves the student’s involvement and participation in learning when they are left to manage themselves.
Investigation made on the different techniques used in teaching English found that graphic organizers improved the students learning and understanding of the lesson(Kalmamatova et al., 2020). The investigation results showed improved memory retention of the class taught with graphic organizers compared to theory. Students respond more to things that they can see and can refer to boost their understanding. For example, the use of diagrams and charts with an animal diagram and name was highly productive.
When you draw an object and name it, the student will easily remember how the object looks and its description. When the same student is verbally told the name of an object without a graphical representation, the student will miss remembering the thing. Therefore, the article supports my strategy of employing graphic organizers to enhance students’ development and learning of new information.
Description of the Strategy to be Used
I will implement the graphic organizer strategy by pinning chats on the wall with numbers and pictures with the corresponding name. For example, I will have one chart with rainbow colors to memorize all the rainbow colors. The type of data that I will collect is evaluative outcome data. The data collected will be assessed and evaluated through the observation of the response of the graphic organizers. The students will help me determine the strategy’s success by presenting the rainbow colors in order of arrangement.
I will implement student-centered learning by choosing specific days that the student will be earning from themselves. After consulting with the class on the days that they would be teaching themselves, I will supervise and observe the learning. The evaluative data collected in this strategy is; impact evaluative data. I will assess and evaluate the data by following the impact created by the strategy. By taking note of his students’ participation, I will determine the effectiveness of the strategy.
The implementation of the relevant vocabularies is by using the terminologies that the student can understand. The students haven’t been to school yet using more straightforward language that is critical in enhancing the students’ ability to understand and communicate. I will collect the data and use the verbal presentation to determine the success of the strategy. I will ask the students to reflect on what I have taught in or their own words so that I can know if the student understood the lesson.
I will implement student movement by asking the student to stand up when responding to a question and presenting an idea. The mobility will allow the student to pay attention in the lesson and be active during the study. The activeness engages the student’s attention to the educator and the ongoing class. When the student is active and participates in the lesson actively, I will know that the strategy is successful since it has improved the student’s engagement in the class. Teacher-student engagement enhances understanding and learning of new information.
Future Classroom
Having gained experience on the impacts of the strategies, I will narrow down on the most effective ones. The implementation of these strategies has a positive effect on the student’s development and learning. To make these strategies a success, I will need charts and drawings to act as my graphic organizers. The use of these graphics organizers will boost the student’s understanding and enhance the learning process. I will observe the student s behavior in the classroom and counter-check the student’s academic performance and communication. If the students become more active in class and their academic performance improves, it will indicate the strategy’s success.
Counter Argument
One might argue that even though these strategies are effective in early childhood learning, the student will miss out on socializing and interacting with friends. The student’s interaction with other children is essential in the child’s development. When the student’s time is stipulated for studies while other children are playing, the student will be active in class once he or she is admitted to a kindergarten; however, the student will lack social skills. Therefore as parents consider the benefits of pre-schooling, they should remember that the child needs to play with other children as it is also a part of the child’s development.
The Success of the Strategy
I will observe the pre-schooling students’ behavior and participation during learning to determine the success of the strategies employed. The assessment will be casual as it will be observing to notice how the student responds to the strategy. If the student is actively participating in the learning, can freely express themselves, and remember the number chart on the wall, then I will be certain that the strategy is effective. My objective is to ensure the student can understand and communicate freely and confidently in preparation for kindergarten.
Conclusion
In conclusion, introducing a child to pre-schooling before admission into kindergarten is essential in establishing an excellent academic foundation. An exemplary implementation of the structural strategies also improves the students’ effectiveness in pre-schooling, initiating the student into the learning environment. The structural strategies should be adopted to enhance the understanding and learning process of the student before getting admission into the kindergarten and the practicing teachers’ experience.
References
Cheung, S., Ling, E., & Leung, S. (2017). Beliefs associated with support for child-centered learning environment among Hong Kong pre-service early childhood teachers. Journal Of Education For Teaching, 43(2), 232-244. Web.
Duke University. Center for Child and Family Policy. (2017). The current state of scientific knowledge on pre-kindergarten effects. Web.
Kalmamatova, Z., Shamurzaev, A., Ysmailova, R., Belekova, K., Ahmadalieva, D., & Sartbaeva, N. et al. (2020). Graphic Organizers as Effective Methods in Teaching Classroom English. Open Journal Of Modern Linguistics, 10(05), 459-467. Web.
Appendix A
Observation list outlook to determine the strategy success:
- Are the students active in class?
- Are the students able to express themselves through narration?
- How does the student react when left to dominate learning?
- Are there any disruptive behaviors noticed?
- How do the students respond to the graphic organizers?
- Is there improvement in the students’ performance and application of concepts taught?