When choosing a topic to research and discuss, I wanted to research something that I wasn’t as familiar with and that would be Junior Kindergarten. I come from a small town in central South Dakota. Where I went to school, there was only Kindergarten thru 12th grade, until the year after I graduated, when a preschool program was started at the school. It wasn’t until I had come to college and started the Early Childhood Education program at South Dakota State University, that I had first heard the term “junior kindergarten.” Over the past semester in my PS1 classes, I have heard the term more often and have become more familiar with what junior kindergarten is, but yet questions still remain. Some of the questions that I want an answer to are, what really is junior kindergarten, do I have to send my child to junior kindergarten, is junior kindergarten necessary for the education of young minds, and what are children learning in junior kindergarten?
Before you are able to determine if junior kindergarten is the right fit for your child, you first have to know what junior kindergarten is. So, what is junior kindergarten? In an article in the magazine, Educational Leadership¸ it was said that:
“Junior kindergarten is a year-long
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The first tier is junior kindergarten followed by regular kindergarten being the second tier (Galloway & George, 1986, p.68). Junior kindergarten was created with the intention to give children another year to become developmentally ready before they take on kindergarten. Given this extra year, children are given different opportunities to excel in different areas that will help better prepare them for kindergarten that following year. In 2006, Pagani, Jalbert, Lapointe, & Hébert agreed with Calloway & George and said that: “Junior kindergarten could represent an excellent opportunity to hone precursor social and academic skills that facilitate kindergarten and school entry success”
We investigated the Early Learning Content Standards and how they aligned with the kindergarten content standards. Our investigation will look at preschool-aged students who have gained this preschool knowledge prior to kindergarten and the negative or positive affects it has on their school career. Does it have an impact on their initial school year? Researching the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment Data on students currently in kindergarten and first grade, and determining who did and did not attend pre-school, will give us information on the students polled. Research states the social-emotional standards in preschool tie directly to kindergarten readiness and, if a child attends preschool, they will be exposed to the social-emotional content standard. The Early Learning Assessment given in preschool is the formative assessment component of Ohio's comprehensive early childhood assessment system called Ready for Kindergarten and is directly tied to the kindergarten readiness assessment that we pulled data information from. The purpose of this research is to show the direct effect of exposure to preschool in the outcomes of the assessments collected and the screenings done by the Ashtabula Area
Morality, which is one’s general standards about right and wrong behavior, also includes prosocial behavior and other traits such as honesty, fairness, and concern about other people’s rights and welfare (Omrod, 2014). Both morality and prosocial behavior involve multiple parts of the brain, emotions and complex reasoning abilities. Some age-typical characteristics for preschool aged children include, some understanding that behaviors causing physical or psychological harm are morally wrong, a sense of guilt and shame about misbehaviors that cause harm to others, also display empathy and sympathy, and children at this age also show an appreciation for the need to be fair.
Many children begin school at the ages of 5 or 6, the age when a child enters kindergarten. However, children?s learning capabilities are at there peak at earlier ages than that. Alison Gopnik, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley says, ?Children learn more in their early years than they ever will again. With the dissolution of the extended family, the best way to support early learning is with publicly funded pre-K? (Starr, 2002). Their brains are more primed to learn and will absorb more information earlier in life. Therefore the earlier children begin their education, the better. It is through these programs that the children learn proper etiquettes when dealing with teachers and fellow students. ?Children who attend well-planned, high quality programs?tend to learn more and are better prepared to successfully master the complex demands of formal schooling,? says one government commissioned review of research on early childhood education (Ruben, 2000/2001).
This child is presented with more opportunities later on in his life because of his maturity at that kindergarten level.
If we had a tool that would improve our children's performance in school and social settings, lower the crime rate, lower teenage pregnancy, and save taxpayers' money, who wouldn't want to use it? Preschool is that tool, but few people pay attention to or care about preschool's potential benefits. For many parents, preschool is a valuable asset, providing their children with social play, fun, and an experience within a school-like setting. Children in preschool learn social skills like respect for authority, listening, and sharing; they also benefit from interaction with peers, which results in improved language and relational skills. Unfortunately, many parents simply cannot afford the expensive cost of private preschools, and there are few other options. Children are valuable as the future of the country, but the government has largely ignored them. Whether at the federal or state level, the government needs to create a free preschool available to all families.
Sending your child to day care is a tough decision to make. Parents most look into various ideas when picking a day care center. They also must think about what is best for their child’s development whether it be social, physical or cognitive. There are various pros and cons to sending your child to day care and decide if it is right for your child and family.
Elaine Surbeck explains the background of early childhood learning programs. She talks about the history and how things have originated. Programs for children between the ages of three and six, while more recent to the American educational scene, have roots that are deeper and more diverse in origin than most people realize. Kindergartens, nursery schools, and day-care centers have existed in the United States for more than 100 years. The kindergarten, serving 5-year-olds, was first established in St. Louis public schools in 1873; private kindergartens have existed since 1855. Nursery schools serve children two through four years old. While the first nursery school in the U.S was a parent cooperative “typical” in America were often associated with university home economics departments and were established about 1922.
There are many theories surrounding the application of early childhood education. There have been many theorists and researchers whom have submitted factual information and strategies that has helped educators over the years. I believe that my personal beliefs about early childhood education is a combination of several theorists. In the world that we live in, not all people or children are created the same. There are several factors which make up a person’s mindset. People learn and process information differently depending on several different factors.
The modern early childhood curriculum refers to the experiences gathered throughout a child’s infancy and beyond. It incorporates everyday interactions with family members within a wide spectrum of environments. Such interactions can be spontaneous or structured however, it is important that they are established within a supportive, safe and nurturing setting in order for the child to flourish in terms of their mental and physical ability ( O’Hagen,and Smith (1998). We refer to such a curriculum as Child centered as equal emphasis must be made on the child’s learning through out infancy as it is within a formal education setting.
Importance of Early Childhood Education Early childhood education is for children from the ages of three to eight years old. There are four learning goals that early programs have for a young child. The four learning goals are: knowledge ( consisting of facts, concepts, ideas, and vocabulary), skills ( small units of action that occur in a short period of time), disposition ( respond to certain situations), and feelings ( emotional states) ( Katz 2003). With successful care giving and early education, it can bring a positive outcome to a child’s life. What a child learns in their early years are things that will continue to help them along in their future, in school and in the real world.
Kindergarten is an important milestone for young children. When children enter kindergarten, there are a variety of children that are from different backgrounds homes and preschools that need a wide range of support in kindergarten readiness. In either scenario parents would like their children ready for kindergarten. Kindergarten Readiness are specific skills and requirements for children who will be entering kindergarten. According to (Graue 1993), kindergarten readiness is a complex idea linked to meanings and factors, chronological age, development stage, specific academics and social skills, and home school connections. Each state has a kindergarten transition plan, checklist and what is expected from the children before they enter kindergarten.
On April 1, 2010, I was welcomed into Mrs. Smith’s all day kindergarten class at the O’Dea Core Knowledge Elementary School in Fort Collins Colorado to observe and note the classroom conditions, interactions of the children among themselves, the teachers or other authority figures and the manner in which learning takes place.
Early childhood education is teaching imparted to children of up to about eight years either formally or informally. Studies have shown the physical, emotional and social development of young children directly affects their overall growth and the adults they grew to be. Children enrolled in formal education programs that give them a head start before kindergarten tend to be more well behaved, learn faster and have higher IQ scores than their peers who did not get a prior formal education before kindergarten enrollment. However, critics of early childhood education claim only make a between children during kindergarten, first and second grade however during the subsequent years children who did not undergo initial childhood education
Entering my kindergarten teaching experience in the last quarter of school year I had to quickly become familiar with kindergarten content standards and the school’s curriculum. To do this I observed my mentor teachers instructional time with the children and gained as much information as I could about the children’s educational standing by developing a professional relationship with the my mentor teacher and the children. I learned that the majority of my kindergarten children had not previously attended preschool and that this was their first year of school. I found that interacting with the children in social activities provided me with great insight to their literacy, math, science, and social studies development. In reviewing the children’s class projects, school displays, and an array of their work sample along with my mentor teachers year-long assessments I was able to recognize challenging, emerging and advanced content areas of the children’s core curriculum. These emerging and challenging content areas is what I centered my curriculum planning around. “Information about each child’s learning and development is used to evaluate teaching effectiveness. This may lead to changes in schedule, curriculum and teaching strategies, room set up, resources, and so on.” (Bredekamp and Copple, p. 249)
Attending kindergarten means having more structure in a child’s young life, and they are ready for it after going to preschool. They have learned to socialize, follow simple rules, and stay on a task longer and longer. They are now ready for more intense learning; this is an opportune time for a teacher to harness the mind and still keep the fun and adventure of a kindergartener’s mind going.