Action research for kindergarten

1 past issues beyond this in chinese (pdf)mirar esta página en españurnal contentsissue research to address the transition from kindergarten to primary school: children's authentic learning, construction play, and pretend lian catholic en experience demanding changes during the transition from early childhood programs to primary school. Research shows that children’s initial academic and social success at school can affect their long-term adjustment, achievement, and success. The authors, both early childhood teachers in singapore, undertook an action research project that involved using young children’s constructions and pretend play to adapt a transition-related challenge into an authentic learning experience for a group of fourteen 5- to 6-year-olds in a suburban kindergarten. The teachers employed the action research cycle of data gathering and reflection about teaching practice and learner needs, planning and implementation of change to address the problem, and additional data gathering and reflection to assess the effects of the change and to determine future modifications.

Kindergarten action research

Research shows that children’s initial academic and social success at school can affect their long-term adjustment, achievement, and success (fabian & dunlop, 2007; giallo et al. Research and theory on transition emphasize the importance of linkages, close coordination, and continuity between early childhood programs and primary schools (arnold et al. This paper presents an action research project in which we adopted an innovative approach to address an issue in children’s transition from an early childhood program to primary school. We describe how we integrated young children’s constructions and pretend play to adapt a transition-related challenge into an authentic learning experience for a group of 14 children ages 5 to 6 years in a suburban kindergarten in t of the singapore, young children attend preschools—either child care centers or kindergartens—prior to entering primary school at the beginning of the year in which they reach 7 years of age.

Kindergartens offer 3- to 4-hour preschool educational programs for children between the ages of 4 and 6 years. Kindergartens are registered with the singapore ministry of education and are run by the private sector, including community foundations, religious bodies, social organizations, and business organizations. The daily program of kindergartens includes learning activities that develop language and literacy skills, basic number concepts, simple science concepts, social skills, creative and problem-solving skills, appreciation of music and movement, and outdoor play. Children learn in two languages—english as the first language and chinese, malay, or tamil as a mother were two early childhood teachers among a teaching staff of five (two males and three females) in a private kindergarten that we owned and operated.

The kindergarten had an enrollment of 42 children between 4 and 6 years old; most were from middle to upper middle socioeconomic backgrounds. This action research was undertaken in the program’s eighth year of operation and involved a group of fourteen 5- to 6-year-olds—five girls and nine in the suburbs of the city, our kindergarten has an outdoor play/garden area of approximately 400 square meters (4,000 square feet) and four classrooms totaling approximately 200 square meters (2,000 square feet). The school adopts a vertical grouping approach that allows one-to-one teaching, project work in small groups, and interactions among children of different singapore ministry of education provides a curriculum outline to serve as a guide, but individual schools are free to develop curricula within these guidelines, subject to the approval of the ministry. Our kindergarten curriculum was initially based on the montessori method (abdullah, 2001; lillard, 1996), but we found it to be overly structured after 2 years of working with this approach.

This dissatisfaction led to the introduction of the project approach into the curriculum, while basic numeracy and literacy skills continued to be taught using the montessori the project approach, children typically work on a topic of their choice, and they are actively engaged in exploring, investigating, thinking, communicating, decision making, problem solving, and reflecting (helm & katz, 2001; katz & chard, 2000). In the second phase, teachers support the children in their research and investigation as they seek answers to their questions. They are also encouraged to reflect on their gathering and action research project was carried out in response to consistent expressions of concerns and questions from parents over their children’s readiness for entry into primary schools. Second, we did not have a systematic approach to identifying important transition issues that were of concern to both the parents and the decided to gather information through informal interviews with three sources: (1) past graduates of our school, whom we regularly invited back to share their primary school experiences with our children, (2) the parents of these children (either through interviews in person or over the telephone), and (3) parents of children who would be entering primary school the following year when they picked up their children or when they were at our kindergarten (we encourage parents to volunteer in our programs or to spend time with their children during “a special day with your child” sessions).

Our data revealed three key findings:Both parents and children said that it could be challenging and stressful for new entrants to purchase their own meals in the school canteen at the beginning of the children indicated that the transition from the informal kindergarten setting to a more formal and structured learning environment of a primary school required some adjustment on their parents reported varying degrees of concern over their children’s ability to cope with the learning expectations of the primary school, especially in terms of numeracy and decided to address the first issue because the experience of handling currency notes and coins to purchase something constituted, in effect, a real-life test of the children’s numeracy skills, self-confidence, and independence. Developed an action research plan that involved the following strategies:Teaching the children how to work with real ging the children’s interest in constructions and pretend play to create opportunities for them to practice buying and selling using real orating the experience of children purchasing their own food into an orientation visit to a primary decided to gather data during implementation of our plan by observing the children and taking photographs. To enhance credibility, a colleague who was not involved in the research then reviewed the coded segments as part of the peer debriefing procedure (lincoln & guba, 1985). When we asked the children how they could practice using money to make purchases, j suggested practicing buying and selling in the kindergarten’s pretend play corner.

We encouraged communication and thoughtful actions by asking what they were planning to do or what they were doing and making. Actions seemed to show flexibility and adaptability, and their response to the teacher’s question suggested that their problem solving was a dynamic process that involved selecting a suitable strategy and evaluating the results and possible alternatives. The following vignette illustrates how f and b negotiated the roles of cook, server, and cashier, and how they used logical-mathematical knowledge during their cash transactions:B: someone has to cook. You have also given us an idea about what we can do on our tion and the beginning of this action research project, we identified, through interactions with the children and their parents, a real-life challenge of significance to the community, a challenge in which the children were emotional stakeholders.

Specifically, we knew that the children had concerns about adjustments required by the transition from kindergarten to primary school. Feedback from parents also suggested that this approach to preparing for the transition helped to reduce one potential cause of parental anxiety prior to the children’s entrance to primary erations for the next action research cycle. For example, perhaps an arrangement could be made with the primary school for the teachers to observe the kindergarten children during a second experience at the school canteen with older children present. Number of methodological issues would need to be addressed in subsequent cycles of this action research project.

For example, we could have sought the assistance of an outside person with methodological training and experience in qualitative research methods to read the coded data memos and interpretations for the purpose of better triangulation of interpretations and peer debriefing. Paper presented at the digital games research conference 2005, vancouver, , rebecca; treyvaud, karli; matthews, jan; & kienhuis, mandy. Scott lee is currently a research fellow at the australian catholic university, after graduating with a ph. His research interests include young children's thinking skills and problem solving, children's construction play, and cultural perspectives of play-based lian catholic 3, 174 victoria melbourne, victoria goh is a trained montessori teacher.

Of recycled 1 past issues beyond this in chinese (pdf)mirar esta página en españurnal contentsissue research to address the transition from kindergarten to primary school: children's authentic learning, construction play, and pretend lian catholic en experience demanding changes during the transition from early childhood programs to primary school.