Preschool Education

Early Childhood Education in both Portugal and Chile is considered the first stage of Basic Education in the process of lifelong education. Both countries have quite a few similarities as to the curricular bases for this level of education, namely as to the contents related to artistic education, music and musical expression. Unfortunately, in both countries there are limitations in the skills of kindergarten teachers which prevent the proper development of these artistic areas among children.
In order to overcome these limitations, an experimental research project was developed in Chile between the years 2012 and 2013, which included a musical training programme through the methodology of Shinishi Suzuki. The aim was to improve the skills of kindergarten teachers in music, including learning the violin instrument, in 3 kindergartens in the network of the "Junta Nacional de Jardines Infantiles de Chile" (JUNJI) belonging to a city in that country.
After this musical training programme, the kindergarten teachers replicated the knowledge obtained in an intervention with the children of their groups (Experimental Group), based on the application of the Suzuki methodology. To evaluate this project, the results of the blind application of the IEPA standardised test "Instrumento de Avaliación para el Aprendizaje" were compared, at the beginning and at the end of the intervention, to the children belonging to both the Experimental Group and the Control Group, the latter consisting of all the children from the JUNJI Network kindergartens who did not participate in the intervention.
The results showed significant differences in terms of the development of communication and socialisation, using the evaluation carried out with the IEPA instrument, between the children of the Experimental Group and those of the Control Group, with the Experimental Group's score being higher than that of the Control Group. We were led to conclude that by boosting the skills of the kindergarten teachers, with the application of a Music Training Programme based on the Suzuki methodology, which they then replicated to the children, an improvement in the areas of communication and socialisation of these children was observed. This study is a real contribution to future planning as far as teachers training is concerned, proposing its replication in other contexts, namely in Portugal.
https://doi.org/10.21125/iceri.2020.1665

Öz Bu çalışmanın temel amacı, eğitimde drama destekli etkinliklerin altı yaş (60-72 ay) çocuklarının duygusal becerilerine etkisini ortaya koymaktır. Çalışma, deney grubunda 7 kız, 6 erkek, kontrol grubunda ise, 7 kız, 5 erkek olmak üzere toplam 25 çocukla gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırma, Eğitim Bakanlığına bağlı bir ilkokulun iki anasınıfında gerçekleştirilmiş ve araştırmada öntest-son test kontrol gruplu yarı deneysel desen kullanılmıştır. Çalışmada veri toplama aracı olarak araştırmacılar tarafından geliştirilen Duyguları Tanıma ve Anlama Testi (DUTAT) kullanılmıştır. Çalışmada, araştırmacılar tarafından geliştirilen ve 36 etkinlikten oluşan " Drama Destekli Duygusal Becerileri Geliştirme Etkinlikleri " kullanılmıştır. Etkinlikler, belirlenen 7 duygusal beceriyi geliştirmeye yönelik olarak hazırlanmış ve 12 haftalık bir program dahilinde uygulanmıştır. Yapılan analizler sonucunda, deney grubundaki çocuklar ile kontrol grubundaki çocukların duyguları tanıma ve anlama son test puanları arasında deney grubu lehine anlamlı farkların olduğu bulunmuştur. Araştırmanın bulguları doğrultusunda, deney ve kontrol gruplarındaki farklılaşmaların, drama destekli duygusal becerileri geliştirme etkinliklerinden kaynaklandığı ileri sürülebilir. Anahtar sözcükler: Duygusal beceri, duyguları tanıma, duyguları anlama, eğitimde drama. Abstract The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of drama supported educational activities on six year old (60-72 months) children's emotional skills. A total of 25 children participated in this study in two groups. In the experimental group, there were 7 girls and 6 boys, and in the control group, there were 7 girls and 5 boys. The research used a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design and was conducted in two preschool classrooms of the Ministry of Education. As the data collection tool, Recognizing and Comprehending Emotions Test (DUTAT) developed by the researchers of this study was used. Researchers used the " Activities for Drama Supported Emotional Skills " that consists of 36 exercises. These exercises were prepared to develop the designated 7 emotional skills and they were applied over 12 weeks. As a result of analysis, it is observed that there was a meaningful difference, to the advantage of the experimental group when the total points of Recognizing and Comprehending Emotions Test for the experimental and control groups were compared.

This paper explores student disaffection which is considered to be one of the biggest challenges facing the contemporary teacher. Despite the growing concern on the alarming increase of the disengaged students, the conceptualization of disaffection is insufficient, since the concept is closely correlated with the multidimensional construct of student engagement. Besides, while there is a research focus on qualitative and quantitative investigation on classroom engagement, there is a notable gap in students' and teachers' perspectives on student disaffection. Through one to one, semi-structured interviews, we investigate 80 Greek teachers' perspectives on students' disaffection manifestations and frequency in preschool settings. The interviews are developed based on Creswell's (2008) interview model, with a mixture of open-ended and close-ended questions. Based on qualitative and quantitative data analysis, we present how Greek teachers define student disaffection...

By systematically examining six diverse countries, The Early Advantage 1 sheds light on new and exciting approaches to early childhood education and care. Brimming with fresh insights, the text provides concrete examples of successfully implemented strategies and methods that warrant attention from other countries wishing to improve their early childhood services. The Lion City (or Singapura) presents a fascinating story of rapid transformation and success. This holds true whether speaking about the economy, the well-being of the citizenry, the nature of the overall services provided, or the evolution of early childhood care and education (ECEC). This chapter unveils how such progress came to be achieved in ECEC, delineating the challenges that such success evokes. Ultimately, it is a story of carefully hewn harmonization and balance.

AbstractSchooL readiness is an important concern for parents and teachers because it is a muLtifaceted process which encompasses aLL the developmental areas and various skills of children rather than only focusing on cognitive and literacy skills. In particular, preschool and first grade teachers experience the positive and negative sides of the process of school readiness. In this study, basic qualitative research was used to compare teachers' views about school readiness. The participants were 35 preschool and 35 first grade teachers and a semi-structured interview protocol developed by the researchers was used to collect data. Qualitative analysis was performed at the end of the study and according to the findings, the following five main themes were determined: definition of school readiness, the effective people and institutions in the school readiness process, preschool education for school readiness, the difficulties encountered in the school readiness process and suggest...

This study evaluated the effects of a creative movement program on balance of preschool children. Fifty preschool children (21 boys and 29 girls) were randomly assigned to either the Intervention Group (n = 25) or the Control Group (n = 25). The Intervention Group took part in a creative movement program that lasted 5 weeks (10 sessions, twice a week), while the Control Group participated in the activities of the nursery curriculum. Prior to and after the intervention, the children were assessed for static balance (two-legged stance on a forceplate), dynamic balance (walking on balance beams), and functional dynamic balance (Timed Up and Go test, TUG). The results showed that the Intervention Group performed significantly better on dynamic balance and Timed-up and Go test compared to the Control Group. No significant differences were found for static balance (peak-to-peak amplitude of center of pressure in the medio/lateral and anterior/posterior direction). According to the findings of the study, the two-legged stance test may not be suitable to measure the static balance of preschool children. It may be concluded that a creative movement program constitutes an attractive and effective method for the development of preschool children's balance.

Den här boken beskriver en tvåspråkig verksamhet som utveck-lades vid en daghemsavdelning på en finskspråkig ort i Finland. Verksamheten engagerade såväl personalen, barnen och föräld-rarna som språkforskare.
Boken kan fungera som ett verktyg och en inspirationskälla för pedagoger, chefer, utbildnings- och dagvårdsplanerare, besluts-fattare, föräldrar, forskare och kan även användas i utbildning.

This article provides an array of strategies for guiding children's math development during the preschool years. Includes suggestions for number, geometry, measurement, algebra, and data collection and analysis. Also offers children's literature links and helpful websites for parents and children.

This article presents a selective review of the literature on
cross-cultural art studies, with the aim of identifying their
commonalities. The article includes a specific cross-cultural
case study, the Art Lunch Project, which the author attended
as a representative of Turkey, that aims to exchange practical
teaching experiences. The participants come from nine
countries across Europe and Asia. It is an ongoing project
in which art or homeroom teachers in schools interpret
the common theme of “an art lunch,” in collaboration
with university-based researchers in art education. The
project involves making two- and three-dimensional artistic
representations of food using recycled materials. Work
completed by children is uploaded to a website for mutual
viewing by participating teachers and children. The reasons
for selecting this theme were that curricula organized around
the fundamental human need for food are likely to have
universal appeal, and the results would thus reflect national
cultural differences (Fukumoto, 2007).

W ramach projektu "Dobra praktyka kluczem do profesjonalizmu w edukacji" studenci poznali w praktyce zasady obowiązujące w nauczaniu przedszkolnym i wczesnoszkolnym. Przyswoili podstawy komunikacji, a także zapoznali się z formalną stroną pracy nauczyciela. Poniższy artykuł podejmuje kwestię odbioru projektu przez studentów oraz stara się odpowiedzieć na pytanie, czy był on potrzebny przyszłym nauczycielom. Treść artykułu dotyczy także metody projektu, która jest obecnie podstawą kształcenia szkolnego. Podejmuje trudności, z którymi borykali się studenci i sugeruje rozwiązania w celu ich zapobiegania. Abstract As a part of the project "Good practice as the key to professionalism in education" students learned practically the rules of the preschool and primary education. They learned the basics of communication and also got acquainted with the formal aspects of working as a teacher. This article tackles the issue of reception of the project by students and seeks to answer the question whether it was necessary for prospective teachers. The content of the article relates also to the project´s approach which, nowadays, is the basis of school education. It talks about the difficulties faced by students and suggests preventive solutions.

This paper concentrates on the implementation of a new screening method in Austrian schools to assess children and find out if they have any special educational needs in educational areas like phonology, counting, knowledge of letters and numbers and others. The underlying structure of the assignments was developed by developmental psychologists from the University of Graz and the University of Vienna and then implemented as a mobile application for Android tablets. For testing and evaluation purposes, the app's prototype was first used voluntary by multiple Austrian schools. Furthermore, the mobile application had to be fully functional when offline as well as a central web application had to be developed to give the developmental psychologists access to the screening results. However, the main goal was to develop the application in a way that especially children without sufficient skills in reading and writing are able to understand the assignment's tasks and to perform input.

According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 45 percent of children in th United States live in low-income
families and 22 percent live in poverty. These children are at the highest risk of academic failure and are the ones in
greatest need of additional support. Studies have shown that the most effective time to invest in a child's education is
during the early years before the child enters kindergarten (Heckman, et al, 2010; Yoshikawa, et. al, 2013). Yet, at the
same time, such at-risk students face challenges outside the classroom (e.g. family economic struggles, neighborhood
violence, lack of role models who have attended college, etc.) that cannot be easily disentangled from their problems in
school and make it difficult to stop the cycle of poverty. So while there are programs that provide early childhood education
interventions and programs that provide workplace assistance to help families get out of poverty, there are few programs
that actually take a two-pronged approach by trying to help children while they help their families as well. Career Advance
in Tulsa, OK is one such program.

Desde la formulación sociocultural vigotskiana, los procesos psicológicos superiores tienen un origen social, es decir, que será la participación del sujeto en las actividades compartidas con los otros la condición y el modo en que se pueda dar cuenta de la operación de tales procesos. En este mismo sentido teórico, el juego es la actividad rectora mediante la cual el desarrollo del niño y la niña se ven comprometidos con la estructura de sus funciones mentales básicas y su movimiento a funciones mentales superiores. Para que este progreso ocurra, es necesario que a través del juego otro sujeto más capaz le facilite y le brinde los signos o instrumentos de mediación adecuados. Diversos autores de orientación vigotskiana han manifestado que dentro del aula es responsabilidad del grupo docente planear conscientemente estrategias lúdicas que le exijan al infante potenciar los signos necesarios que funcionen como apoyo y soporte para su desarrollo cognitivo. En correspondencia con lo an...

hr>, 2 <vatroslav.horvat@ufzg.hr>, 2 <snjezana.mrakovic@ufzg.hr> ABSTRACT The associations between motor abilities (MA), morphological characteristics (MC), and cognitive preparedness (PP) for school in preschool aged boys should provide a platform for improved systematic educational work. The main goal of this research is to determine the correlation between children's MA, MC and P P, using univariate and multivariate statistical methods. Randomized sample of preschool boys (N=106), aged 6-7, was examined. Eighteen composite motor tests were utilized to measure MA; Test for School Preparedness (TSS) with five sub-tests was used in estimating boys' PP; additionally, 14 morphological characteristics were measured. Findings revealed that all the canonical correlations were statistically significant: between MA and MC, between MA and PP, as well as between MC and PP. Thus, the correlation is the lowest between MC and PP. MC could be a less important factor for estimating the overall preparedness for school, than boys' MA at the age of six or seven years.

Learning in a Social Context — Peer Tutoring as a Way of Supporting Children's Socio-Cognitive Abilities in Social Interactions The article discusses the problem of the relationship between cognitive development and social abilities. The author draws attention to the phenomenon of peer tutoring, which is an example of learning in the social context. The aim of this article is discussion about the potentiality of learning through teaching others in educational situations. The aim of the analysis is the search for the answers to the question concerning the sources of difficulty in the application of tutoring in preschool education. The author shows the internal and external conditions of this issue, points out the socio-cognitive development of children and methods of learning process, described by Dorota Klus-Stańska (2016).

The paper was written in occasion of the XVII Congress organised by Gruppo Nazionale Nidi e Infanzia (http://www.grupponidiinfanzia.it) in 2010 and presents the project and the structure of one part of the work sessions in which experiences from Ecec services could be shared among practitioners, researchers, early childhood experts, politicians, local administrators and other figures involved in early childhood education and care with various roles and tasks. This choice wasn’t merely an organizational one but it had high pedagogical value; firstly, it aimed at promoting – before the Congress - work on educational projects and pedagogical documentation within every service involved, achieving great training meanings. Secondly, it aimed at stimulating mutual knowledge, experience sharing, confrontation and new, possible alliances and cooperations among the above mentioned figures and perspectives.

Dental caries are attributed to various factors including diet. The present crosssectional study determined the frequency of sugary food and drink consumption and defined its relationship to dental caries among preschool children. A total of 50 preschoolers (aged 5-6 years) in three kindergartens of the Department of Community Development (KEMAS) in Titiwangsa, Kuala Lumpur participated in this study. A set of structured questionnaires was used to assess the frequency of sugary food and drink consumption. Dental check ups were performed by a dentist. The dft index (decayed, filled teeth) was used to describe incidence of caries in subjects. Results showed that 62% of the subjects had dental caries. with the mean dft score being 3.72. The frequency of sugary food consumption by the majority of subjects was 2 times a day, while the frequency of sugary drink consumption was more than 3 times a day. There was no significant relationship between frequency of sugary food and drink consumption with incidence of caries. Subjects with high dft scores were more likely to report dental pain. The prevalence of dental caries in preschoolers in this study was high, indicating a need for effective dental health promotion to improve dental health status of this age group.

Children and teachers are organisms involved in information exchange within an environment called a classroom. The biological task for the auditory system is to alert important changes. Audition is always active and specialises in sudden, extreme, or quickly approaching sounds that might necessitate action.
High intensity sound (even within legal levels) might induce physiological stress on hearing and voice organs when competing with ambient noise, psychophysiological stress on heart rate and metabolism, or psychological reactions such as annoyance.
A recent German study showed that the acoustical conditions in elementary classrooms often do not fit the specific needs of children, who are more sensitive to acoustic problems due to reverberation and noise than adults.
If the soundscape matters to school children, how can we create optimal acoustics in classrooms for communication, learning, and development? This is a great multidisciplinary challenge, calling for us to bridge environmental psychology, acoustic design, and education.
In this presentation, I will explain concepts such as SPL, reverberation radius, and Lombard effect, and share preliminary results from a pilot study in Singapore kindergartens.

In this paper, we wanted to explore the essential components of mathematics and music and determine the possibility of integrating them into preschool education. Basic mathematical concepts, on which the development of each child's intellectual ability depends, are formed in the preschool age. By combining components of elements from mathematics and music, we can see their connection in terms of symmetry, values and measurements, and pattern recognition. Through various musical activities, children can acquire certain skills that precede the learning of mathematical operations. Thus, we can practice our comparison making mathematical skill with children by comparing the long and short tones, the treble and the deep tones, the loud and quiet sounds, and the mathematical skill of counting by performing suitable music games, rhymes, and songs in which numbers are mentioned. Counting in rhymes and songs helps a child in learning both the notion of numbers and mathematical operations such as addition and subtraction. Games that combine music and mathematics usually use music as a driving force for a productive and dynamic educational environment. Rhythm and melody help in the process of mathematical thinking as children receive infor

Parents' assessment of children's development in the first and the second language is an essential part of their family language policy (FLP) and an important component of parent–child communication. This paper presents a pilot study focused on Russian-speaking immigrant parents' assessment of their children's language knowledge in Russian as a first language and Hebrew as the second language in the context of their FLP. The research questions were as follows: How is parents' assessment of their children's bilingual language development linked to their choice of bilingual versus monolingual preschool education? To what degree are parents' reports of their children's language knowledge similar or different to their children's actual language knowledge? Which domains of language knowledge do parents relate to or ignore when assessing their children's language development? The sample consisted of 27 children (14 from bilingual and 13 from monolingual kindergartens), and their parents. Two sets of measurements were used, one to obtain parents' reports on child's knowledge of Russian and Hebrew and the other to assess children. The finding points out parents' insensitiveness to the length of the children's utterances and their tendency to rationalise FLP by overestimating their children's general language knowledge.

Preschool education has special importance in the development processes of children at 3-6 age, which is the period when the foundations of individual development are established. In this period, the development of children is supported by education and appropriate environmental conditions, and in this context, the quality of the physical environment has great significance in education process. Today, the development of creative thinking of individuals is considered as one of the conditions which improve the standards of societies. Since creative thinking is significantly developed and formed in preschool period, the improvement of children&#39;s creativity is considered as one of the objectives of preschool education. In this context, proposes a design approach taking changeability as its basis to support creative thinking of children in preschool environments. This paper is based on the findings of a doctorate thesis, integrating preschool education and architecture, completed by ...

Beziehungsqualität und Kooperation in Kindergarten und Schule stellen eine wesentliche Komponente für einen erfolgreichen Bildungsverlauf dar. Michael Glüer untersucht empirisch den geschlechtsspezifischen Einfluss der Beziehungsqualität zu sekundären Bezugspersonen auf die kindliche Kooperations- und Bildungsbereitschaft. Der Autor bietet einen Einblick in den aktuellen Forschungsstand zur Erfassung und Entwicklung von Bindungs- und Beziehungsqualität, Kooperations- und Bildungsbereitschaft zu ErzieherInnen und LehrerInnen in Kindergarten und Schule in Abhängigkeit vom kindlichen Geschlecht.

The physical setting plays an important role in the lives of pre-schoolers and can be an important component of children’s experience and development when it is wisely and meaningfully designed. The classroom organization enhances and supports the pre-schooler capability to perform activities himself, initiate and finish tasks, creates the possibility of his own determined choices and responsibilities, permits to connect and interrelate with educators and other participants easily and helps to improve his cognitive skills. In this research, the classroom environment is approached in terms of diverse aspects, as a relation between physical atmosphere and the curriculum philosophy, the planning of proceedings, adjustments, safekeeping topics and assignment of zones, equipment resources, illumination, surfaces and other environmental factors.

Uspješan prosvjetni radnik mora, uz profesionalne (stručne), posjedovati i socijalne kompetencije (emocionalne i socijalne vještine). Cilj istraživanja je utvrđivanje razlika u socijalnim vještinama i kompetencijama prosvjetnih radnika Srednjobosanskog i Zeničko-dobojskog kantona u odnosu na: dob, radni staž, stupanj obrazovanja te vrstu zanimanja prosvjetnog radnika. Ispitana su 272 sudionika različitih prosvjetnih profila iz privatnih ili javnih odgojno-obrazovnih ustanova, primjenom Upitnika odgojiteljskih kompetencija te Inventara socijalnih vještina. Utvrđeno je postojanje statistički značajnih razlika u skupu socijalnih vještina i kompetencija, prema socio-demografskim obilježjima: stupnju obrazovanja sudionika, dobi, radnom iskustvu i vrsti zanimanja. Sudionici dobne grupe u rasponu 31-40 godina imaju najveću emocionalnu kontrolu. U emocionalnoj i socijalnoj kontroli prednjače sudionici s visokom stručnom spremom. Radno najneiskusniji sudionici superiorni su u vještinama emoc...

Περίληψη
Με την εφαρμογή του Νόμου 3699/2008 περί «Ειδικής Αγωγής και Εκπαίδευσης ατό-μων με αναπηρία ή ειδικές εκπαιδευτικές ανάγκες» ολοένα και περισσότεροι μαθητές με ειδικές εκπαιδευτικές ανάγκες (ε.ε.α) φοιτούν στις τάξεις του γενικού σχολείου και στα νηπιαγωγεία. Μέχρι σήμερα, η ελληνική έρευνα γύρω από το συγκεκριμένο θέμα είναι αρκετά περιορισμένη. Το αντικείμενο της παρούσας ερευνητικής μελέτης σκο-πεύει να διερευνήσει τις απόψεις των νηπιαγωγών σχετικά με το θέμα της συμπερίλη-ψης των παιδιών με την ε.ε.α σε δομές προσχολικής αγωγής σε σχολεία της Αθήνας. Η έρευνα ακολουθεί την ποιοτική μεθοδολογία, καθώς πραγματοποιήθηκαν έξι ημι-δο-μημένες συνεντεύξεις με νηπιαγωγούς που εργάζονται σε σχολεία της Αθήνας. Ακόμη, οι νηπιαγωγοί επιλέχθηκαν βάσει της προηγούμενης ή της τρέχουσας εργασιακής τους εμπειρίας σε τάξεις συμπερίληψης, όπου οι σπουδαστές με ε.ε.α συν-εκπαιδεύονται με τους τυπικά αναπτυσσόμενους συνομηλίκους. Τα ευρήματα αποκάλυψαν πολύτιμες πληροφορίες. Οι νηπιαγωγοί εξέφρασαν μια θετική στάση σχετικά με τον θεσμό της συμπερίληψης. Ωστόσο, υπήρχαν έντονες ανησυχίες σχετικά με τον τρόπο με τον οποίο εφαρμόζεται, την έλλειψη κατάλληλης υποστήριξης και την έλλειψη γνώσης που είχαν οι ίδιοι σε θέματα ειδικής εκπαίδευσης. Λέξεις-Κλειδιά: συμπερίληψη, προσχολική αγωγή, αντιλήψεις νηπιαγωγών, παιδιά με ε.ε.α, Εισαγωγή-Θεωρητικό Υπόβαθρο Ένα από τα τρία ερευνητικά ερώτημα της παρούσας μελέτης ήταν η διερεύνηση των δυσκολιών που αντιμετωπίζουν οι Έλληνες/ίδες δάσκαλοι/ες προσχολικής αγωγής σε αίθουσες συμπερίληψης. Σύμφωνα με τον Παντελιάδου (2000, 2008), ορισμένες από τις δυσκολίες που μπορεί να εμφανιστούν σε μια τάξη συμπερίληψης στην Ελλάδα εί-ναι: η ποικιλία των διαφορετικών περιπτώσεων μαθητών με ειδικές ανάγκες, η μερική παρακολούθηση και η πρόσβαση σε πληροφορίες που αφορούν τους μαθητές με ε.ε.α, η περιορισμένη βοήθεια ή / και καθοδήγηση-επιπλέον, με την έλλειψη γνώσης και/ή προθυμία εκ μέρους των εκπαιδευτικών γενικής εκπαίδευσης να συνεργαστούν με τους εκπαιδευτικούς της ειδικής εκπαίδευσης. Τέλος, η αίσθηση της μεγάλης ευθύνης του να έχεις μαθητές με ε.ε.α στην τάξη τους και οι υπερβολικές ευθύνες που συνεπάγεται η συμπερίληψη είναι κάποιες ακόμη δυσκολίες/προκλήσεις που θεωρούν οι εκπαιδευ-τικοί της γενικής τάξης ότι υπάρχουν.