High Scope in Education

The article by Erika Christakis, informs future teachers and parents how preschool today may not be benefiting their children as much as they thought. She talks about how preschool has changed drastically over the years as well as kindergarten. She states that “kindergarten may be the new first grade”. Her statement shows how children today are expected more then they were years ago in all grades, especially preschool and at such a young age. Many think this is helping our children or will benefit them in the future if they know more as a child but this may not be the case. The article talks about multiple studies done throughout America to children are learning and how school curriculum changing affects children. A studied showed that children

The High/Scope, Approach founded in 1970 by the work that Dave Weikart and Connie Kamii did on the Parry Preschool Project. These early educators thought that early education could prevent school failure in high school. They believed that children learn by mentally and physically interacting with the environment and with others. One of the main features is that children are encouraged to be active in their learning. Teachers in the High/Scope school classrooms are interactive often observing and setting up problem-solving situations for the children.

     Preschool is something very important for toddlers. Preschools were established in Europe around the late 1800’s. They were later introduced to the United States in the 1920’s. According to the Encyclopedia of careers and vocational guidance 9th edition “preschools expanded rapidly in the united states during the 1960’s”.

The National Preschool Curriculum states that ‘the preschool curriculum promotes the holistic intellectual, languages, social, art and creativity, psychomotor, cognitive and spiritual development of the children’ (Ministry of Education, 2003, p.5,re trieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/22301974/Malaysian-Preschool-Education )

Provide a definition of what a “high quality” preschool program consists of and why that is important.

School readiness is defined by Petersen (2014) as, “children possessing the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary for success in school and later learning in life” (p. 175). When referring to infants and toddlers she defines it as, “supporting and protecting the developing brain in such a way that the brain creates a strong physical foundation for learning” (p. 175). Just as the definitions for school readiness for school age children and for infants and toddlers are not the same, the way we teach the skills for school readiness is different. Infants and toddlers learn differently than school aged children, so simply extending the core standards and teaching strategies used with school aged children down to

In Ypsilanti, Michigan Dr. David P. Weikard created High Scope in 1970. High Scope does research in a variety of areas. However, they are best known for their research in preschool education and their preschool curriculum approach. High Scope preschool curriculum is used throughout the world and has had an impact on Head Start programs (Morrison, 1976, p. 15).

The Nursery set out many different activities for the Children. This is designed for them for the different areas that they develop within the Nursery. They are set to reach all the areas of learning, Personal social and emotional development, communication language and literacy development, problem solving reasoning and numeracy, knowledge and understanding of the world, physical development and creative development. With all these different resources the Children begin to recognize their skills and how to use them. For an example, in the toddler room the creative area always has something out, the toddlers can then sit at the table, start to do mark making on the paper and realize they are drawing on paper. They created a picture!

The purposes of early childhood education are; teaching the kids what they need to know in order to go kindergarten. Giving them a voice, and letting them be heard with what they want to say. By letting them know they have a voice, lets them feel a sense of comfort and safety. Motivating and encouraging them to do what is right. Having a yes I can attitude about wanting to do things.

To start off, many students aren’t ready yet for the basis of kindergarten as they never finished, or even attended preschool. Attending a preschool gives children an early advantage, and stimulates an early mind. When a child starts their educational journey at the age of three, they get a two year “Head Start,” for themselves, compared to kids who have not attended preschool. This early advantage is a physical and significant benefit for them as it helps strengthen the child from early on. According to greatschools.org, “To sustain children’s excitement and motivation for learning, high-quality preschool and child care programs introduce early literacy and math skills

The second area is, “Creating improved better connected education for preschool and elementary children.” This section addresses the fact that preschools are required to work with public schools to prepare students for the standards taught in kindergarten. This also helps students when they get to third grade and take state assessments. For teachers, the pressure is increasing for

Early childhood education has many benefits and there is the potential for many significant outcomes if universal preschools were put into place. Some feel that children who start kindergarten without previously attended preschool sometimes lack certain skills such as social and communication skills and an inability to follow routines. There were also studies done that found attending preschool could help to close the achievement gap in the grade school years. A child’s first few years of life are most important, and they absorb the most during those years. By providing universal preschool, all children would be benefiting, especially those who are in at-risk families or part of the lower class. As a society, we have a responsibility to help the children in our communities and provide them with the education they need in order to help them succeed in life.

To me, the term of school readiness (0-5 years of age) encompasses the idea of having the whole child ready for school, with the presence of the adults and able to support the child with their educational

The early learning content standards clearly align with the kindergarten content standards, which tie directly to the first grade content standards and so on. Vertical alignment of the standards creates the atmosphere of success for these students. Allowing the children to have exposure to two years of preschool, even one, will give them the knowledge that most would not receive until they set foot into a kindergarten classroom. Why not give the push, the extra support and knowledge to better prepare them for school-aged learning? If research shows that students with preschool experience do better in reading and math, then, as a parent, why wouldn’t you expose your child to the opportunity? If most public schools offer affordability with

It has been well established that early childhood is a crucial time for children’s cognitive development (Bowman, Donovan & Burns, 2001). Preschool curriculum is the entire span of lessons and teachings that a child will be taught during the course of a preschool year (Rock, 2015). Preschool curriculum covers a wide variety of academic, social, physical, and emotional lessons and usually vary from school to school and teaching method to teaching method. Depending upon the school and the preschool philosophy employed by the preschool, the preschool curriculum can be developed by administrators, teachers, and parents.