The National Association For The Education Of Young Children Essay

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

Why you have chosen to be in the field. Children in this field can develop a positive self-esteem, foster a love of learning, and develop important social skills. I choice the field of child development because preschool age children are eager to learn and a joy to teach. I enjoy creating developmentally appropriate activities for children. They enjoy a variety of activities and need to be guided through play. The qualities most preschoolers share are they love to take on roles such as a mommy, teacher, or other grown up role, they want to please the adults and they are learning to communicate their needs. Early childhood education research shows children who attend preschool programs are more likely to succeed in many things such as going to college, graduate high school, staying out of prison. Children will learn important social skills that may help them such as learning good manners at snack, raising their hand during circle time, and many other skills. I plan to further my education by reading books by child development experts, taking more child development classes/workshops and professional development workshops as needed.

First, the author gives some advices to parents that how to choose a right preschool for their children. Second, the author focuses on what the children could learn at preschool. In the article, Kathleen McCartney states that “from preschool, the children start to know the numbers, letters, and shapes, etc. And more important, they learn how to socialize with other children, how to share and contribute to circle time” (Kanter, 2007, para. 3). Social communication is one of the most important components for humans, and it starts from children. The author uses this quotation to make her argument stronger because Kathleen McCartney is Parents advisor, professor of Education, and president of Smith College (Kanter, 2007), but the author does not show the opposite side in this article. This article shows bias at this point. I will use this article to support my argument in essay

The Children’s Bureau was created in 1912 by Lillian D. Wald and Florence Kelly (“The story of…”). The main goal for this bureau was to create standards that would impact the way children were treated. There are several issues that the Children’s Bureau covered. These issues include infant and maternal death, child labor, orphanages, child health and recreation, delinquency and juvenile courts, family economic security, abused and neglected children, and foster care (“The story of…”).

Head Start was created in 1965, during Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential administration, as part of the Great Society plan and the War on Poverty (Currie , 2001). After observing the quality discrepancies between low income and high income educational settings, Johnson realized that “Five and six year old children are inheritors of poverty 's curse…(Johnson, 1965)” As a result, he called for the creation of a program that would allow “…preschool children of poverty [to] get a Head Start on their future (Johnson, 1965).” Soon, Head Start was established, with the goal of “enhance[ing] children’s physical, social, emotional and cognitive development (Mississippi Head Start Association, 2012).”

These subjects are taught using games, music, artwork, films, books, computers, and other tools to teach basic skills. The majority of children need adjusting when they first go to preschool it being their first time away from home and their parents. Because young children look up to adults and learn through examples, it’s important that the teachers are good role models.

Education has come a extensive way from the times of Plato and Aristotle, but from each new era came a person with a concept that effected the world of education eternally. Sisters, Margaret and Rachel McMillian influenced education through their development of the Open-Air Nursery School in more way then one. Not only had they introduced the idea of starting education at a younger age then the fledgling kindergarten program, but their school was devised for kids from low- income areas that needed the extra care as well. A unique concept of the time that grasped my interest and made me want to discover more about their program and it’s effect on Early Childhood Education.

Throughout our career as childhood educators, we observe the significance of the National Association for Young Children or NAEYC. It is recognized as “the nation’s premier organization for early childhood professionals-setting research based standards and providing resources to improve early childhood program quality” (Copple & NAEYC, 2001) for teachers, students, and families. Despite exercising the knowledge of what NAEYC means for our classrooms and the students in them, some may not know who or how the organization was founded. Knowing the background of NAEYC is important because it has a reputable history of providing universities and educators with high quality, researched, information. In order to ascertain a further purpose to why these standards matter and the importance of NAEYC in education, we must learn its history and its founders.

The answers to academic success for disadvantaged children may not be smaller class sizes, better-prepared teachers, tougher standards, more accountability, or greater choice as admirable as these goals may be. They may instead center on a single factor: preschool. Lyndon Johnson in 1965 wanted to “break the cycle of poverty” by raising poor children’s levels of competence with the Head Start program. Since it began, the Head Start program has been the most widely applied and most heavily researched prevention effort in the US.

and iPods has increased from 6.21 hours a day among 8-18 year olds to 7.38 hours a day over

Head start was and still is a preschool program designed by President Lyndon B. Johnson with the goal of eliminating poverty. His idea was to improve childhood developed by providing a positive environment for pre-kindergarten children. (Zigler and Muenchow,1992) President Johnson was the first president to pioneer this type of program. The target group affected by this program was poverty strict families that had no positive psychological influence. His belief was that by improving the physical and psychological development, it would result in a change in the child’s genetic traits for the advancement of the students. By stimulating the educational success of children, this would transition into better adult earnings and eventually put an

The Abbott Preschool Program is administered through New Jersey’s Department of Education and the Department of Human Services. It was designed to provide all of New Jersey’s children an opportunity to succeed. The Abbott Preschool Program Longitudinal Effect Study (APPLES), published in 2013, investigated the impact of the Abbott program on children’s learning through the end of kindergarten. The findings of this study demonstrated that children who attend the Abbott Preschool Program, whether in public schools, private settings or Head Start, improve in language, literacy, and math at least through the end of their kindergarten year.

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.

The Preschool Puzzle article talked about whether universal pre-K is worth the cost for taxpayers or not, the article included both political and scientific arguments about the topic. The article talked about two long-term studies that have been made on the affects of pre-K. The first is the Abecedarian Project, in this study, researchers had four infants assigned to a full-time early education program from birth to the age of five and followed them through their adulthood. The researchers found that these children scored higher on tests, were more likely to go to college, and had greater academic achievements. The second method is called the Perry Preschool Project, this study involved low-income children who were assigned to an intensive

It is a clear and worthy investment. The question lies in which preschool program is the most effective. Previous reviews of programs have focused on if they contributed to later success, but a few of them compared the programs on their effectiveness. A number of programs showed positive results continuing to the end of kindergarten and beyond, signifying that the preschool involvement had impacts aside from early exposure to academic content. (Johns Hopkins University, 37). Also, several programs had effects on oral language skills, which are emphasized in most preschools.