Early child education is defined as the first steps that the child takes towards basic education (Ruhm and Waldfogel 2012). However, various changes or improvisations were carried out, which were advancement of the entry stage from seven to six years, nine years of basic schooling, Fundeb creation and mandatory schooling from the age of 4 years (Evans and Kosec 2012).
The opportunity to participate in high quality early child education is not only a basic right of every child but the experiences gathered helps in the overall development of the child (Kolb 2014). The Effective Provision of Pre-school Education Project (EPPE) in the United Kingdom determined the effectiveness of pre-schools in the development of children. It was found that the experience of pre-schools favors the child development with respect to their social and intellectual development. It depended on the presence of qualified and trained teachers in the pre-schools (Baker et al. 2014).
This essay provides a summary of the paper titled “The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) Project: Findings from Pre-school to end of Key Stage 1” (Sylva et al. 2004). The essay provides the key points and discusses the findings associated with child development.
The EPPE project is a major study that for the first time described the importance of pre-schools in the development of young children. The study was carried out to determine the effects of pre-school education on the overall development of children. The study also determined other characteristics that affect the development of children.
The key findings based on the pre-school period includes the all round development of children, an early start in pre-school attendance results in better development of the children’s intellect, full time and part time provisions did not show any difference on the impact made on the children, the children from poor socio-economic backgrounds benefit from pre-schools as they are able to mix with children from different backgrounds. However, the pre-school settings is an important factor to promote the positive development in children when compared to others (Hamre et al. 2014). The settings were found to be of good quality in the integrated care institutions and in nursery schools (Shonkoff et al. 2012). Moreover, high quality of the pre-schools causes better development of behavior as well as intellect. Settings having highly qualified staff can contribute to the development of the children. Interactive relations with children, friendly environments and a large number of trained teachers helps in carrying out a better overall progress of the children than the pre-schools lacking them. The pre-school settings, where the education as well as social development are given equal importance, it is in such settings that the students make an all round development. The effective pedagogy in the pre-schools include interactions n association with teaching practices, presence of an instructive learning environment and free thinking of the children. These in turn helps in extending and improving the effective learning abilities of the children. It is important for the children to receive home education and learning for their social/behavioral and intellectual development. The responsibility of the home education of children is on the parents.
The key findings of the Key stage 1 include the beneficial effects of pre-school, however, the outcomes at the end of Stage 1 was not as effective as compared to the entry levels. The duration of pre-school attendance had a direct link on the academic development of the children rather than on the social or behavioral development. The quality of the pre-schools were linked to the scores obtained by the children of 6 years of age in tests related to reading and mathematics. However, at age 7 this relationship was found to be not as strong and the effect of quality on social development of the children was found to be insignificant. High quality of the pre-schools and longer durations of attendance had better impact on the overall development of the children. The different types of pre-schools were found to have varied impact on the children’s development. A small number of children, particularly the home children required additional or special education for their overall development. The introduction of English as a language impacted the children who started learning it at the age of 3-5, rather than those who started late (Iluz-Cohen and Walters 2012). The environment of home learning was found to have a significant impact on the development profiles of the children.
The aim of the EPPE was to ask the five questions which helped to determine the impact of pre-schools on the behavioral and intellectual development of children, the differences in effectiveness of the different pre-schools, the characteristics of an effective pre-school, the impact of home environments on the overall development of children and whether the effects of pre-schools last till the children reaches the age of 6 or 7 years.
EPPE studied different pre-school environments and a large number of children from different social backgrounds. The study also determined the effects of the children’s background on their overall development. These factors included the child’s birth weight, gender, parent occupation or qualification and the learning environments in their homes (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network 2016). In the study, the researchers created reports on the child’s overall development by assessment of the details obtained from the pre-schools. Further assessments were carried out at the entry level and at the end of the first and second years in order to determine the progress of the children at the various stages.
When pre-schools were compared to home educated children, it was found that pre-schools contributed to the overall cognitive development as well as social development and improved the concentration of the children. The time in months spent by the children in the pre-schools played an important role in their intellectual development. The children who attended pre-schools at an early age of 2-3 years had better intellectual and social development. However, no evidence was found that showed the effectiveness of full attendance in pre-schools as compared to half-day attendance. Pre-schools were found to be beneficial for disadvantaged children and was considered to be an intervention strategy for addressing the special needs of children in the field of education. Specialized support provided by the pre-schools in the areas of English language learning helped the disadvantaged children to improve their overall reading and language learning skills (Wong and Kasari 2012). An anti-social or atypical behavior of some children creates emotional distress among them as they find themselves to be different from the others. These also gives rise to social difficulties for the child and for those who care for them (Empson 2015). Pre-schools also helped to reduce the anti-social behavior of some of the disadvantaged children. An interesting point was that girls showed better cognitive and social development as compared to boys upon entry to pre-schools (Havighurst et al. 2013).
The characteristics of pre-school that impacts the overall development of children include quality of the pre-school, quality of the staff and their academic qualifications, curriculum balance, types of pre-schools and social mixing of children.
Assessment of the pre-school settings revealed that the high quality of the pre-school settings provided better outcomes with respect to intellectual and social development of the children. Children in high quality pre-school settings were more independent and showed decreased anti-social behavior. The overall quality of the staff and their approach to the children by addressing their individual needs helped in the overall progress of the children. A significant relationship was observed between the quality of the pre-school settings, the staff qualifications and presence of trained teachers in the overall development of the children. Results showed that pre-schools having highly qualified staff and trained teachers contributed in the intellectual and social development of the children. The presence of trained teachers in pre-schools had a very good impact on the quality with respect to reading skills and social development of the children (Taguma, Litjens and Makowiecki 2012). The rating scales that were used to determine the quality of the pre-school settings involved determination of literacy rates, math or science environment and the diversity of the children. These ratings revealed that the above factors played an important role in the children’s academic attainment, particularly in mathematics and reading skills at the age of 6. EPPE that provided better academic outcomes also helped in providing a strong environment for social development of the children as well. The type of the pre-schools also played an important role in the overall development of the children. Integrated education systems that provided education with care contributed to better intellectual and social outcomes of children. Moreover, the presence of a large number of trained teachers along with the presence of nursery schools also contributed to the overall development of the children. Nursery schools and other integrated settings helped in the social development of the children. Among the types of settings, integrated educational centers and nursery schools provided better child development outcomes than the private or local authority nurseries and playgroups. The integrated centers were not only involved in education, but also provided family and health support services. Moreover, disadvantaged children were found to be better impacted in a background consisting of mixed population of children coming from different social backgrounds.
Apart from the pre-school settings, the effect of the home environment on the overall development of the children was also determined. This study involved the parents and detailed information was obtained regarding the history of childcare, characteristics of family, children and the environment of their homes. The environment in the homes that had a positive influence on the children were when the parents took an active part in carrying out reading sessions with their child. Apart from this the parents who taught their children songs, nursery rhymes, paintings, carrying out tasks with letters and numbers, to visit the library, creating a play environment helped in better development of the child’s intellect and social skills. Moreover, such activities carried out by the parents helped in reducing the need of special education among children. Certain factors like poor socio-economic backgrounds, poor qualification and income of the parents had an overall negative effect on the intellectual development of the children (Carneiro, Meghir and Parey 2013).
Sustained and shared thinking helped in the development of children in both cases of social and intellectual development. Sustained and shared thinking helped the children to carry out group activities in order to solve problems, carry out discussions for evaluating and clarifying a concept, among others (Lennox 2013). This helped in the intellectual development of the children, particularly when they carried out such conversations with adults in a one to one basis. The pre-schools where the staffs were open to questioning from the students and in turn provided feedback to the children helped in the overall cognitive development of the children.
The pre-schools where the staff engaged the children in intellectual challenges helped in extending the thinking of the children. Play activities also helped to improve the intellectual thinking of the children. Thus, it was found that maintaining a balance between adult and child initiated activities helped in improving the cognitive development of children.
The knowledge and understanding of the curriculum by the teachers and other workers in the pre-schools helped them to provide an effective learning environment to the children for their overall development.
The knowledge of child learning and development is essential for every pre-school worker and can be obtained from thorough training and professional development. Staff in pre-schools who had a good knowledge about the techniques of effective child learning contributed significantly in the development of the children.
The staff in pre-schools who were highly qualified provided the students effective learning environments that contributed to their developments in language learning and mathematics. These helped the children to to engage in challenging activities that helped in their overall cognitive development.
The pre-school settings that encouraged parent involvement in the learning programs of the children helped to better contribute in the overall development of the children (Martini and Sénéchal 2012).
The pre-school settings where the staff looked after the management of the children’s behavior and provided solutions to prevent their misbehavior through effective conversation and reasoning helped in the social and behavioral development of the children.
Group care at early ages gave rise to anti-social behavior among children. The children with anti-social behavior showed improvements on entering a high quality pre-school setting.
The key issues identified in the research study involve the addressing of the education and the effective care of young children for their intellectual and social development. Other issues that were addressed involved the impact the quality of pre-schools and trained teachers in the development of the children. The impact of home environment was also addressed.
The child developmental theories that impacted the research content are the Erik Erikson’s psychosocial developmental theory, where he described that a child’s overall development is affected by their social interactions and experience (Newman and Newman 2017). The behavioral child development theory describes the environmental influences that determine the overall development of the child. Bowlby’s attachment theory proposes that very early relationships with care-givers or teachers can help in the overall development of the child and also helps in improving their social relationships (Ainsworth et al. 2015). Freud’s psychodynamic theory stressed on the importance and nature of early experiences that helps in the development of human personality. According to him a balance is to be created between a conscious need to adapt and an unconscious drive. According to Skinner’s operant conditioning theory, a child’s behaviour can be encouraged to repeat itself by the use of praises, friendly smiles, among others, the occurrence of certain behaviors can be decreased by carrying out punishments , parent disapprovals, privilege withdrawals, among others. According to Bandura’s social learning theory, children gain knowledge and acquire skills by the simply watching and listening to the happenings in the environment. This he termed as observational learning. According to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, a child’s development occurs through both interaction with the environment and through biological maturation. According to him, there are 4 stages of cognitive development. These are sensorimotor, concrete operational, preoperational and formal operational (Keenan, Evans and Crowley 2016). The development of the human brain occurs after conception and continues through social and environmental interactions until the end of adolescence. This results in changes in brain structure that occurs throughout their life span (Abbott and Burkitt 2015). Lev Vygotsky’s theory stressed on the role of social interactions in the cognitive development of a child. He placed more emphasis on the role of culture and language in cognitive development of children. Moreover, he stressed on the role of adults in the cognitive development of children (Keenan, Evans and Crowley 2016).
Conclusion
The EPPE project was the first of its kind that helped to determine the effectiveness of early pre-school learning in the development of children in all respects. This study showed that children who attend pre-schools at an early age are better able to grasp knowledge and information and are successful in their social relationships. The study also revealed that the quality of the pre-school settings, the presence of trained teachers and home learning environments had a appositive impact on the overall development of the children. Thus, it can be concluded that pre-schools contribute in an effective manner in the development of every children including those with special needs.
Reference List
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Ainsworth, M.D.S., Blehar, M.C., Waters, E. and Wall, S.N., 2015. Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation. Psychology Press.
Baker, W., Sammons, P., Siraj-Blatchford, I., Sylva, K., Melhuish, E.C. and Taggart, B., 2014. Aspirations, education and inequality in England: insights from the Effective Provision of Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education Project. Oxford review of education, 40(5), pp.525-542.
Carneiro, P., Meghir, C. and Parey, M., 2013. Maternal education, home environments, and the development of children and adolescents. Journal of the European Economic Association, 11(suppl_1), pp.123-160.
Empson, J., 2015. Atypical child development in context. Palgrave Macmillan.
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