Kindergarten is the first official education experience for most kids. They will learn how to follow classroom rules and socialize with other kids their age.
They’ll also learn the alphabet and how letters make sounds, and begin writing and reading simple words and sentences. They’ll be able to recognize and count numbers, and understand concepts like comparing size and basic addition and subtraction.
Social and Emotional Development
The social and emotional development of children is a foundation for learning. It helps them understand who they are, establish positive relationships with others and experience and manage their emotions.
These skills can help a child adapt to a classroom environment. They also enable them to follow directions, share materials with classmates and stick to a schedule. They are important for a successful start to kindergarten.
In the S2 kindergarten classroom, children were participating in a guided participation activity that involved using their imaginations to create scenes. In these imaginary situations, they learned the social norms and expectations that are part of their culture.
Guided participation is a way of looking at interpersonal interactions and arrangements, allowing for a deeper understanding of the ways teachers support students’ social and emotional development. The research in this article focuses on three classrooms from a larger study. It was based on participant observations, informal and semistructured interviews. These observations and interviews were analyzed to examine how the teachers in these classrooms optimized opportunities for student social and emotional development through guided participation.
Cognitive Development
Cognitive development includes children’s growing knowledge about the world and themselves. This remarkable process involves shaping thoughts, processing information and tackling problems. It includes understanding concepts like space and time, problem-solving, memory and number sense.
The study of cognitive change has a long history with many different theoretical orientations. However, over the last 20 years a shift has taken place. A new emphasis has been placed on examining the relationship between structure and process in development. This has led to attempts to move beyond the traditional opposition between structuralism and functionalism.
This has led to a movement toward an integrated approach to research. This integration begins by recognizing that all behavior is structured and undergoing some sort of developmental change. For example, when a child solves a puzzle, she builds both external structures (e.g., lining up a piece to highlight how it fits) and internal structures (e.g., a solution to the puzzle). The result is a collaborative cycle, which is schematized in Figure 3-2.
Language and Literacy Development
Children develop language and literacy skills at varying rates depending on their home language environment, preschool experience and personal development. Emergent literacy skills include recognizing letters and names, the alphabetic code, rhyming and segmenting sounds in words, identifying print conventions and concepts. Children who have a strong grasp of these skills are more likely to succeed in reading comprehension tests than those who do not.
Kindergarten activities emphasize play, which is important for young children’s social and emotional development. Children must learn how to interact with adults and other children on a regular basis in a structured setting. This helps them to develop independence and to learn how to respond to others in appropriate ways.
The National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) has found that teaching precursor skills like rapid naming, knowledge of letter-sound relationships and phonological awareness is a good predictor of later reading decoding and comprehension ability. However, teachers should support children’s developing language and literacy skills in their home languages and cultures, as well as English.
Physical Development
As children grow physically, they learn about their bodies and the way they work. They gain a greater sense of control over their body through gross (large muscle movements) and fine motor skills. They also begin to learn about their environment through their senses and develop the strength and coordination needed for exploration.
By the end of kindergarten, children should be able to recognize and name all 26 upper- and lowercase letters and match them to their unique sounds. They should also be able to read 30 high-frequency words, such as and, the, and in.
Throughout the world SOS Children’s Villages provide kindergarten education for children in their care, from the ages of three to six years old. These kindergartens are not part of the formal school system but do offer a structured environment where children can learn and play. Educators in these villages focus on building children’s social and emotional learning through play while developing their literacy and math skills.