I
chose to write about my experience with research with children. I am
very involved with an early childhood community organization in my
state called Excel By 5. This organization is made up of city and
business leaders (mayor, chamber of commerce, school board, etc.),
education (childcare centers, HeadStart, K-2 teachers, special needs
teachers), health (doctors, nurses, clinic administrators, health
dept.), and parents & families. Each focus group has specific
goals they set at the beginning of the year and meet monthly to see
how these goals are being met.
Two
years ago, one of the education group's main goals was to see how
ready our pre-k children were for kindergarten. We contacted UCLA
and had the Early Developmental Instrument pilot program performed on
all of the incoming kindergarteners in our city. The EDI measured
the developmental areas of physical health and well-being, social
competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, and
communication skills and general knowledge. Each kindergarten
teacher filled out the questionnaire for each of the children in
their classrooms. It was sent back to UCLA for analysis. When the
analysis was returned to us, we discovered that the community's
children were very ready for kindergarten in the developmental areas
of physical health and well-being, language and cognitive skills, and
communication skills and general knowledge. However, the study
showed that children in our community were developmentally vulnerable
in their social competence (independence, social skills w/peers,
respect, and responsibility) and emotional maturity (inattentive
behavior, agressiveness, anxiousness, pro-social and helping
behaviors).
This
research enable our organization to brainstorm ideas to institute
plans of action such as parent trainings, Conscious Discipline,
mentoring in the child care centers, and others to help improve the
readiness of our kindergarteners BEFORE they get to kindergarten.
This was a very positive experience and it benefited the whole
community, as well as the children and parents.
Transforming
Early Childhood Community Systems - EDI. (2012). Early Developmental
Instrument. University of California, Los Angeles.
Hi Kimberly,
ReplyDeleteThe organization, Excel 5, sounds wonderful because you all get to work with so many professions to discuss the betterment for the children entering into Kindergarten. From the data provided on your blog, I see that it actually shows you all how they are developing positively. Understanding what children are not excelling in, gives each of the leaders in the group helpful insight to what areas each child need to be giving assistance with developing those skills they fall short in -before they enter Kindergarten. Enjoyed your blog.
Kimberly,
ReplyDeleteThat is exciting that you have had the opportunity to participate in research. I like that you were able to interpret the results and start to brainstorm ideas for a plan. It is nice to see first hand research working for your organization and community. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Tanya
What a great thing to be involved in early childhood research. I would love to have something like that here where I live. When I worked for Head Start I had to do lots of documenting and plug in those numbers into a computer data system but we never got to see the results or really had no one explain what it was that we were doing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experience.
This is so amazing!!! I would defiantley loved to part of this for my Pre Kindergarten class. You hope your program did everything it could to prepare the children for Kindergarten but do we really ever know. But you did. I would love to see the results from the research.
ReplyDeleteThis seemed like it was an amazing opportunity to participate in a study like this. I would like to see if we could have someone come out and evaluate our children to see if the material we are teaching them are preparing them for Pre-K. Thanks for sharing with us.
ReplyDeleteKimberly
ReplyDeleteThat is such an awesome opportunity you have had to work so closely with so many professionals that has the same goal, to see kids perform better at the beginning where it really counts. It is really rewarding when you are able to see the real outcome firsthand! That is a project that could be adopted as much as possible in an effort to making all children truly ready for Kindergarten.Very interesting and amazing project, Thanks for sharing.