Full Day Kindergarten: Is it really what our children need?

Table of Contents

Page 1- Title pagePage 2- Table of ContentsPage 3-5- The Effect of Time and

Structure on Kindergarten Student Social and Academic Performance

Page 6-8- All-Day Kindergarten On The Rise

Page 9-11- Pushing for Full-Day Kindergarten in Indiana

Page 12- Conclusion

The Effect of Time and Structure on Kindergarten Student Social and Academic Performance

This article is about a study that was done comparing full day, alternate kindergarten to half day kindergarten. The study took 96 kindergarten children from four public kindergarten classes in northern Ohio.

The study was looking for results based on the following expectations.• Children in all-day kindergarten would achieve higher academic score when

compared to children in the half-day programs.• Children in all-day kindergarten would show higher level of motivation to achieve

than children in half-day programs.• Children in all-day kindergarten would demonstrate higher level of social competency

than children in half-day programs.• Parents attitudes toward all-day kindergarten would be positive taking into account

its effect on scheduling convenience and the child’s energy level.• Lastly significant interactions between the length of the school day and program

structure affecting the social and academic dependent variable assessments. Cleminshaw-Guidubaldi 2001, Journal of Educational Research; Nov/Dec79, Vol. 73 Issue

2

The Effect of Time and Structure on Kindergarten Student Social and Academic Performance continued.

The test used four different tests which they called instruments to retrieve their data.

The first test that was given was what they called the Animal Crackers test. This test was used to evaluate the motivation to achieve in a noncognitive way.

The next test that was given was the Metropolitan Readiness Test. In this test the children were to show if they were ready for first grade or not.

Then the teachers filled out the Kohn Social Competence Scale. The interesting part of this was that the teachers did not know what the researchers were looking for so they were able to control for bias.

Lastly the parents were to return a Parental Attitude Scale. The purpose of this study was to ascertain parental opinion and feelings relating to the child’s kindergarten program.

Cleminshaw-Guidubaldi 2001, Journal of Educational Research; Nov/Dec79, Vol. 73 Issue 2

Summary and Interesting factsThe basic conclusion from the study was that children from full-day

kindergarten scored higher in most of the areas that were evaluated.

One surprising result was that there was not significant differences in motivation between full-day or half day kindergarten children.

The study did show that full day kindergarten created a more relaxing environment which produced less anxiety with fewer negative interactions with peers.

Lastly the children that attended open-classroom full-day kindergarten programs achieved significantly higher on competency tests.

Link to the article which has many interesting charts of the analysis from the studies.

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=9&hid=17&sid=11f6b6a4-d7f7-4049-8080-9d7c84ef17bf%40sessionmgr3

All-Day Kindergarten On The Rise

This article talks about some of the pros to full-day kindergarten.

The article says full day kindergarten makes it easier to plan field trips, work on larger art projects, and gives more time to learn names and sounds of letters than the traditional half day programs.

The article also goes on to say that children who attended full-day kindergarten showed about a 20% improvement in reading and math scores on assessment tests as first graders.

-Chmelynski

All-Day Kindergarten On The Rise continued

At the time of this article only 39 states mandated kindergarten programs in the schools.

Arkansas, Florida, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia required full-day kindgarten.

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and Vermont required schools to offer parents a choice of half-day or full-day kindergarten programs.

Summary and Interesting factsOne interesting fact that the article stated was that most first grade

teachers said they didn’t see a significant academic difference in the children coming from full-day or half day programs. They did however see that children coming from full-day programs seemed to be more confident and organized in first grade.

This article was a very interesting article because it brings up things like funding and the fact that most teachers and parents preferred full-day kindergarten. It also stated that full-day programs to be beneficial require elements such as hands-on activities, mixed-age groups, language development and literacy experiences, small group activities, large group activities, and individual activities, conflict resolutions skills, and development of social skills.

Link to article

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=13&hid=17&sid=11f6b6a4-d7f7-4049-8080-9d7c84ef17bf%40sessionmgr3&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ

%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=1325624

Pushing for Full-Day Kindergarten in Indiana

During my research finding articles I came across this article that actually mentions Indiana.

In the article Lisa Fratt discusses how Governor Joe Kernan was able to find money in the state budget to fund full-day kindergarten. Interesting about this is that the state budget at that time was $1 billion in the deficit.

The article goes on to talk about the timeline that it was going to take because of legal issues and constitutional amendments that needed to take place in order for full-day kindergarten to go into effect.

Pushing for Full-Day Kindergarten in Indiana continued

The article says that the funding for full-day kindergarten came by moving $30 million from lottery and gaming funds and $11.5 million from abandoned property monies.

Full-day kindergarten funding can become part of the regular school funding formula in 2012 but in order for this to happen the General Assembly had to pass legislation to add the funds.

Summary in Interesting factsGovernor Kernan based his proposal on research that showed

early learning is vitally important to children’s success.The article said that there needed to be $500 million

reallocated to the common school fund to pay for 75,000-80,000 kindergarten students in the 2006/07 school year.

I found this article very interesting to the fact that our state legislators thought that full-day kindergarten was so important that they were able to find the money to fund it even though it meant taking money away from something else.

Link to article

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=11&hid=17&sid=11f6b6a4-d7f7-4049-8080-9d7c84ef17bf%40sessionmgr3

ConclusionIn conclusion I believe that full-day kindergarten

is very beneficial for our children. I believe this because of what I have read in these and other articles and also from personal experience working in the elementary kindergarten classrooms.