The following research paper accompanied a Field Work project in which several of my fellow classmates and I conducted a book drive to work in conjunction with the Rockbridge Reads program in order to promote early literacy. This essay analyzes the psychological benefits of preschool education through careful research on multiple psychological studies, and argues for a pathway on which to pursue this change. Consequently, the essay addresses the “why” of the issue in hopes to shed light on the problem as well as providing potential solutions.
The Potential and Opportunities of Public Preschool
The evidence on the overwhelmingly positive effect of Preschool on early childhood development, cognitive functions, and even social stability, suggests it is in our best interest as child caretakers, teachers, and members of society to cut unnecessary federal education funds as well as other taxpayer waste in order to provide resources to make preschools public and minimally costly across the nation. If preschool is made public, and mandatory in a majority of states, as a society we will further the “equality” we, as a nation, are so consistently and desperately trying to acquire, while affording students across the nation the same opportunity by providing them, as much as possible, the same cognitive foundation.
In order to understand the importance of preschool education on a child’s cognitive development specifically, we need to assess, analyze, and understand the developmental processes through which a child goes during this time. Between the age of two and seven, children are “preparing” for the operational stage of childhood, otherwise known as the Pre-operational cognition stage. Johanna Turner emphasizes this period as vital stage in which children begin to internalize the things around them, assume a reality, and communicate that perception with symbolic expression, or the very basic levels of language. (Turner, 1984) Most adults view this as a time when children fail to understand mature rationale, but really the child is portraying a very distinct way of thinking that is key to developing into a language and communication skills. Because children do not fully understand the world around them in terms of ‘cause and effect’ at this age, it is basically a trial and error period. Children learn what will and will not afford them the circumstance they desire. The child’s failures represent their attempts to “grapple with reality.” (Turner, 1984)
During the pre-operational stage, a child’s mind is very egocentric in the sense that they have not gained the empathetic skills to assume alternative perspectives. The child does not understand that other people have different points of view. If this stage of intellectual development is not fostered, a child’s ability to empathize and ultimately detect social cues will be delayed or damaged. (Turner, 1984) To demonstrate and analyze this level of learning, Piaget and Inhelder (1948/1956) held the Three-Mountain-Problem experiment in which they place a child between three mountains that are differently colored, sized, and angled. A doll is then placed at a different spot the child can see from where he or she is seated.
In order to understand the importance of preschool education on a child’s cognitive development specifically, we need to assess, analyze, and understand the developmental processes through which a child goes during this time. Between the age of two and seven, children are “preparing” for the operational stage of childhood, otherwise known as the Pre-operational cognition stage. Johanna Turner emphasizes this period as vital stage in which children begin to internalize the things around them, assume a reality, and communicate that perception with symbolic expression, or the very basic levels of language. (Turner, 1984) Most adults view this as a time when children fail to understand mature rationale, but really the child is portraying a very distinct way of thinking that is key to developing into a language and communication skills. Because children do not fully understand the world around them in terms of ‘cause and effect’ at this age, it is basically a trial and error period. Children learn what will and will not afford them the circumstance they desire. The child’s failures represent their attempts to “grapple with reality.” (Turner, 1984)
During the pre-operational stage, a child’s mind is very egocentric in the sense that they have not gained the empathetic skills to assume alternative perspectives. The child does not understand that other people have different points of view. If this stage of intellectual development is not fostered, a child’s ability to empathize and ultimately detect social cues will be delayed or damaged. (Turner, 1984) To demonstrate and analyze this level of learning, Piaget and Inhelder (1948/1956) held the Three-Mountain-Problem experiment in which they place a child between three mountains that are differently colored, sized, and angled. A doll is then placed at a different spot the child can see from where he or she is seated.
The child is asked to choose a photograph that depicted the view the doll had from where it sat; pre-operational children were not able to do so. However those same children were able to look at a rectangular block with a duck on one side, a teddy bear on the other, and tell a difference in perspective. According to Chandler and Boyes (1982), the child is just focused on the object itself rather than the doll’s perspective. The experiment proves that pre-operational children don’t realize that “knowledge can be subjectively organized.” Children learn “role-taking” during this stage by considering the different parts of objects, understand that others have alternative perspectives, and determining what that perspective is. (p. 46) As one can imagine, the child suffers here in that they gain no sense of empathy and initially lack the ability to detect social cues if they do not develop in this direction. By overstepping this developmental stage of cognition, the now kindergartener has to make up for lost time, jumping into academia with a limited perspective.
Children in the pre-operational stage also have a sense of irreversibility, unable to detect transitions or changes, step-by-step processes, or cause and effect. It can harm a child’s disciplinary and social maturity to forego this stage of development because he or she will not consider that if they eat a cookie, they get put in time-out, rather than those two occurrences just happened at the same time. A lack of development in this area affects their reality of cohesive connections and allows the child to have qualitative understanding without quantitative, which can consequently affect mathematic skill. However, the focus here is to provide a foundation before skill is developed, which largely consists with a child’s detection of the outside world and his or her expression.
Symbolic expression begets language in a child’s development. They are directly related to semiotic functions which begin between eighteen months and two years. These functions are how people represent themselves, their actions, and their experiences to the outside world. (Turner, p. 48) This includes language, imitation, symbolic play, drawing, mental images, and memory. It is simply developing intelligence in a child. The difference between the pre-operational stage the operational stage is found in the motives. A pre-operational child may turn a door handle because they see another person turning a door handle. An operational child may turn a door handle in order to open the door, recognizing the cause and effect and acting with a purpose or motive. As Turner explains it, once the child understands why he or she is doing something, they internalize it and it becomes a part of their “repertoire of knowledge.” (p. 49)
Furthermore, memory development occurs during the preschool years; Piaget relates the ability to memorize to intellectual ability. (Turner, p. 52) A large majority of public education in the United States has less to do with understanding and more to do with memory/memorization; if a child does not have a memory as good as the photographic memory of the child next to him, he will be set further back in his academics even if he has a higher IQ.
Along with memory, language development can also often be used as a measure for intelligence in more of a social sense. However it is different than other areas of development during this period in that it is socially designed, accepted, and controlled. Because children this are egocentric in their thinking, they speak in ‘collective monologues’ which merely means speaking alongside one another, hoping to convey a message without considering how the other participant in the conversation with hear it. (Piaget, 1970a, p.116) This demonstrates, again, the egocentric mindset of this age that is crucial to growth, but also needs to be moved past.
By the end of the pre-operational—or preschool—stage, the average child’s language development is nearly complete, which is why this brief space of time so early on in their education is so crucial. It is limited and cannot be repeated without extensive ‘rewiring’ and reconstruction of the child’s perception of reality and ability to communicate. While learning syntactic meaning, children learn to form words, then phrases, then sentences until they can successfully and fully articulate their desired message. It is ideally a step-by-step process
Hess and Shipman made the now commonly accepted claim that “The behavior that leads to societal, educational and economic poverty is socialized in early childhood.” (1965, 1967, p. 64) If this early childhood development is fostered properly across the board, we can easily avoid said poverty.
There is more than enough evidence to indicate that this development has a monumental impact on social interaction, therefore this stage is so significant because children develop the skills that help them empathize and communicate with other human beings. Arnold Gesell on the Development of Personal-Social behavior in Chapter 2 of The Mental Growth of the Pre-school Child, makes the irrefutable claim that growth is a continual process. Placing a child in an educative atmosphere several years into his life is detrimental because you are placing new development abruptly into his aging. With leeway in the first couple years to physically develop and allow for basic needs to be met without intensive care required by the educator, a child should be placed in education as early on as is doable in order to begin the process at its natural, biological initiation. It must be included in a child’s development because it is vital for their transitioning into the next level of education. As we are told growing up, elementary school is preparing us for middle school. Middle school prepares us for high school. High school prepares us for college, and college prepares us for the real world.
To touch briefly on its anatomical significance, if it were to assist in a basic understanding of the biological growth, the brain grows extremely quickly before the age of six, almost reaching its mature bulk. The cerebral cortex reaches its full width at about fifteen months. Donaldson emphasizes the importance of postnatal growth of the nervous system, in that favorable circumstances in this area sets the stage for further development. (Donaldson, The Mental Growth of the Preschool Child, p. 11)
As the preschool child develops he is developing his personality as well as his intellectual capacity. This includes associative memories, habits, and attitudes that one acquires from being around other personal or relational individuals. If someone were to grow up in an ‘asocial vacuum’, he wouldn’t have any ‘personality make-up’ at all. This suggests that a child’s personality is largely dependent in the interactions he has with those around him. A child develops a personality by associating certain things with others, which dictates his reactions to most circumstances. His natural feelings and needs like feeding, fearing, fighting, and affection are all instinctive and not developed from his interaction with others and social influences. “The key to mental hygiene of childhood lies in building up adequate self-reliance and independences.” (p. 227-228) An efficient way to achieve this would insist on preschool because it separates the child from his caretakers for a specific period of time in which they have to learn to function without them. The child needs to be gradually weaned away from the protection and care-taking of his mother because he must slowly learn to take care of himself. Self-reliance is key to maturity growth. (pg. 228)
The pre-school period is of all periods the most prolific for fears. Many of these fears are passing and inconsequential; but in their totality they are a faithful indication of the personality status of the child. (Gesell, pg. 230)
Allowing a child to attend preschool, or requiring it of them, is affording the child an opportunity to experience new things and overcome fears he would not do so on his own, which most often arise from immediate changes to their atmosphere and current circumstance. It requires a very basic but necessary level of coping skills.
Doris Entwisle analyzes the importance of preschool by measuring its effectiveness in the transition afterward into elementary school in The Role of Schools in Sustaining Early Childhood Program Benefits. She argues that one of the most prevalent ways to observe the positive effects of pre-schooling is in the transition from pre-school to kindergarten, or the first grade of elementary school. The long term effects of preschool can largely be determined by measuring the link, if at all possible, between preschool and elementary school. While literal IQ tests only provided temporary and small increases as a result of pre-schooling in Entwisle’s findings, she records that cognitive achievement is associated with higher student success in that there are lower levels of special education placement and a retention in grade, as well as higher levels of high school graduation. The issue has been proven more to be one of confidence and expectation rather than direct intelligence. Children from less privileged backgrounds who undergo preschool programs see a boost in performance during the transitional period. It also prevents parents and teachers from developing low expectations of the children’s performance. Not only does the early education affect the child himself, it affects the perspective of authority figures such as parents and teachers around the child. “Those who enter school with the socio-emotional maturity that teachers expect are positioned to benefit from the opportunities for growth offered them in first grade.” (Entwisle, 1995) Being able to work with the people around them allows children to transition with ease as well.
In the Beginning School Study that Entwisle records these findings on, the initial focus was to prove an increase in IQ levels. While it initially produced the desired results, they were minimal and faded after a few years and leveled out with the other students. The two results that were concretely found, however, were that pre-schooled children were “less often referred for special education and retained in grade through the end of high school.” One of the studies that observed 192 students through their lower level education determined that the number of pre-schooled children who had no retentions in grade and graduated high school was 25% higher than non-pre-schooled children. Another result focused on was the significant others in the children’s lives. The experience provides confidence in their child for the parents of these students; they have higher expectations for their children’s academic success and consequently show more support.
If parent’s believe their children are smarter than other children, their children tend to do better than other children—a relationship that appears to be stronger in middle-class than in working-class families. In fact, parent’s beliefs about children’s ability can predict children’s school performance better than children’s actual ability, as measured by standardized tests. (Entwisle, 1995)
It is evident that research on the topic takes significant amounts of time to acquire. The Harvard Preschool Project consisted of 20 years of research on the origins of human competence. While complex and extensive, the experimentation process was relatively straightforward: study the way a child develops until the age of six, identify important periods of time, measure the development of the child, monitor the nurturing practices of the families of each child, determine a hypothesis on the most effective training program, test the hypothesis by implementing the program, study the results, and retest. White, Kaban, and Attanucci consider the results and their effects on society as a whole as well as the effects on just the child himself. They take their study a step further than most, beyond the children’s level, and attempt to qualitatively measure the effects of preschool development in the home and ultimately society. They refer to the negative effects there are to not developing children at the most basic level; in that the fault is often due to a lack of concern for early educational development. (p. 183)
After such extensive research, the writers adamantly believe that pre-schooling support aids in family stability. And it is hardly a secret that a society of stable families is a society of stable social functions.
On the issue of social functions and stability it is commonly accepted that financial stability is one of the cornerstones in that foundation. The positive effect of early childhood education was tested in 1995 by Frances Campbell and Craig Ramey; Cognitive and School Outcomes for High-Risk African American Students at Middle Adolescence: Positive Effects of Early Intervention.
Enhancement of early cognitive development in poor children is important because of the “realization that cognitive processing will have a great deal to do with [academic and’ vocational success.” (Gallagher, 1991)
Figure 1 represents generally the design of the experiment.
The experiment contrasts students either with or without preschool education. A graphical representation of the results of the IQ measurements is below:
This is only one example of repetitive testing evidence on the superior intellect and educational stability on those more impoverished students who experienced preschool intervention. The ultimate conclusion was that, overall, economically disadvantaged African-American children (as a majority) improved performance and test scores. The results of the Perry Preschool Project were published in 1995, and the movement seems to be losing momentum, if there is any left at all.
The positive effects of preschool level cognitive development are undeniable in an intellectual, social, and moral sense. To focus our attention on arbitrary expenses within federal education funding guidelines and without is to deny the youth of the United States the opportunity—at least—of growing their social and intellectual capabilities as soon as possible. It should no longer be a question of ‘why’, but ‘how’ and ‘when’.
When a child fails, simply drawing her (or his) attention to the failure is unlikely to improve that performance. No doubt the child already knows she cannot read, or spell, or multiply. (Turner, p. 156)
As a country we spend time and money evaluating test scores, performance levels, and ranking in academia against other nations, instead of proving the means to rectify the problem. The solution is not simple nor fast-acting, but no revolutionary changes ever are. It will require time, energy, money, address to the public, and a re-prioritizing of our values and necessities to accomplish the goal of providing preschool in terms of public education. However providing this assistance, the solution will ultimately “pay for itself,” in the sense that the students benefiting from this kind of program will grow to be more intellectually developed, socially proficient , and interpersonally effective; all provided to a society in need of functional participants in community.
Works Cited
Turner, Johanna. Chapter 3, The Pre-school Years. Cognitive Development and Education.
London: Methuen, 1984. N. pag. Print.
Gesell, Arnold. The Mental Growth of the Pre-school Child; a Psychological Outline of Normal Development from Birth to the Sixth Year, including a System of Developmental
Diagnosis. New York: Macmillan, 1925. Print.
Entwisle, Doris R. “The Role of Schools in Sustaining Early Childhood Program Benefits.” The
Future of Children 5.3 (1995): 133. JSTOR [JSTOR]. Web.
White, Burton L., Barbara Kaban, and Jane S. Attanucci. The Origins of Human Competence:
The Final Report of the Harvard Preschool Project. Lexington, MA: Lexington, 1979. Print.
Campbell, F. A., and C. T. Ramey. “Cognitive and School Outcomes for High-Risk African-
American Students at Middle Adolescence: Positive Effects of Early Intervention.”
American Educational Research Journal 32.4 (1995): 743-72. JSTOR [JSTOR]. Web.
Gallagher, J. J. (1991). Longitudinal interventions: Virtues and limitations. American Behavioral
Scientist, 34(4), 431-439.
