Introduction
School readiness for children has gained great political attention in England. It refers to the desire for children to learn on their first day in school (Whitebrand & Bingham, 2011). This topic, according to Dockett and Perry (2013), has also appeared in the international literature,e and more countries are showing their commitment to making sure that children are ready to learn. This has been underpinned by the assumption that children who have early experiences in education perform better in the future (Neaum, 2016).
Main ideas
Since poor performance has been perceived as the children’s problem, school readiness was recommended to reduce these challenges (Neaum, 2016). Additionally, parenting has been pedagogical, and children’s play has been drawn into a curriculum aimed at preparing children for school. The main idea in this article is the effectiveness of school readiness to a child’s future education and the ways through which it should be carried out (Bernstein, 2000). According to an annual report by Michael Wilshire, the queen’s chief of staff, the gap between the poor and the rich in early childhood learning has remained stagnant for the last six years. Thus, the report mainly focused on reducing this gap by ensuring more parents get time to work, identifying and handling children’s potential problems, and identifying the performing children early.
Research
From the US national education panel, school readiness should encompass social and emotional well-being, physical and motor development, general use of language and knowledge,ge and cognitive training. Research carried out by Ball (207) revealed that childrewhoat participated in high-quality preschool education programs were more advanced in vital development areas than those who did not. The key areas involved: reasoning skills, language, andthe ability to understand the world around them. These children showed interest in understanding new concepts and achieved better grades (Kamerman, 2008).
Personal assessment
According to the research above, a child’s future performance is strongly associated with their school readiness and how it was affected. School readiness should involve learning the basic language, knowledge, cognitive skills, emotional and social training, and general physical health. With these, a child can easily adapt to the school system and also perform very well (Kamerman, 2008). These school-ready children are different from the latter in that they show a keen interest in learning and acquiring knowledge, they also take part in various school activities meant for social and emotional development, and they find it easy to make new friends (Ball, 2007). Additionally, the Ofsted report by Wilshire has identified a huge gap between the rich and the poor in this initiative and has recommended fthatthe government reduce this gap in school readiness for the program to be effective for all citizens.
According to my personal opinion on the matter, I agree with the article that school readiness helps prepare a child for school life. Also, this preparation should be effective enough that the child should be trained emotionally, physically, socially, and mentally so that they adapt easily to the school environment. Additionally, research done by Ball (2007) has proven that school-ready children are significantly better in class activities compared to those who did not attend pre-school programs.
References
Ball, S. (2007). Education PLC: Understanding Private Sector Participation in Public Sector Education. London: Routledge.
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control, and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. London: Rowman and Littlefield.
Dockett, S., Perry, B. (2013). “Trends and Tensions: Australian and International Research About Starting School.” International Journal of Early Years Education, 21 (2-3), 163-177.
Kamerman, S.B. (2008). School Readiness and International Developments in Early Childhood Education and Care.
Neaum, S. (2016). School readiness and pedagogies of Competence and Performance: theorising the troubled relationship between early years and early years policy, International Journal of Early Years Education, 24:3, 239-253, DOI: 10.1080/09669760.2016.1205970
Whitebread, D., & Bingham, S. (2011). “The Readiness Literature Review.” TACTYC.
