Early Childhood Education and Care: Case Study Analysis

This case study analysis focuses on the challenges faced by a child during the transition from pre-school to primary school. The analysis highlights the socio-emotional challenges faced by the child and provides strategies to overcome them. The subject is Early Childhood Education and Care, and the course code and college/university are not mentioned.

Early Childhood Education and Care
Case Study Analysis
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Abstract
Early childhood education is an integral aspect of children and adult lives. In early childhood
transition from pre-school to primary one has been regarded as a critical stage by many. The
scope of the current analysis deals with a case study related to Daisy, where her mother Mary
pays attention to her academic performance. Being ignored for socio-emotional needs the child
stops going to school and reacts in a negative manner. Hence, certain prominent socio-emotional
challenges faced by the child are highlighted along with strategies to overcome them.
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Table of Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................................2
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................4
2.0 Case Study Analysis..................................................................................................................4
(a) Mary’s perspective on preparing her child for transition to primary school with examples.....4
(b) Issues pertaining to Daisy’s social-emotional adjustment to primary one.................................7
(c) Mary can adopt practices to help Daisy with the transition.....................................................10
3.0 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................11
4.0 Reference Lists........................................................................................................................12
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1.0 Introduction
Primary schooling can be frightening for young children, who had previously enjoyed
their time in kindergarten (Birger 2008). A child’s transition is the most import ant phase of a
child’s primary education. The scope of this current analysis is of Mary, parent of a child who
attaches importance to academic preparation for a child’s transition into primary one. She has
sent her child Daisy enrichment programs. Daisy appeared to cope well during her initial weeks
in primary one. However, after some time, she has begun to throw temper tantrums, which has
alarmed everyone. She often cries at the school gate, refusing to enter the school premise despite
her teacher’s efforts to convince her. Getting ready for school in the morning has become a great
challenge for both the mother and daughter (Harcourt 2011). Year after year young children
progresses to primary one, advancing from kindergarten to primary school. It is a normal
advancement of schooling systems but can be daunting for many children. Some children does
not appear to be ready for primary schooling as it involves immense transition. The scope of this
analysis deals with Daisy’s transition and Mary’s preparation for making her child go into
primary one (Yeung 2011). Some recommendation is provided at the end that can help ease
transition of Daisy into primary one.
2.0 Case Study Analysis
(a) Mary’s perspective on preparing her child for transition to primary
school with examples.
Daisy’s transition from kindergarten into primary one has emerged to be daunting.
Parents, especially mother Mary has to cope up with multiple changes to assure the child did not
feel anxious regarding the transition phase. Mary while sending Daisy to primary one schooling
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has to prepare for expecting many changes as possible. While the changes can be enormous, it is
often daunting as a child of seven years of age has to handle it. Mary views the transition from
kindergarten to primary one change as being mostly academic in nature. She believes that unlike
kindergarten where there was very little amount of studies involved, primary school includes a
lot of things to be done (Wortham 2015). She is mostly ignorant about the multiple other changes
that come accompanied along with academic challenges.
While academic pressure can be coped up with in presence of proper guidance, a child is
expected to make transition into a whole new environment. At first Daisy was able to bear some
of pressure from unexpected changes, however as days passed she experienced more pressure at
home. Mary was not able to assimilate the fact that Daisy was adjusting to a whole new
environment, hence she should not be subjected to additional academic pressures at home. On
the other hand, she felt that being able to deal with academic pressure was the only way out of
the situation in which Daisy was in (Chien 2010). Several literatures on the subject indicate that
parents especially mothers needs to be more empathic and sometimes also sympathetic towards
the several challenges the child is facing. She should not ignore them or create additional
pressures.
Transiting from kindergarten to primary school involves less amounts of play time and
more amount of academics. But that it a singular perspective on the transition of a child. Mary
needs to look at overall process of transition that would let Daisy to cope with academic
pressures and other changes more readily. Rather than preparing Daisy for a fun based learning
experience, Mary had done everything to scare the child even more. The child was in a state of
dilemma to deal with the current situation and wanted to avoid it altogether. Ebbeck and Chan
(2011) in their perspective on transition phase to primary one in early childhood education
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provided a wholesome view of the entire approach (Ebbeck 2011). Their article has covered a lot
of new concepts along with prominent situations that are faced by parents of transiting children
in Singapore. Singapore is a society where children from various communities are present, hence
parents from different society experiences varied types of fear related to primary school.
Admission in primary school is often based on merit of children and their parents. Though it is
not stringent but certain tests are taken prior to admission, also there starts marking criteria of
children from primary one level (Anning 2008). Children from Chinese community, which
comprise of a large number of Singapore population are often competitive in nature where
children from other community feels outcast. Parent’s perspective like Mary is to prepare
children to be competitive and make their children excel in academic performance. Major
concentration of parents in Singapore is to make their children achieve higher grades or be top
performers in their class (Essa 2012).
Poon, Musti-Ra and Wettasinghe (2013) in their article attaches importance to multiple
subjects that are introduced to children at primary one level (Poon 2013). Till kindergarten
children are introduced to concepts in vocabulary, English, math, but at primary one level there
are subjects which children needs to learn. Parents are often themselves unarmed as to discover
ways to teach the young child to learn so many subjects at such time span. This creates an overall
pressure for children and their parents, while they transit to primary one (McLachlan 2012).
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(b) Issues pertaining to Daisy’s social-emotional adjustment to primary
one.
The process of successful transition from kindergarten to primary school has shown to
have positive effects on a child’s academic performance as well as social competence. Transition
from pre to primary school level is a critical period for children and has been acknowledged to
be traumatic or troubled or effective or enjoyable depending on ways children adapt to new
learning environment by coping with demands posed by teachers and parents (Wortham 2009).
At pre-school different priorities had been given to socio-emotional and academic developments
for providing a formal setting for children entering primary school. Chinese population
consisting of majority in Singapore emphasizes on academic performances whereas Westernized
countries focuses more on social maturity as highlighted by Zhang and Siegel (1994) (Mirkhil
2010). The primary focus in Singapore based preschool centers is to prepare children for meeting
academic demands at primary level completely ignoring social and emotional maturity. The
National Institute of Education in Singapore in 1997 initiated a program to enable children to
cope with academic, emotional and social demands of primary level towards a more competitive
and formal learning environment. Studies conducted in this domain reflects that mothers needs to
provide hands-on preparation to their children to be able to cope with the several changes
expected at school. She needs aid the child in dealing with emotional tantrums or any other
possible environmental changes that the child is expected to face (Gordon 2013).
Daisy while transiting from pre-school to primary one is expected to cope with several
academic as well as social-emotional changes. First and most integral social change that Daisy is
expected to make is adjustment to a new environment (Lian 2008). A child will be going to a
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completely new environment in a new school where there will be new classmates and teachers.
Moreover, in this new environment children are expected to be trained for certain basic
behavioral trends as toilet training, disciplinary training or any other similar training pertaining
to specific school. Allen and Cowdery (2014) provided integral inputs regarding social transition
which forms a pre-requisite in early childhood school setting (Allen 2014). In the literature
importance of developing social skills amongst children were explained in great details and
depth. Hartup (1992) explained the importance of children developing minimum social
competence at the age of 6 otherwise they might be at risk through their entire life. Social
competence includes curiosity, warmth, humor, confidence, reliability, spontaneity, sense of
being right, morally responsible behaviour, discipline, friendliness, cooperation, problem-solving
capabilities, helpfulness and adaptability as incorporated by Black and Puckett (1996) (Chan
2012). From these several areas related to social and emotional competence Daisy is most likely
to face issue related to warmth, self-confidence, reliability and adaptability.
Daisy had been well adjusted in her kindergarten school level and has comfort of her
mother at home. While being exposed to a whole new environment, it can be least expected that
she gets the same warmth that she previously got in her pre-school or one that she gets at home.
Pre-school children are treated in a different manner, where they are looked after and taken care
off. they are hand-held for doing each and every task, relationship of a teacher with that of a pre-
school child is mother-child relationship. At primary one level there is bound to be more number
of children as against pre-school and teacher will be more formal and sometimes even stick. A
child like Daisy must have expected the same warmth in her initial days at school and when she
missed it, she refused to go to the school.
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McClellan and Katz (1993) noted that most important part of early development in
children is to interact and get along with other children, this helps them develop their self-
confidence levels. Self-confidence is the most integral part of adult adaptation as children who
are unable to mix with peer grow up to be socially handicapped, and are later unable to form
close relationship. These children can suffer from poor mental health with impeded learning
at school or later in their lives. Daisy is expected to face challenge in regards to self-confidence
and adaptability which has hindered her from making friends. It is prominent from her behaviour
as she refuses to go to school that she has not been able to make close association or adopt to
situation in the primary school. She is facing socio-emotional challenge that has hindered her
from making associates. Katz and McClellan (1991) emphasized the need of “3R’s” along with
education in lives of every children. It is during primary learning years that children often makes
friends for lifetime. It is an integral phase in life of children that they make friends, develop
relationship of trust and closeness. It is one of the first relationship that humans make in the
society after their birth and association with parents. It is significant part of growing up and
impacts development of a child’s mental health. Parents and teacher needs to support and
emphasize children into making good friends by sharing and other simple endeavors. This will
help the child develop reliability on one another. Prerequisite for building and establishing
effective social relationship with others is developed with abilities to emphasize and understand
perspective of others. There has been several research in the past years that considers role-taking
abilities amongst children to be quite sophisticated in nature. Thus, various stages of socio-
emotional developments were thought to be integral for children’s development that were
lagging for Daisy.
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(c) Mary can adopt practices to help Daisy with the transition
Children during transition face immense amounts of challenges that might affect them in
their future life span. These issues and challenges has been broadly classified as being academic
and social or emotional in nature. Parents especially mothers, teachers and school can play
enormous role in changing the entire perspective of the child in early years transiting to primary
one. The criticalness of this stage poses threats in itself that amplifies the need for carefulness
while dealing with children (Ebbeck 2009). While teachers and school does play a prominent
role, mothers have a larger role to play to ensure that the child is able to cope with the challenges
of day to day pressures at primary one. In the current case highlighted of Daisy, she is expected
to face mostly socio-emotional challenges as her mother is quite careful regarding her academic
performance. Her numerous socio-emotional challenges includes lack of warmth, self-
confidence, reliability and adaptability.
First of all Mary could have attended orientation class with the child. This would have
helped foster a spirit of self-confidence in Daisy, who was not able to adjust with latest school
environment. Daisy’s self-confidence could be boosted also by making use of counseling, where
Mary would assure her that like all children she can easily attend school. Mary could also focus
on all positive achievements of Daisy along her past kindergarten experience. She could explain
her that Daisy had gone to kindergarten when she was 2 and half years of age and adjusted to the
environment, so this would be an easy task for her. For some time Mary should stop focusing on
academics part of Daisy and provide more help in socio-emotional part.
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Sharing Mary’s positive primary level school experience could help Daisy feel more
confident regarding her new school. It would provide her a feeling of assurance that her mother
had gone through similar procedure, allowing her to adapt more to the environment. Sharing
positive experience of Mary’s primary schooling would help Daisy develop a positive attachment
with the environment (Zhang 2011). Emotional counseling is critical for child who are
experiencing a transition phase and are unable to deal with the pressures from it. emotional
counseling will provide Daisy with the warmth she is missing at school. Mary can one day take
along Daisy to talk to her teacher, where she can discuss regarding the challenges she is facing.
Mary can also ask personally any problems daisy is facing at her school, which she can tell the
teacher. Attending to specific problems will help Daisy overcome her challenges more easily.
Mary can mix with children after school gets over and talk to their parents, or may be call them
at her home for a platy date. This will help Daisy to easily make friends within comfort of her
home and hence develop reliability. Gan (1999) concluded in study conducted in Singapore that
parents can play a large role in assisting their children to develop better socio-emotional
relationship during childhood. These strategies will help Daisy overcome her current fears and
step into a whole new environment which will prepare her for later in life.
3.0 Conclusion
Analysing pertinent literatures in early childhood education it can be said that developing socio-
emotional relationship is critical as academic performance. In the current case while Daisy faces
a number of socio-emotional challenges, her mother remained ignorant. Her mother needs to
develop strategies to help Daisy out of the situation and overcome pertinent challenges in regards
to the same. This will enable Daisy to have a much successful transition into primary one.
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4.0 Reference Lists
Allen, E. K., & Cowdery, G. E. (2014). The exceptional child: Inclusion in early childhood
education. Nelson Education.
Anning, A., Cullen, J., & Fleer, M. (2008). Early childhood education: Society and culture.
Sage.
Birger, F., Lee, S. K., & Goh, C. B. (2008). Toward a better future: Education and training for
economic development in Singapore since 1965. World Bank Publications.
Chan, W. L. (2012). Expectations for the transition from kindergarten to primary school amongst
teachers, parents and children. Early Child Development and Care, 182(5), 639-664.
Chien, C. Y., & Hui, A. N. (2010). Creativity in early childhood education: Teachers’
perceptions in three Chinese societies. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 5(2), 49-60.
Ebbeck, M., & Yim, H. Y. B. (2009). Rethinking attachment: Fostering positive relationships
between infants, toddlers and their primary caregivers. Early Child Development and
Care, 179(7), 899-909.
Ebbeck, M., & Chan, Y. Y. Y. (2011). Instituting change in early childhood education: Recent
developments in Singapore. Early Childhood Education Journal, 38(6), 457-463.
Essa, E. L. (2012). Introduction to early childhood education. Cengage Learning.
Harcourt, D., Perry, B., & Waller, T. (Eds.). (2011). Researching young children's perspectives:
Debating the ethics and dilemmas of educational research with children. Taylor &
Francis.
Gordon, A. M., & Browne, K. W. (2013). Beginnings & beyond: Foundations in early childhood
education. Cengage learning.
Lian, W. B., Ying, S. H. K., Tean, S. C. H., Lin, D. C. K., Lian, Y. C., & Yun, H. L. (2008). Pre‐
school teachers' knowledge, attitudes and practices on childhood developmental and
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behavioural disorders in Singapore. Journal of paediatrics and child health, 44(4), 187-
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McLachlan, C., Nicholson, T., Fielding-Barnsley, R., Mercer, L., & Ohi, S. (2012). Literacy in
Early Childhood and Primary Education: Issues, Challenges, Solutions. Cambridge
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Mirkhil, M. (2010). 'I Want to Play When I Go to School': Children's Views on the Transition to
School from Kindergarten. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 35(3), 134.
Poon, K., Musti-Ra, S., & Wettasinghe, M. (2013). Special education in Singapore: History,
trends, and future directions. Intervention in School and Clinic, 49(1), 59-64.
Wortham, S. C. (2009). Early childhood curriculum: Developmental bases for learning and
teaching. Pearson College Division.
Wortham, S. C., & Hardin, B. J. (2015). Assessment in early childhood education. Pearson.
Yeung, A. S., Lau, S., & Nie, Y. (2011). Primary and secondary students’ motivation in learning
English: Grade and gender differences. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 36(3),
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Zhang, K. C. (2011). Early childhood education and special education: How well do they mix?
An examination of inclusive practices in early childhood educational settings in Hong
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