Preschool Teaching: Fostering Cooperation Skills in Young Children

This paper examines the critical importance of teaching cooperation to preschool children, highlighting its role in developing essential problem-solving and teamwork skills. It references a Statista report indicating the substantial number of children in pre-primary schools, emphasizing the significance of early interventions. The paper discusses interventions such as turn-taking, synchronous motion, and problem-solving tasks, supported by research findings, to enhance cooperative behaviors. It also stresses the importance of positive reinforcement and allowing children to make choices to foster a sense of ownership and engagement in collaborative activities. The paper concludes that teaching cooperation is vital for children's social and emotional development, preparing them for future success.

Running head: PRESCHOOL TEACHING
Teaching Cooperation to Preschool Children
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

PRESCHOOL TEACHING
“Alone we can do little; together we can do so much” – Helen Keller
Cooperation is an important skill to be taught in preschool, as it can essentially help
preschool children develop problem-solving and teamwork skills. Introducing cooperative
play to preschool children is considered to be vital for their physical development as such
activities have been found to be linked to improvement in gross motor skills. The following
sections of the paper will discuss the importance of teaching cooperation to preschool
children and interventions that can critically help the teachers to achieve such objectives.
According to Statista Research Development (2019) report, there were over 8.74
children in the United States of America in 2018 enrolled in pre-primary school institutions.
This indicates that a huge part of the overall population is in pre-school, where critical
interventions could lead to the growth of positive intent in them. Teaching cooperation helps
the children to better collaborate with others, which could lead to the development of vital
social and emotional skills.
One of the few interventions that the teachers in preschool undertake to teach
cooperative skills to children is turn-taking. Turn-taking encourages the child to imitate the
acts of teachers and help them by participating in the activity. Such experiences give children
ample opportunities to experience feelings of accomplishment while working in teams.
According to a research study conducted by Rabinowitch & Meltzoff (2017), the
intervention of synchronous motion is highly successful in increasing the cooperation of pre-
schoolers with unfamiliar peers. The research findings indicated that groups with no motion
or unsynchronized motion showed increase timings with the decreased speed in completion
of joint tasks involving the pre-schoolers and unfamiliar peers. Synchrony induces intention
communication, which leads to enhanced peer cooperation.
Problem-solving is one important aspect that is highly dependent on the cooperative
skills of the children (Siew, Chin & Sombuling, 2017). The teachers can arrange time-

PRESCHOOL TEACHING
oriented problem-solving tasks to let the children team up and solve the challenge together in
quicker time. To be able to work in teams to solve problems is one of the highest indicators
of cooperative skills; thus, teachers should focus on helping the children overcome a
challenge together in a team.
To ensure that cooperative skills are highlighted as positive characteristics in the mind
of pre-schoolers, the teachers should praise and acknowledge every observed act of
cooperation by the pre-schooler. In addition to this, the teachers and coordinators should
allow the children to make their own choices. It enables them to be cooperative by choice and
realizing how working together and cooperating can help them to achieve the common goal
in a much easier way and quickly (Brown, 2016).
Learning cooperation is critical for a child’s social and emotional development.
Overcoming a challenge or reaching a common goal by working together can lead the way
for a child’s future success. Thus, it can be concluded from the above sections of the paper
that teaching cooperation to preschool children is highly essential and should be ensured
while teaching preschoolers.

PRESCHOOL TEACHING
References
Brown, K. (2016, Feb. 22). “5 Tips for Teaching Cooperation.” Retrieved on August 1,
2016 from http://www.kidsintransitiontoschool.org/5-tips-for-teaching-cooperation/
Rabinowitch, T. C., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2017). Synchronized movement experience enhances
peer cooperation in preschool children. Journal of Experimental Child
Psychology, 160, 21-32.
Siew, N. M., Chin, M. K., & Sombuling, A. (2017). THE EFFECTS OF PROBLEM BASED
LEARNING WITH COOPERATIVE LEARNING ON
PRESCHOOLERS'SCIENTIFIC CREATIVITY. Journal of Baltic Science
Education, 16(1).
www.statista.com. (2020). Topic: Kindergarten and Child Care. Retrieved 2 February 2020,
from https://www.statista.com/topics/1734/kindergarten-and-child-care/