Discussions

Shrinking Gaps Before Formal Education

Facts:

1) Few education standard exists for children before K, regardless countries. For example, US Common Core standard deals with kids after 5. Kindergartens in China, although starting at 3 years old, are not directly under the control of Ministry of Education.

2) Children start kindergarten at very inconsistent levels. What shall the child be prepared before starting school? Shall the child recognize all the letters and count till 10 and know he/she is part of the universe?

3) Unprepared children will obvious have trouble building their self-confidence or love school because, without teacher mentioning,  they see they are lagging behind their little friends.

4) Many young children spend their time with parents, relatives, nannies, home based daycare centers where there is no requirement for children's intellectual development. So the "Windows of Opportunities" as per developmental scientists are largely missed

Proposed Solution:

Home and daycare centers shall be regulated, submit to educational standards, preparing children through real-life learning experience for school readiness. As such, their path to school is leveled and their chance to succeed maximized.

With the computers, tablets and other mobile devices such as smart phones becoming popular, it takes only a few hundred dollar investment to cover 4 to 5 years of preschool learning, in other words, at about hundred dollar per year, this is much smaller investment compared to when the child grows into adulthood.

Government and corporations can change millions people's life by implementing standards, raising awareness of the importance of early childhood education and by providing low cost computer equipment and learning software which are built according to a standard.

Education starts when the child is born. If it starts only when school starts, chances are it's too late.

Dr. Dan Yang

Rullingnet Corporation

Co-presenter: Sarah Cowan

Country from Which You Will Present: Canada

Language in Which You Will Present: English

Target Audience (such as primary school teachers, high school administrators, students, etc.): Policy makers, primary and kindergarten teachers and administrators

Short Session Description (one line): Shrinking Gaps Before Formal Education

Full Session Description (one paragraph minimum):

Due to the fact young children start school at very unpredictable and inconsistent knowledge level causing learning gaps which become only wider with the increase of grades, we propose an early learning standard to be implemented for toddlers and preschoolers in order to level their path to school success. At a cost of about hundred dollar a year, computers, tablets and mobile devices can assist families to help their children to lay a foundation of knowledge informally which increases gradually with the child growing up till the school time. VINCI preschool learning curriculum is an example of our tentative effort in establishing such standard.

Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session: www.vincigenius.com