Quality early childhood education in Costa Rica? Policy,practice, outcomes and challenges |
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| Authors: | Andrea Rolla San Francisco Corresponding author Melissa Arias Renata Villers |
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| Institution: | 1. Harvard University Graduate School of Education , Cambridge, MA, USA;2. Association Amigos del Aprendizaje , San José, Costa Rica |
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| Abstract: | High‐quality early childhood education has been shown to improve school outcomes in several developing and developed nations. The history of policy around pre‐school education in Costa Rica is described as background to presenting cross‐sectional data on the emergent literacy skills of low‐income Costa Rican children in kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade from six schools (n?=?335). These data suggest that Costa Rican children show rather limited emergent literacy knowledge at the end of kindergarten. In addition, instruction in nine kindergarten classrooms is described and evaluated in order to provide vignettes of educational practice. The need for developmentally appropriate practice around emergent literacy skills and articulation with 1st grade is discussed and appropriate professional development is called for. |
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| Keywords: | Language development Emergent literacy Teacher training Classroom observations Assessment |
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