Rethinking of The Zone of Proximal Development: The Role of Parental Engagement in Children's Language Learning Skills

The present research investigated the efficacy of parent engagement in children's learning and achievement in the English language. It is emphasized that adult guidance in foreign language learning cannot necessarily play an influential role in children's zone of proximal development (ZPD). It seems that parents or adults should enjoy relative linguistic skills, while in Vygotsky's theory, there is ambiguity over some concepts such as adult guidance characteristics.The statistical society consisted of sixty Iranian children ranging from 9 to 10, divided randomly into three groups of experimental 1, experimental 2, and control. Children received face-to-face education while Telegram was used for their parents. The research results showed significantly more learning, skill training, parent involvement, and shared activities between children and parents in the experimental1 and experimental 2 groups compared to the control group. Moreover, a positive correlation is found between parent involvement and children's achievement in all three groups. The results also showed that parents' involvement and teaching involvement, and language skills had the most influence on parents' involvement. Furthermore, teaching engagement to parents had the most significant influence on children's activities. In addition, children's activities and language skill training had the most influence on their learning.

Feasibility of Behavior Change Techniques to Increase Parent Involvement in STEM ?with Young Children Experiencing Poverty

Broadening participation in early, informal STEM is important for families experiencing poverty. We explored the feasibility of the Teaching Together STEM preschool program for increasing home-based parent involvement and reducing barriers to informal STEM learning with 181 families at schools where 92% of students received free/reduced lunch. The core treatment included family engagement events and text messages; STEM events were delivered at school sites by museum-based informal science educators. We randomly assigned schools to business-as-usual or one of three additive treatment groups to evaluate adult behavior change techniques of adding materials and parent rewards to the core treatment. The primary outcome was parent involvement in STEM. There were no significant impacts of any treatment on home-based parent involvement in STEM; however, the groups that included take-home activity kits along with family education events/resources were the most promising way to get focal parents involved in doing science and math with their young child. Interestingly, the most intensive treatment group that added parent monetary rewards produced short-term improvements in parent involvement that faded at a later follow-up timepoint. We discuss the relative effects of different behavior change techniques and uptake of components, as this has implications for family engagement programs that aim to ensure equity when many parents have competing demands on their time.

The Effectiveness of Children YouTube Songs and Flashcard Games to Teach Vocabulary to Kindergarten Pupils

Teaching English to young learners has attracted many people in the last decades worldwide, so that English has been increasingly practised at the kindergarten levels. The role of parents is very crucial in the early stage of a child. This research shows the effective interaction between kindergarten children’s YouTube songs, flashcard games, and parental involvement in vocabulary learning at Kindergarten Karangturi with online teaching. This research was a quasi-experimental study with a 2x2 factorial design that focuses on two or more independent variables or factors on at least one dependent variable. This study employed two independent variables: teaching with YouTube songs and flashcard games based on the design. This study reveals that there was no significant interaction between two teaching media in teaching vocabulary and parent’s involvement. Using YouTube songs and flashcard games as the vocabulary teaching media to pupils with high parent involvement was effective. However, it also reveals that using youtube songs and flashcard games was ineffective as the vocabulary teaching media to pupils with low parent involvement. This study shows no significant difference in teaching vocabulary with YouTube songs compared with flashcard games to Karangturi Kindergarten pupils. Further research was expected to continue this study by finding another method to teach young learners English to enhance their language mastery.

Encouragement of Academic Skills in Young Children: Measuring and Investigating Parents' Efforts to Educate their Young Children

<p>The Encouragement of Academic Skills in Young Children (EASYC) is a new measure, used to investigate the benefits of parents using in-home educational activities with their young children. The overall goals of this study were to 1) validate the EASYC as a reliable instrument for measuring parents’ at-home education practices, and 2) demonstrate the importance of providing a stimulating home educational environment for young children. In general, the EASYC was demonstrated as applicable to 4 year old children and the US sample, with future development possible for other populations. Key findings illustrated 1) the fast development of children’s learning, 2) the co-dependence of literacy and numeracy in young children, 3) that formal activities are more influential than informal activities, 4) that parental involvement is maintained across time, and 5) that culture influences how parents teach their children. The EASYC was established as a measure of parent involvement in pre-school education with a scope not previously achieved and the potential to benefit learning outcomes and school preparation in pre-school children.</p>

Encouragement of Academic Skills in Young Children: Measuring and Investigating Parents' Efforts to Educate their Young Children

<p>The Encouragement of Academic Skills in Young Children (EASYC) is a new measure, used to investigate the benefits of parents using in-home educational activities with their young children. The overall goals of this study were to 1) validate the EASYC as a reliable instrument for measuring parents’ at-home education practices, and 2) demonstrate the importance of providing a stimulating home educational environment for young children. In general, the EASYC was demonstrated as applicable to 4 year old children and the US sample, with future development possible for other populations. Key findings illustrated 1) the fast development of children’s learning, 2) the co-dependence of literacy and numeracy in young children, 3) that formal activities are more influential than informal activities, 4) that parental involvement is maintained across time, and 5) that culture influences how parents teach their children. The EASYC was established as a measure of parent involvement in pre-school education with a scope not previously achieved and the potential to benefit learning outcomes and school preparation in pre-school children.</p>