Republic of the Philippines

Department of Education
Division of San Jose del Monte City
MUZON PABAHAY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
City of San Jose del Monte

KINDERGARTEN BEST PRACTICES

Young children have great capacity for creativity that thrives when it is
nurtured. Early childhood teachers have the opportunity to inspire children’s
innovative thinking. Teachers should continue good practices with the goal of
continually advancing children’s learning and development. Experiences
during the earliest years of life can have powerful long-term consequences,
human beings are amazingly resilient and incredibly capable of learning
throughout life. Ensure that every child has the benefit of positive early
childhood experiences that support literacy development. Many parents may
think that the latest electronic gadgets help their children to acquire basic
reading skills before they start school. However, what kids really need is the
time and attention of their parents talking, reading and playing with them.
Nurturing is vital to children’s development, a secret ingredient that enables
children to grow physically, mentally, socially, emotionally, culturally, and
spiritually. There are certain practices which can help to nurture the students:

1. USE INVENTED SPELLING - We found invented spelling to be joyful,

motivational for our students, and wonderful in terms of providing
opportunities for scaffolding and systematically teaching almost all-
important aspects of the kindergarten literacy curriculum including phonics,
phonemic awareness, knowledge of the alphabet, writing conventions,
and vocabulary development. But perhaps the most amazing discovery
throughout our journey was that kids had remarkable capacities to make
 meaning if we supported them in the process and allowed their creative
juices to flow.

2. Teaching “Letter of the Week” - Teaching one letter per week was
standard practice in kindergarten when we began teaching. We tried our
best to jazz up our teaching of the alphabetic principle because we knew
it was essential to breaking the code and reading. Our students sang for the
letter, danced for the letter, cooked for the letter, and cut and pasted for
the letter. We took elaborate measures to teach the alphabet and sounds
because we knew it was important.

3. Use Invented Spelling and a Developmental Writing Scale - to

monitor progress and how to use a developmental spelling/writing
assessment along with a developmental rubric to show how young
children’s progression through five phases of developmental spelling
revealed—among other things—the individual child’s understanding of
phonics and his or her invented spellings as evidence of what the child
knew or did not know. We found this work to be much more powerful for
targeting instruction and monitoring kindergartners’ progress than
traditional spelling tests or even measures of phonemic awareness and
alphabet knowledge.

4. PHONEMIC AWARENESS OF PARENTS –

5. NEW SKILLS TO BE ENCOURAGED - Teachers should encourage

the students to learn new skills. Students should be made aware of the
various talents and skills which they can possess by way of created
Teachers should try and motivate and develop in students the habit to
ask questions and create a question friendly environment. Encouraging
 this type of behavior might require more teaching time, but it will nurture
a childlike sense of wonder as your students learn and grow.

6. TRY GENERATING MORE IDEAS - Creativity is a muscle that grows

stronger and more efficient the more we exercise generating ideas. The
more ideas we come up with, the greater our chances of producing a
work of success.

7. ENCOURAGE COOPERATIVE LEARNING TECHNIQUES

Cooperative learning technique reduces racial conflict among school
children, promotes better learning, improves student motivation, and
increases enjoyment of the learning experience. This teaching strategy
of organizing student group work helps students collaborate and rely on
one another. This teaching strategy is effective for accomplishing
multiple tasks at once and for giving students a greater sense of
individual responsibility.

8. SUPPORT SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT- child

develop confidence in themselves, they also develop a desire to rise to
new challenges and raise the bar for their achievement. Teachers,
specialists, counselors, and other professionals work together to support
and nurture the social and emotional growth of these young learners.
Not only must teachers believe that such students can achieve at high
levels, but the students must also believe they can do the work.