Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents review of related theories, related literature and studies,

conceptual framework, hypothesis of the study.

Related Theories

The study will use the following theories: Maturationist Theory by Gesell (1980),

Environmentalist Theory by Skinner and Bandura (1977), and Cognitive Theory by Piaget

(1969).

The first theory that has relevance to the study is the Maturationist Theory by Gesell

(1980). It is the foundation of nearly every other theory of human development after

Gesell. Early in the 20th century, Dr. Gesell observed and documented patterns in the way

children develop, showing that all children go through similar and predictable sequences,

though each child moves through these sequences at his or her own rate or pace. This process

is comprised of both internal and external factors. The intrinsic factors include genetics,

temperament, personality, learning styles, as well as physical and mental

growth. Simultaneously, development is also influenced by factors such as environment, family

background, parenting styles, cultural influences, health conditions, and early experiences with

peers and adults. Gesell was the first theorist to systematically study the stages of

development, and the first researcher to demonstrate that a child’s developmental age (or stage

of development) may be different from his or her chronological age. Gesell emphasized that

growth always progresses in a pattern through predictable stages or sequences. Sequential

development begins within the embryo and continues after birth. While an individual progresses
through these stages at his or her own pace, the sequence remains the same. According to

Gesell, growth can be thought of as a cyclical spiral. Each cycle of the spiral encompassing the

time it takes to move through six stages, or half-year increments. Notice that the time to

complete a cycle of the six stages is quite rapid in early life and slows down with age. Gesell’s

cycles of development are divided into six well-defined stages which are repeated throughout

life. One cycle includes the following stages: Smooth, Break-Up, Sorting Out, Inwardizing,

Expansion, and Neurotic “Fitting Together”. See figure below of the cycles of development.

The relevance of the theory to the study is that according to this theory, the

preparedness of a child in going to school depends on the help of the parents as well. Children's

development changes due to a feeling of equilibrium, or calm plateau's of learning,

and disequilibrium, an unsettled time of rapid growth and learning. Although all children cycle

through the same stages or sequences of growth, they don't enter the stages at the same time.

Each child has its own unique pace.

The next theory that has connection with the study is the Environmentalist Theory by

Skinner and Bandura (1977). According to the Environmentalist theory, children are ready for

kindergarten when they demonstrate that they are emotionally ready to handle the structure and

peer interaction in the public school. This is, according to the theory, because children learn

when they are guided through teacher-led learning activities. Rote activity, practice and

repetitive exposure would be the best ways to educate a child. According to this theory, parents

should help their child to follow rules, behave appropriately in a group and respond obediently to

the directions given by a teacher in order to be sure that their children are ready for

kindergarten. Environmentalists believe that the child's environment shapes learning and

behavior; in fact, human behavior, development, and learning are thought of as reactions to the

environment. This perspective leads many families, schools, and educators to assume that

young children develop and acquire new knowledge by reacting to their surroundings. School
readiness, according to the environmentalists, is the age or stage when young children can

respond appropriately to the environment of the school and the classroom (e.g., rules and

regulations, curriculum activities, positive behavior in group settings, and directions and

instructions from teachers and other adults in the school). The ability to respond appropriately to

this environment is necessary for young children to participate in teacher-initiated learning

activities. Success is dependent on the child following instructions from the teacher or the adult

in the learning environment. Many environmentalist-influenced educators and parents believe

that young children learn best by rote activities, such as reciting the alphabet over and over,

copying letters, and tracing numbers.

The connection of this theory to the study is that the viewpoints are evident in

kindergarten classrooms where young children are expected to sit at desks arranged in rows

and listen attentively to their teachers. At home, parents may provide their young children with

workbooks containing such activities as coloring or tracing letters and numbers. When young

children are unable to respond appropriately to the classroom and school environment, they

often are labeled as having some form of learning disabilities and are tracked in classrooms with

curriculum designed to control their behaviors and responses. There are several factors that

were also observed by different theorists. They contribute to development of the child in relation

to the behaviors he acquires due to environmental factors.

The last theory that has link to the study is the Cognitive Theory by Piaget (1969). The

assumption of cognitive theory is that thoughts are the primary determinants of emotions and

behavior. Information processing is a common description of this mental process and theorists

compare the way the human mind functions to a computer. Pure cognitive theory largely rejects

behaviorism, another approach to psychology, on the basis that it reduces complex human

behavior to simple cause and effect. The trend of the last decades has been to merge cognitive

theory and behaviorism into a comprehensive cognitive-behavioral aspect. This allows

therapists to use techniques from both schools of thought to help clients achieve their goals.

Children’s minds work and develop enormously influencing educational theory. Their mind

grows up and its capacity increases to understand their world. They cannot undertake certain

tasks until they are psychologically mature enough to do so. Their thinking does not develop

entirely smooth but instead, there are certain points at which “it takes off” and moves completely

into new areas and capability.

The connection of this theory to the study is that since developmental unevenness has

been shown to be pervasive, it seems inevitable that developmental sequences will vary among

children and across contexts. Unfortunately, there have been few investigations testing for

variations in sequence. Most of the studies documenting the prevalence of decal age are

designed in such a way that they can detect only variations in the speed of development on a

fixed sequence, not variations in the sequence itself. The dearth of studies testing for individual

differences in sequence, apparently arises from the fact that cognitive develop mentalist have

been searching for commonalities in sequence, not differences.

Related Literature

Pupil’s preparedness. A broad empirical base demonstrates that high-school students differ in

their degree of academic preparation for postsecondary education. Academic preparedness

refers to academic knowledge and skills that students need to succeed in doing college-level

work—that is, to be “college ready.” David Conley’s (2007a; 2007b) well-established framework

suggested that such preparedness has three main components: 1) content knowledge; 2)

academic skills, whereby students use that specific content knowledge to solve problems; and

3) key cognitive strategies 8 that are not content-specific, such as students’ ability to reason,

argue, and interpret. This research highlighted a key distinction: being college eligible is not the

same as being college ready, a subtlety we consider throughout this section.

School readiness includes the readiness of the individual child, the school’s readiness

for children, and the ability of the family and community to support optimal early child

development! 6t is the responsibility o f s c h o o l s t o b e r e a d y f o r a l l c h i l d r e n a t a l l

l e v e l s o f r e a d i n e s s . C h i l d r e n ’ s readiness should become an outcome measure for

community-based programs, rather than an exclusion criterion at the beginning of the

formal educational experience!

Teacher-Related Factors

Educational Attainment. The study of Diwan and Verma (2010) both discussed

inclusive education lacks stress on teacher development, by building competencies of all

‘regular teacher’ to deal with diverse population of students and to learn pedagogical strategies

that facilitate the learning of all students in their classroom. These include certain specific

competencies i.e. foundational, practical and reflective competencies. The researchers lay

stress on increasing teaching efficacy in order to strengthen under-resourced schools to serve

the cause of educability of young learners in the disadvantaged groups of society such as urban

slums and in remote forest and hilly areas. It is a gigantic task that can be accomplished with

the support of competent teachers showing a feeling of empathy and compassion along with

being knowledgeable and with good communication skills.

Relevant Training and Seminars. The Department of Education (DepEd) states that

every teacher’s goal wants to become efficient but also effective. It is in the mission that today,

a lot of trainings and seminars are being conducted to improve and develop the Craft of each

mentor in school. The DepEd fully understand that everything rises and falls on the teacher’s

capability to bring learning at the heart of every pupil. The Department of Education (DepEd,

2012) conducted trainings and seminars on Information and Communications Technology (ICT)

new methods and techniques, or lentation on the K-12 program, values information seminar and

the likes are being held in different parts of the country so as to prepare all the teachers in
globalization. Their attendance to these seminars will help them to create an effective

environment, improve learning situations even with the no-homework policy, keep updated on

modern instruction devices and inspire them to become better teachers in the modern world.

Teaching method and strategies. Kassem (1992) defined teaching techniques as

teacher's activities in the class to involve students in the subject matter, and requires that

students participate in learning activities, share equally with other learners, and react to the

learning experience. The teacher also needs to work with students as a friend, make the

learning place more comfortable, organize his/her lesson plans, and influence students by using

different teaching methods. The teaching goals must be adapted to the needs and interests of

learners, while teaching strategies should be carefully used to improve learning and make the

subject matter useful. According to several studies, these strategies have been found to be

significantly related to students' learning achievement. He went further, if teachers desire to use

an instructional aid as a major teaching tool, they should focus their students' attention on the

aid for most of the lesson. He offered an example of using an explicit statement of a task's steps

as a major teaching tool in describing that task (p. 138). He argued that using an aid as a major

teaching tool is one of the most valuable techniques in the teaching-learning process. Handouts,

transparencies, checklists and videotapes are good examples of instructional aids, teaching

devices or mechanisms designed to make learning more effective, more efficient, and more

satisfying.

Facilities and equipment. It is assumed the learning outcomes of pupils are strongly

affected by the standard and type of educational institution in which students get their

education. The educational environment of the school one attends sets the parameters of

students learning outcomes. Sparkles, Considine and Zappala (2010) showed that schools

environment and teachers expectations from their student also have strong influence on student

performance. Most of the teachers working in poor schools having run short of basic facilities

often have low performance expectations from their students and when students know that their
teachers have low performance expectation from them, hence it leads to poor performance by

the students. The study approved that performance of the student is also influenced by the

school in which they studies but he also usually determine the quality of the school, which in

turn affect the performance and accomplishment of its student.

Organizational commitment. Allen and Mayer (1991) developed a three-dimensional

model by emphasizing the psychological side of organizational commitment. They explored

organizational commitment in three levels: affective, continuance and normative commitment.

Affective commitment is defined as the wish of workers to commit emotionally to the

organization. Workers stay in the organization with their own will and desire. Continuance

commitment refers to the workers to make the decision of staying in the organization by

weighing the costs of leaving against the benefits of staying in the organization. Normative

commitment, the final dimension, refers to a type of compulsory commitment in which workers

stay in the organization owing to a sense of security and responsibility. Commitment to the

school is defined as teachers adopting the goals and values of the school, making an effort to

meet them, and sustaining their will to stay in the school. Committed workers firmly believe in

the goals and values of the organization, voluntarily follow orders and expectations. As a

concept and way of understanding, organizational commitment exists anywhere with a sense of

community and is an emotional representation of social instincts. Embodying the loyalty of a

slave to his master, of a civil servant to his duty and of a soldier to his homeland, commitment

was once referred to as loyalty and refers to the state of being loyal.

Related Study

The study of Williams (2012) iterated the correlation between socioeconomic factors

such as family income, parents' education, and family structure to school readiness that has

been 78 frequently summarized in earlier findings. Socioeconomic factors do play a significant

role in the school readiness of kindergarten students. Home environment is still vitally important

to a child's academic development. Reading and playing educational games with a child,

enjoying educationally oriented outings, two-way conversation with adults and peers, and the

availability of books and other educational tools--including a computer, were all important

aspects of the home environment that significantly contributed to school readiness. Therefore,

the conclusion drawn by Mattox (1995) remains quite relevant: What families actually do really

matters. Values, habits, and relational dynamics are all at work within the family environment. In

many respects, it is unfortunate that family income has such a pervasive influence on the

readiness of kindergarten children. Financial issues can either directly or indirectly affect many

aspects of the home environment. Annual family income often dictates the availability of

computers, books, and other educational tools within the home. It also influences the type of

preschool care a child receives. Family income indirectly affects the amount of time that parents

spend with their child. Parents who must labor extended hours, work second or third shifts, or

hold two jobs just to make enough money to feed and clothe the family may find it difficult or

impossible to spend time on a family outing, enjoy a meal together, or play and read. Generally,

lower income parents are also less educated. This represents a complex and unyielding cycle

that is disheartening to many educators. However, at the same time, it presents a challenge to

public schools to set goals and raise expectations for all students to succeed academically,

regardless of socioeconomic status.

The Impact of Kindergarten Learning-Related Skills on Academic Trajectories at the End of

Elementary School
Related Studies

The study of Dixon et. Al., examined the routines and expectations children experience

during their first five weeks of kindergarten. It examined the routines children participate in to

gain an overall idea of how they spend their time in the kindergarten classroom. It also looked at

the skill and school readiness expectations that occurred across the 34 kindergarten

classrooms. Finally, it organized the data collected by providing deeper descriptions of three

common instructional routines that took place across all kindergarten classrooms observed.

This section discusses our major findings and outlines possible implications for preschool

teachers as they design their classroom routines in ways that may prepare children for

kindergarten.

According to Powers (2010), learning centers are a common instructional routine in both

preschool and kindergarten classrooms. They provide the opportunity for children to work

independently on several tasks. They recognize that young children need to be active, move

around the classroom, engage in different activities, and work with different materials. Yet they

also address the increasing curricular demands faced by all teachers in our public schools. The

kindergarten teacher adapts and uses learning centers as a powerful instructional routine by

designing specific activities that reinforce the child’s understanding and application of emerging

curricular skills. Learning centers also provide teachers the opportunity to focus their attention

on small groups of children while the rest of the class is actively engaged and learning.

Recognizing the instructional role that learning centers play in kindergarten, preschool teachers

can gradually introduce those design elements that may be missing from their own learning

centers. They can maintain many of the qualities that define their learning centers while

introducing children to the increased structure and expectations that will confront them when

they do enter kindergarten. By bridging those differences, preschool teachers prepare children

for their next big step into school.

 Cross (2010) stated that teachers can make incremental changes in the physical, social,

and instructional design elements of their whole class instruction activities to help children make

a smooth transition from preschool to the more demanding educational environment of

kindergarten. Teachers should focus on the essential skills that enable children to attend to

instruction, integrate skills and knowledge, and practice what is being taught. Strategies for

bridging to kindergarten-level activities require the preschool teacher to carefully plan the

introduction of new skills and expectations. The preschool teacher can review the delivery of

whole class instruction and the skills of the children to determine a plan of action. Among the

elements of the transition plan might be adding an additional period of whole class instruction to

the preschool schedule, gradually increasing its pace and length, while adopting a literacy

curriculum to guide instruction. Preschool teachers prepare children for their next big step into

school by bridging the differences between preschool and kindergarten. Pianta, Cox, & Snow in

2007 and Pianta & Cox in 1999 identified key elements that bring about successful transitions

into kindergarten. One element is the need to establish shared expectations about children

among preschool teachers, kindergarten teachers, and families. When expectations for

children’s entry into the physical, social, and instructional demands of kindergarten are shared,

the likelihood is greater they will achieve success in that future setting.

The study of Dixon (2010) stated that children face many new challenges in

kindergarten, where they will be expected to build the literacy and other essential skills they will

need throughout their elementary school experience. As children enter kindergarten, verbal

instructions become more complex, the number of directions they are expected to follow

increases, and the tasks they are given require longer periods of concentrated work than in

preschool. During the spring before children enter kindergarten, preschool teachers can prepare

children for this complex transition by focusing more on literacy activities, on more structured

work, and on generating written products. And kindergarten teachers – who are often under

pressure to move children through demanding new curriculum quickly – can focus seat work on
encouraging children to practice and integrate skills and knowledge. These eff orts will

contribute to helping children meet the overall goal of building the essential skills they will need

throughout their academic lives.

Elementary schools can prepare by attending to transition, continuity, challenge,

assessment, support, and connection. These outcomes are important for all children, including

children who may struggle in school because they have had little experience or because of the

presence of physical and cognitive disabilities. Elementary schools can design curriculum,

instruction, assessment, learning environments, policies, and procedures to support all.

Effectively designing elementary schools to offer appropriately challenging curriculum and

instruction, use assessment to drive curriculum and instruction design, support the transition

from home to school, build continuity between early education programs and elementary

schools, ensure success for all children and adults, and collaborate with parents and the

community, is challenging where children with diverse backgrounds and/or skill levels exist.

However, the need to ensure that all elementary schools can respond to this diversity and

design effective physical, social, and instructional environments is critical. The principles, ideas,

and strategies in this brief represent a starting point for giving early educators the tools to make

this happen.
 Conceptual Framework

1.1. This study utilized the Independent Variable – Dependent Variable model.

As shown, there are two (2) frames, the IV frame and the DV frame. The

IV Frame presents the teacher-related factors in terms of educational

attainment, relevant trainings and seminars, and teaching methodologies.

It also contains school-related factors in terms of organizational

commitment and facilities and equipment and the extent of the parents in

terms of educational attainment, family status, economic status. On the other

hand, the DV frame presents the pupils’ development.

IV

Teacher-related factors

1.1. educational attainment;

1.2. relevant trainings and seminars and

1.3. teaching methods and strategies?

DV
School-related factors Pupils

1.1. organizational commitment and Development

1.2. facilities and equipment?

Extent of the parents in terms of

1.1. Educational Attainment

1.2. Family Status

1.3. Economic Status

 Reference

Nancye C. Williams, The Relationship of Home Environment and Kindergarten

Readiness, 2012