Early education matters: a study of pre‐school curriculum content

Abstract

This investigation examines the effects of the NFER ‘My World’ pre‐school programme (Curtis and Hill, 1978) on the rate of development of normal children. The ‘My World’ programme resulted from the National Foundation for Educational Research curriculum development project ‘Social Handicap and Cognitive Functioning in Pre‐school Children’. It was originally designed for socially handicapped children but in this study (Dye, 1981) it was decided to investigate its effects on normal children as they could also benefit from appropriate curriculum planning. The study shows that careful selection of adult inputs and thoughtful preparation for children's investigation, discovery and first‐hand experience, together with appropriate support from adults, can result in substantial gains in many areas of a child's development compared with those obtained by using normal nursery programmes. Decisions to implement new curriculum policies, or indeed to continue current approaches, are sometimes made on the basis of inadequate evidence. In this study of four‐year‐old children, over 130 different tests, observations, assessments and measurements, grouped into 35 areas of development were applied to each of 36 sample children. In addition, a considerable volume of subjective evidence was gathered. The results show that the use of the NFER ‘My World’ programme was associated with significantly greater gains in development. These gains extend over a large number and wide variety of criteria when compared with those of matched control children. A follow‐up study of the same children at six years of age shows that many of the gains were sustained, and gives a clear indication of the value of the early inputs.