The Effect of Project Approach-Based Education on Children’s Early Literacy Skills

Abstract

In this study, it was aimed to determine the effect of project-based education on children's early literacy skills. Experimental design with pretest-posttest control group was used in the research. The study group of the research consisted of a total of 36 children in the experimental (n: 18) and control (n: 18) groups, who attended independent kindergartens affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in the city center of Afyon, which were randomly selected from the population. As a data collection tool in the study, the "General Information Form" developed by the researchers to collect personal information about children and families (gender, number of siblings, duration of pre-school education, parents' ages, educational status, occupation) and to evaluate early literacy skills the “Test of Early Literacy” (TEL) developed by Kargın, Güldenoğlu and Ergül (2015) were used. A project-based education program was applied to the children in the experimental group, 3 days a week for 8 weeks. A statistically significant difference was found between the pre-test and post-test mean scores of the children in the experimental and control groups from all of the TEL and its sub-dimensions, in favor of the scores they got from the posttest. Due to the positive change in the experimental and control groups, the pre-test and post-test score differences of the children in the experimental and control groups were compared. As a result of the comparison, a statistically significant difference was found in favor of the experimental group.

Keywords

• early literacy
• preschool education
• project approach