Browsing by Author "Valosaari, Elina"

Tiivistelmä - Referat – Abstract Several studies show that early childhood education and care, and in particular pre-primary education, play a key role in supporting and preventing learning difficulties. However, it is common for a child to not receive a learning difficulty diagnosis before school age. Late diagnosis is often caused by the individuality and comorbidity of learning difficulties with other developmental challenges. It is important that early childhood education teachers, who work in pre-primary education, identify children at potential risk of learning difficulties. At the same time, they must also be familiar with the mechanisms of learning difficulties and effective methods for supporting and preventing potential difficulties at school. The aim of this study was to study the methods used in pre-primary education to support and prevent learning difficulties. The aim was also to find out how consciously and on what grounds preschool teachers choose different methods to support their teaching. At the center of this study were methods related to reading and mathematical skills. Three research questions were used to find answers to these topics. The research data was collected in December 2020 and January 2021 by interviewing five early childhood education teachers. They all worked in a preschool from the City of Helsinki daycare. The data was collected by a semi-structured theme interview and the analysis method was the qualitative content analysis. Based on this study, teachers considered it important to support and prevent learning difficulties already in pre-primary education. They felt that they had sufficient capacity and knowledge regarding learning difficulties and that they could identify the children who might need support for learning. Teachers used mostly general pedagogical methods to support children's learning in reading and mathematics. Methods were mostly based on curriculum for the primary education. Teachers emphasized physical activity, functionality, and integration with other learning content to support reading and mathematical skills. Awareness of available methods related to the prevention of learning difficulties was clearly low and incomplete. Furthermore, the use of various materials and methods was not clearly justified in relation to the prevention of possible difficulties. Teachers chose methods, based on their own habits and material that was available in the daycare center. Preschool-teachers' overall awareness of learning difficulties, their occurrence, and preventive factors and methods, appears to be low and incomplete.