Browsing by Author "Hytti, Elisa"

Objectives. An individual educational plan has to be drawn up for every child in early childhood education according to the early childhood education -law. The purpose of the individual educational plan is to support learning and development of child. The needs of a child have to be taken into account in the individual educational plan. The individual educational plan should function as a document that guides the working of personnel in kindergarten. The aim of this study is to clarify the meaning of the individual educational plan to kindergarten teachers. The aim is to survey how kindergarten teachers use the individual educational plans as a tool; are they being used as a premise for the planning of the modes of operation in the group, and do the plans allow individual needs of a child to be taken into account. Methods. In this study six randomly selected kindergarten teachers working in Helsinki were interviewed. The interviews were carried out individually with the methods of semi-structured interview where the interviewees were given the interview questions in advance. The interview material was transcribed from word-to-word and it was analyzed according to the content analysis. Outcomes and conclusion. According to the kindergarten teachers the greatest importance of the individual educational plan is its affect on the co-operation with parents. When being asked the ways in which the kindergarten teachers use the individual educational plans as tools three of the kindergarten teachers answered by describing the processes of making of the plans, and the other three described the needs of children appearing in the plans to be the premise of the modes of operation in the group. The individual educational plans were perceived to be significant especially with children with special needs in early childhood education. There is a need for more articulate guidance in the creation of the individual educational plans, in order for them to function as means guiding the working of kindergarten teachers, and for them to become uniform.