Education for Young Children Living in Poverty: Child-Initiated Learning or Teacher-Directed Instruction?

Abstract

This article presents evidence that high-quality early childhood programs can partially offset the negative effects of childhood poverty and produce modest but definite benefits in children's subsequent education and early-adult socioeconomic success and social responsibility. Given such potential, the relative effectiveness of various types of early childhood curricula becomes an important question. This article presents evidence that early childhood programs that emphasize teacher-directed academic instruction, although they are just as successful as programs that focus on child-initiated learning in helping children improve their intellectual performance and academic achievement, may not be as effective as such programs in improving children's social development.