Preschools are experimenting with a new learning approach to better support children from low-income families

SINGAPORE: The Agency for Early Childhood Development (ECDA) launched an initiative on Wednesday, July 11, to better support preschool children from low-income families through cognitive and social development. emotional.

The Three-Year Pilot Project – Temasek Foundation Cares-ABCD (Early Childhood Development Program) – focuses on the use of language through intentional and meaningful interactions with adults.

In a press release, ECDA noted that research studies have shown that such "high-quality adult-to-child interactions" allow children from low-income families to To improve their cognitive and socio-emotional development and to catch up with their peers.

Developed by American professor Joseph Sparling and Professor Craig Ramey, the Abecedarian Approach is used in countries such as the United States, Denmark, and China.

"We wanted to level the playing field and that's why we designed a program that works particularly well for them, but fortunately it also works for all children," said Professor Sparling

million. Richard Magnus, President of Temasek Foundation Cares, said that through intentional and meaningful interactions with adults, children who naturally have the curiosity to explore, discover and learn will develop their abilities cognitive, linguistic and emotional.

"Their parents will learn to strengthen the It is a crucial pilot project that we hope will be scaled up" , did he declare.

Ms. Raudhah Amid, 38, PCF Sparkletots @ Kebun Baru, a childcare teacher, has already seen improvements since her center implemented the Abecedarian approach.

"Children are now more engaged, I see that they interact more with teachers," she said.

Speaking at the launch, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Social and Family Development, Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, said: He added that we could "continue to take advantage of opportunities and opportunities" to give the best possible start to every child in Singapore.

ECDA will work with four preschool operators – NTUC My First Skool, PCF Sparkletots, Persatuan Pemudi Islam Singapore (PPIS) and Presbyterian Community Services – to train 60 teachers and identify 100 children in 16 nursery schools to participate in the program

Temasek Foundation Cares has committed S $ 1.6 million to fund the program over the next three years.

The program could be expanded to more preschools the pilot is successful.