At the age around 5 to 6 years old, children mostly entered group B of Kindergarten. This period is a sensitive time in receiving various stimuli. At the age of 4 to 8 years old, children experience brain tissue cell growth by 80%. Therefore, it is the right time to provide various educational stimuli in helping physical and spiritual growth and development, so that children have readiness to study at elementary school. To ensure effective learning experience, it is crucial to create and manage a fun class. This point has become the research focus for Dian Utami, Anggi Prahastuti and Khodijah.
“Along with biological maturity, it is important to evaluate social emotional maturity of the child,” Dian Utami said. Those points will give a hint on how well the child prepared to learn in elementary school level. On the first day at elementary school, it is common to find those who cry for fear of being left by their parents, while others feel calm. . Children who have previously been educated in kindergarten tend to have mature self-confidence. The existence of peers who also attend the same elementary school also helps increase children's confidence. This is the important role of kindergarten in preparing children for elementary school.
There are different kind of expected learning outcome in different level of kindergarten group. For group A which is consist of children around 4 to 5 years old, the focus on introducing learning activities. While for those around 5 to 6 years old at Group B mostly learn about how to apply the things that they learn. The proportion of teaching and learning objectives in kindergarten and elementary school is different," she said. Learning at kindergarten level is set on habituation, learning life skill and process skill. Things has become more complicated in learning at early elementary school class. At grade 1 to 3, the learning process tend to be more academics and needed longer concentration for more complex learning. The essence of learning in low grades is concrete learning. The learning process does not merely memorize concepts or facts, but must link concepts so that they become a complete understanding.
Khodijah explained that the observation was taken place at TK Pedagogia Yogyakarta. Based on the observation, there are several requirement for graduation at Group B. Group B children are declared to pass if they have fulfilled all aspects of development listed in the Child Development Achievement Level Standards. Among all aspects of development, TK Pedagogia emphasizes more on one aspect of development, namely aspects of social emotional development. Besides that children must also have an independent attitude, discipline and confidence because it will make it easier for children to adapt to their environment. Students who graduate from B group do not have to be a master of reading, writing and counting. The teacher only stimulates children by introducing letters and numbers. "We conclude that an ideal class management will ensure children are easily given direction, a school atmosphere that supports learning, infrastructure that supports classroom management and partners to share assignments,” Khodijah said. This research won funding from the Faculty of Education of UNY. (Dedy; Tj.Lak)
