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Poster #186 - The Effects of Nature-Based Preschool on Child Development
Thu, March 21, 4:00 to 5:15pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall BIntegrative Statement
Due to a growing desire to reconnect children to nature, nature-based education facilities, specifically nature-based preschools, have been increasing across the U.S. (NAAEE, 2017). Capitalizing on existing knowledge about the skills that are most important for children to learn during their preschool years, we examine development between nature-based and traditional preschools in three key areas: early literacy, reasoning, and executive function.
Three to five-year-olds from two preschools, one nature-based and one traditional, were recruited for this study. Eighty-two children (55 males) were assessed from the nature-based preschool (M age = 42.50 months, SD = .53). The traditional preschool had 58 children (20 male) participate in the study (M age = 45 months, SD = .54). Both preschools were rated as high quality by their state. Direct assessments assessed child outcomes on early literacy (i.e., phonological awareness, letter name knowledge and letter sound knowledge), reasoning, and executive function (EF) in the fall and spring.
Preliminary analysis showed comparable initial scores on reasoning and EF measures for children at both preschool locations. For early literacy measures, children at the nature-based preschool demonstrated a greater understanding of phonological awareness at the beginning of the school year (M = 100.23, SD = 15.08) compared to children at the traditional preschool (M = 94.60, SD = 16.7). However, children attending the traditional preschool demonstrated greater letter knowledge (letter name: M = 23.26, SD = 17.68; letter sound: M = 6.96, SD = 7.01) in the fall, compared with children at the nature-based preschool (letter name: M = 18.36, SD = 17.30; letter sound: M = 5.23, SD = 6.56). One-way ANOVAs demonstrated that children at both preschools showed similar growth over the course of the school year on all of the early literacy measures: phonological awareness, F = (1, 102) = .006, p = .937; letter name knowledge, F = (1, 110) = .143, p = .706; letter sound knowledge F = (1, 109) = .213, p = .645. On the reasoning measure, children also showed equivalent change from the fall to the spring F = (1, 103) = 1.62, p = .205. The children were given three measures to assess different elements of EF: working memory, behavioral self-regulation, and inhibitory control. For working memory, children at both locations grew at similar rates throughout the year, F = (1, 104) = .403, p = .527. However, children at the traditional preschool showed more growth than children at the nature-based preschool in behavioral self-regulation (F = (1, 97) = 15.049, p < .01) and inhibitory control (F = (1, 93) = 6.657, p = .012).
Children developed early literacy, reasoning, and some aspects of EF (i.e., working memory) at similar rates in both the traditional and nature-based classroom. However, behavioral self-regulation and inhibitory control were advantaged for children in the traditional classroom, in contrast to prior work discussing the advantages of being outdoors (Ulsent et al., 2017). Implications of preschool type for kindergarten readiness will be discussed.