This paper documented the impact of one-year preschool education on Persian oral skills of 1st grade Azari students. Participants were 30 students (group 1) who had already attended preschool education for one year and 30 students (group 2) who had no chance to attend the program. The participants in both groups were randomly selected from a population of 450 1st grade students in Hir (a small city in Ardabil Province). While participants in group 2 had no previous Persian experience, exposure of group 1 to Persian language was limited to preschool education. All participants appeared to be homogeneous in terms of their socioeconomic status which was examined through a questionnaire. Using a language development test (TOLD-P:3), Persian oral skills of participants in both groups were measured in terms of speaking, organizing, listening, semantics, and phonology composites. Independent samples t-tests and the Mann-Whitney U tests were run to check the differences between the indices obtained for the two participating groups for each of the composites of Persian oral skills. The raw scores, the standardized scores, and the composite quotients of all participants were checked against their corresponding tables given in TOLD-P:3. The results showed that oral skills of participants in group 1 had improved to the extent close to standard and acceptable, while that of participants in group 2 turned out to be well below the standard level. As for the composite quotients and all subtests except for word discrimination, statistically significant differences were observed between group 1 and group 2, implying that those who had attended preschool program were able to perform better than those who had not attended the program on almost all subtests of the test. Based on the results obtained, preschool education program is highly recommended to be run in the regions where children speak a language other than Persian across the country.
Ruhi, A., & Behnām, A. (2011). A study on the impact of preschool education on the development of Persian oral skills of Azari 1st grade students. Journal of Educational Innovations, 10(3), 25-50.
MLA
Afsar Ruhi; Ali Behnām. "A study on the impact of preschool education on the development of Persian oral skills of Azari 1st grade students". Journal of Educational Innovations, 10, 3, 2011, 25-50.
HARVARD
Ruhi, A., Behnām, A. (2011). 'A study on the impact of preschool education on the development of Persian oral skills of Azari 1st grade students', Journal of Educational Innovations, 10(3), pp. 25-50.
VANCOUVER
Ruhi, A., Behnām, A. A study on the impact of preschool education on the development of Persian oral skills of Azari 1st grade students. Journal of Educational Innovations, 2011; 10(3): 25-50.
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