What instructional strategies do teachers use to teach the youngest children?
While some primary schools in New Delhi start formal instruction by including a nursery school for four-year-old children, the primary school of this study made the decision a few years ago to no longer offer nursery school and begin instruction for children at the age of five in kindergarten. Before presenting the instructional strategies used in kindergarten, an overview of the curriculum goals are noted. These goals are few: • recognize and recite letter names and sounds, • write letters of the alphabet, • learn nursery rhymes and songs, • begin to recognize high frequency words with a limited number of word families, and • follow directions and give simple responses. As noted earlier, instruction is in English and learning to listen, speak, read and write in English is the goal. For the major part of the instructional time the following three strategies were used; Demonstration, Choral Drill, and Look and Say. Strategy 1: Demonstration Demonstration includes the use of real objects
