International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
Camp General Emilio Aguinaldo, Quezon City.
National Security Council. (2010). Elements of National Security. Quezon City: National Security Council
A Comparison of Habit Formation of First Graders Swith and Without
Preschool Education
Erdoğan Özel a Hikmet Zelyurt b *
ª Res. Ass., İnönü Üniversity faculty of Education
b Assistant Prof. Dr. , İnönü Üniversity faculty of Education
Abstract
Habits are behaviors that are constant, make the people's lives easier and increase their life quality. There are
critical habits that the pre-school children must gain and must turn them into habits in this period. The behaviors
which haven’t been internalized in this period will hardly be a habit in the ensuing years. The critical behaviors
which haven't turned into a habit will affect the children badly in the future years. In this study, the habits which
must be gained in the pre-school period and how they will be earned have been studied. The habits which must
be gained in the pre-school period have been addressed in the subtitles. Continuity of habits of the 1st grade
students who had a pre-school education before was evaluated by the help of “habit rating scale”. The survey
results were analyzed using SPSS 17.0 statistical software.
Keywords. Early childhood education, habits, toilet habits, nutrition habits
Introduction
Behaviors that constitute basis for gaining habits begin with the birth of a child, become explicit by being
enhanced in the early childhood and elementary school periods .Main factors of gaining habits are
determination, regularity and sensibility which are seen while a mother provides her child’s nourishment,
hygiene and love needs. If child’s experiences are positive in this first period, it might be easier for the child to
adopt favorable behaviors in the period of gaining permanent and actual habits .On the contrary, If mother does
not feed her child timely, not start to move to relax her child when the child wets himself or feels pain or not
show any positive reaction to show her love towards her child, all of these attitudes and behaviors may cause
child to perceive the other people and outside world negatively .Kids whose first experiences with their mothers
are not so good, may be counted as candidate for being individuals who escape from people and don’t trust
them, even bear hostility toward people in their future life .It should not be forgotten that first experiences will
affect children lifelong. First habits gained by children who don’t have healthy interaction with their parents, are
far away from being positive behaviors that make them fit into the society as well (Oktay, 2002).
As every adult, children also live with their habits. Behaviors obtained throughout lifetime, are behaviors that
are extending over a period of time and especially obtained by repetition. Habits are beneficial as long as they
make life easier. Sometimes we see that behaviors transforming into habits make one’s life tougher and
sometimes make one’s life easier and more flexible. Whether it makes our lives easier or not, man starts to get a
set of habits. What is important in this point is helping of parents and teachers to children in making proper
behaviors, habit .When we consider that learning begins with birth and last lifelong, children start to get their
basic habits in family environment and keep enhancing and adding new habits to their habits obtained through
E-mail address: erdogan.ozel@inonu.edu.tr , hikmet.zelyurt@inonu.edu.tr
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