Kindergarten Teacher Career Information and Education Requirements
Majors Overview January 31, 2013Parents of young children rely on kindergarten teachers to teach their children both the basics of social interaction and academic instruction. In order to acquire licensure, kindergarten teachers are typically expected to complete an undergraduate degree program offered by an accredited teaching course.
Kindergarten Teachers Career Overview
Kindergarten teachers, often the first teachers that children interact with, use hands on instructional devices and play in introducing the fundamentals of learning to children. Awareness of science and nature, counting and numbers, and phonics and letter recognition are usually the areas of focus; these concepts are taught to the young students by using coloring or drawing, recognition games, scavenger hunts, matching games, etc. Children may also learn how to function socially from kindergarten teachers. Interacting with peers, standing in line and sharing are some of the basic skills that children learn in kindergarten. When they are not working in the classroom, kindergarten teachers engage in developing lesson plans, evaluating student performance and communicating with guardians and parents. Both parents and children have to be taught to adjust by kindergarten teachers since kindergarten is the primary regular contact of a child outside the home.
Kindergarten Teachers Education Requirements
Every state has licensure norms that kindergarten teachers need to satisfy in order to teach there. Ordinarily, license seekers are required to maintain an undergraduate degree preferably majoring in early childhood education, from an approved teacher training program. Majority of states demands a specific number of supervised practice teaching, which is known as student teaching. In school, prospective teachers study both subjects devised to assist them in their profession such as teaching methods and philosophy of education, as well as general subject areas like literature, writing, reading, art, science and mathematics. Students may seek admission to a program offered by a professional development institution. Students get to teach for a year under the supervision of licensed or professional teachers. There are also more conventional student teaching programs; in which, aspiring teachers assist professional teachers in classrooms. Students may be allowed to teach in a professional development school after they have completed an undergraduate degree program.
