Abstract

Principal aim of this study is to show the effectiveness of the program prepared by researchers in order to enable 6 year-old children attending pre-school educational institutions to effectively gain addition-subtraction skills through a drama-related method. The work group in the research comprised of 80 kids who continued their education in kindergarten at the province of Konya during 2011 to 2012 academic year. Shopping method was applied to 40 of the children (18 girls, 22 boys) and conventional method to the other 40 children (19 girls, 21 boys). A general store, birthday preparations, toy store, market place, bookstore, and clothing store was established in the dramatic learning centre of the classroom. Every centre was exhibited for a period of two weeks within the classroom. Within that period, dramas through which children used their operation skills while shopping at the organized centre were carried out. The education programme lasted for 12 weeks in total. Data were collected with the “Operation Skill Scale for Kids (6 years old) at Preschool Phase” developed by Soydan. Dependent t-test was used in comparing the pre-test/post-test point averages of the experiment and control groups and independent t-test was used in determining the differences of success between the groups. According to the result of the research, statistically a significant difference at a level of 0.05 between the Operation Skill Scale for Kids (6 years old) at Preschool Phase point average of children within the experiment group who were trained with the shopping method and children within the control group who participated in the conventional education programme was observed. The score of experiment group was recorded higher than of the control group. This result puts forth that the education programme with which operation skills are taught through shopping method to children who still attend to preschool educational institution is effective in teaching children operation skills.

Key words: Preschool mathematics education, addition-subtraction skills-drama method