Abstract
The Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) tools are resources designed to support parents, caregivers, and educators in fostering the holistic development of young children. In this premise, this study aimed to determine parents’ utilization of early childhood care and development tools in a prominent school under a large Division in Central Philippines during the School Year 2022 -2023. Data for this descriptive correlation study was collected from 131 kindergarten parents using a self-made data-gathering instrument that has passed the stringent tests of validity and reliability. Overall, the result of the study showed a great extent of parents’ utilization of ECCD tools, according to the motor domain, self-help, language, cognitive domain, and socio-emotional domain. The same results were found in the analysis of the extent of parents’ utilization of ECCD tools according to motor domain, self-help, language, cognitive domain, and socio-emotional domain based on demographics. In addition, there was a significant difference in the extent of parent’s utilization of ECCD tools according to of cognitive domain and educational attainment. Moreover, a significant difference exists in the extent of parent’s utilization of ECCD tools according to the socio-emotional domain and educational attainment. Parents’ great extent of utilization of the ECCD tools means they are actively and effectively employing these tools to support their child’s holistic development. Their education attainment influenced their participation in their child’s early stage of development. The findings of this study call for kindergarten parents to be aware that their child needs their full cooperation and attention to fully develop the skills required to progress into more complicated skills they need to the next level of education. It is imperative for parents to likewise provide their full support and cooperation to teachers in implementing the ECCD tools as part of the kindergarten curriculum. This paper calls for an intervention plan to address the kindergarten parents’ needs for ECCD utilization, with the school’s internal and external stakeholders are doing their share in molding the learners at a very early age.
Keywords: Early Childhood Care and Development Tool, Parents’ Utilization, Central, Philippines