Abstract:

Whereas the 21st century we live in has been qualified as the “Information Age,” Turkish education has become the basic factor in development, change and transformation. In the 4+4+4 structural change in our educational system, renovated within this development and transformation process, the preference was for students to be graded on the basis of their age groups and physical properties instead of organizing the basic educational process of the educational policy at one stage. The fact that the new system was put into practice without carrying out adequate research on this subject created the main purpose of this study. The research was performed in central districts of Mersin province at the end of the fall term of the 2012-2013 academic year. In the research, a semi-structured question form was given to 89 elementary education first grade teachers. The collected data were interpreted using the content analysis technique. According to the research results, the most mentioned view was that first grade teachers had difficulty in lessons due to the age differences of children and that they especially had difficulty in first reading and writing activities. The teachers mentioned that no in-service training was organized related to the 4+4+4 educational system and first grade program due to the change in age groups without any preliminary preparations or applications

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