Kibiru, Mary Njeri2014-09-252014-09-252014http://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle123456789/11252Master of Education in the early childhood department, 80p. August, 2014. LB 1140.2 .K5The central problem of this study is that despite the critical role of pre-school education in holistic development of children, there are factors that inhibit access to participation in learning activities. Study by the New Jersey Council for young children indicated that participation in learning activities by most African-American children was moderately low. Another research from Uganda supported by UNICEF, revealed that interactive teaching and learning was very little and that few ECD programmes offered minimum cognitive stimulation. Most government documents in Kenya are silent on key issues such as, terms of service for pre-school teachers, linkages between various players in ECD and modalities of partnership among others. Problems facing pre-schools have not been adequately investigated and understood. In light of the above, the purpose of this study was to carry out a study on pre-schools' children's active participation in learning activities. The independent variables in the study were the teacher's oral communication methods used for delivery of learning content, use of learning materials as well as appropriate curriculum content and the state of the physical learning/play environment. The theory used was Rogoff's Model of Guided Participation. Similar studies appeared not to have been carried out in Kikuyu District, Kiambu County and therefore the district was purposively selected for the study. Pre-schools were randomly sampled. A sample of 10% to 30% was appropriate for the descriptive study. The study randomly selected a sample size of 22 preschools which was 30% of the target population. Random sampling was also applied during the pilot study in which schools from both public and private were included. The data collected was analyzed using frequency distribution tables and cross-tabulations which were followed by chisquare confidence and significance level tests. The data was presented in tables, pie charts and graphs. After the study, determinants of factors that lead to pre-school participation of children in learning were established, and this ensuing report details the whole study and reflections based on the findings.enThesis