Learning in the Car

In early childhood, every moment counts! Providing opportunities for children to be exposed to oral language, especially in the forms of high quality songs, stories, and fingerplays will help them in their future reading and writing success. Since young children spend so much time in the car, consider investing in CDs that emphasize these language strategies.

-play rhyming, quality children's music (e.g., Raffi) that use rhyme, play on words, and rhythm in songs

-expose children to nursery rhymes by playing them in the car (knowledge of nursery rhymes has been proven to be an indicator of reading success later on in life)

-encourage children to learn the names of letters and their corresponding sounds by playing CDs that emphasize these

-simple recorded stories can be borrowed from the library and played. By not seeing a corresponding picture, children are free to use their imaginations to illustrate the text

-play sound games with children. Stretch out words by emphasizing their individual sounds and encourage children to guess what the word it (e.g., c-a-t is cat)

-play I spy but use sounds (e.g., I spy something that begins with an 'a' sound)

-engage your children in conversation in the car. Encourage them to describe their day by prompting them with higher-level questioning such as who, what, why, where, when, and how questions. Avoid yes/no responses that limit children's explanation

Recognizing High Quality Daycare and Kindergarten Programs

Any parent with a child in daycare or kindergarten has wondered at one time or another about the quality of his or her child's early years program. While searching for information on this I found a great website that lists criteria, including a checklist, for families to use when assessing their child's early years environment. An excellent resource that I wish I had years ago!

Teaching Children to Recognize and Spell their First Name

One of the first words that children learn to recognize and spell is their first name. There are a number of creative and hands-on ways to help them with this concept:

-display their name everywhere (e.g., use post-its and stick it on the fridge and bathroom mirror, label their belongings and point out their name to them)

-write your child's name in large print and overlay the print with white glue. Encourage your child to decorate the letters of his or her name using sparkles, macaroni, buttons, and other fun, small objects

-use manipulatives (like in the above picture) that have letters on them to help your child sequence and spell his or her name. Use blocks and unifix cubes

-place magnet letters on your fridge and mix up the letters. Encourage your child to sequence the letters in the proper order. This can be done with recipe cards too. Just print one letter on each card and shuffle.

-stamp out your child's name with cookie cutters or letter sponges dipped in paint

-bake letter cookies together

-use playdough to form the letters of your child's name. Roll the dough into skinny sticks so that it can be manipulated into lines and curves

Once your child has mastered his or her name, move onto other short words and names of other family members.

Direct Observation as an Assessment Tool

I believe that too often educators overemphasis the use of product-driven, developmentally inappropriate tasks like worksheets when assessing young children. A much more effective tool is direct observation.

A description of the strategy/tool: This is the focused observation and recording of what children say and do in a specific activity. Is it considered an essential first step of planning because it provides teachers with a very effective way to quickly and clearly gather information in order to assess student knowledge and progress up to that point.

How it could be used: A variety of methods of gathering information should be used by teachers in order to observe students in action, record information about what the students are saying and doing, and compile the information in a meaningful and systematic way. Three common formats include anecdotal records, observation checklists and rating scales.

When it could be used: It should involve repeated observations of students in a variety of contexts and activities and occur over a long period of time.

Why it could be used: Directly observing students and recording exactly what they say and do helps teachers to recount incidents with children, helping to document the specific language and behaviour associated with the action. Teachers might consider recording their interpretation of the incident along with the direct observation.

A tool I use frequently in the classroom to help organize my direct observation of students in action during lessons, whole and small group organized activities, centers, and independent free choice time is a VENN diagram graphic organizer. At the top of the page I quickly describe the context within which the observations took place (circle, centers, gym class, etc.). I label each whole circle (e.g., the left as independent, the right as not independent) and I record the children’s names and brief information regarding each (what they did, what they said) within the appropriate circle. This way I can still record information specific to each child, but I can also organize it in a systematic way so that by quickly glancing at the page I can see where students fell within the continuum of the VENN diagram.

Websites for further reference:

Detailed description of what direct observation is and how it can also be used in research: http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.rauterberg/lecturenotes/UFTdirectobservation.pdf

VENN Diagrams: http://arb.nzcer.org.nz/strategies/venn.php

Developmentally Appropriate Practice

A few teacher friends of mine and I were having a conversation about kindergarten programming and what 'developmentally appropriate practice' (DAP) really looks like in an early years classroom. We talked about how hard it was for some people to nurture developmentally appropriate practices in children while trying to balance each child's individuality and standards-based curriculum and assessment obligations.

What is DAP?

Children are unique people with individual strengths, experiences, interests and needs who learn best through experiences seeing, hearing, touching, moving, and playing (Berry, 1998; Glasgow Koste, 1995). As such, kindergarten programs should provide multiple and varied opportunities for learning, self-expression, and child-led discovery in all learning domains (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2006). A well rounded kindergarten program encourages the intellectual, physical, and social development of all children on a daily basis through thoughtful play, guided by a teacher (Crevola, Dickinson, Trehearne, & Worthy, 2007; Ontario Ministry of Education, 2006). Instruction and activities should be differentiated and provide opportunities for children to experience, practice, refine, and demonstrate their skills and learning in a developmentally appropriate manner. Teacher directed lessons should provide a gradual release of responsibility so that children are able to practice and experiment within the learning opportunities in a supportive environment (Vygotsky, 1978).

Engaging young children in enriching educational activities extends beyond the acquisition of simply literacy and numeracy skills. Kindergarten programs should consider the development of a whole child who is healthy, knowledgeable, motivated, and engaged (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2007). Safe and nurturing classrooms encourage and celebrate every aspect of each child’s capacity for learning and provide repeated experiences observing, exploring, experimenting, and sharing within a supportive social context in order to be actively engaged in authentic personal and communal learning.

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). (2007). The learnin compact redefined: A call to action. A report of the commission of the whole child. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://www.wholechildeducation.org/resources/Learningcompact7-07.pdf

Berry, D. (1998). Kids and art: Learning through the senses. Principal, 77, 28-34.

Crevola, C., Dickinson, P., Trehearne, M., & Worthy, J. (2007). Kindergarten matters: Building blocks for learning webcast. Retrieved November 26, 2009 from http://curriculum.org/secretariat/january30.shtml

Glasgow Koste, V. (1995). Dramatic play in childhood: Rehearsal for life. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). (2009). Key messages of the position statement. Retrieved November 26, 2009 from

http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/KeyMessages.pdf

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2006). The kindergarten program (revised). Toronto:Queen’s Printer for Ontario.

Vygosky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.