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Curriculum and Pedagogy: The What and the How of Early Childhood Education
Pages 182-232

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From page 182...
... , as well as the acquisition of specific information, such as the names of the letters of the alphabet (Wiggins and McTighe, 1998~. The teaching strategies or methods used in implementing the curriculum are the arranged interactions of people and materials planned and used by teachers.
From page 183...
... . High/Scope is one of the most widely adopted preschool curriculum models to have emerged during the early days of Project Head Start (Hohmann and Weikart, 1995~.
From page 184...
... knowledge acquisition and cognitive development, mathematical reasoning and number sense, orientation in time and space, scientific reasoning and the physical world, music, visual arts. Although the various advocates of curriculum models or approaches may differ in emphasis on particular goals associated with their own orientations, all would agree that the early childhood educator must be concerned with supporting children's physical, social, emotional, and cognitive growth.
From page 185...
... The development of social competence is also a central feature of many preschool programs, and research suggests its importance to later school success (Katz and McClellan, 1997; Ladd, 1990~. We emphasize that our focus on the more academic subjects does not imply that these are of greater or singular importance.
From page 186...
... and the environments that support these developments (e.g., shared book reading; Lonigan, 1994; Whitehurst et al., 1988~. In addition, the term refers to a point of view about the importance of social interactions in literacy-rich environments for prereaders (Fitzgerald et al., 1992)
From page 187...
... · Pretend to read books · Play with language, rhyming · Label objects in books · Comment on characters in books · Etc. · Ways to enter into book-sharing routines with primary caregivers · Getting the idea that a picture in a book is a symbol for the real object · Listen to stories, building attention span · Etc.
From page 188...
... The principles of learning outlined earlier suggest that the understanding of concepts must go hand in hand with the acquisition of skill and knowledge to develop competence. The skill and knowledge base of emergent literacy includes the domains of language (e.g., vocabulary)
From page 189...
... , and this relation is present even after variability in reading skill due to intelligence, receptive vocabulary, memory skills, and social class is removed statistically (Bryant et al., 1990; MacLean et al., 1987; Wagner et al., 1994~. Literacy Environments Understanding the source of differences among children in emergent literacy skills is critical to the development of interventions to enhance emergent literacy.
From page 190...
... reported that the most frequent context for maternal labeling of objects was during shared reading. Shared reading and print exposure foster vocabulary development in preschool children (e.g., Cornell et al., 1988; Wiley, 1989; Jenkins et al., 1984; Senechal and Cornell, 1993; Senechal et al., 1996; Senechal et al., 1995~.
From page 191...
... Through experiences with "writing," children learn to distinguish between drawing and writing. Their scribbling becomes more purposeful, and as older toddlers they make some scribbles that, to their total joy, look somewhat like English writing.
From page 193...
... Many children learn the names of the letters first by singing the alphabet song or reciting them to pushes on the swing. At 3 and 4 they begin to attach the names of letters to their shapes.
From page 194...
... Nonlanguage Outcomes Compared with research examining the relation between home literacy environments and children's oral language skills, there has been relatively little quantitative research concerning home literacy environments and other emergent literacy skills. Both Wells (1985)
From page 195...
... Literacy Environments in Child Care Programs Neuman (1996) studied the literacy environment in child care programs.
From page 196...
... Dialogic reading has been shown to produce larger effects on the language skills of children from middle- to upper-income families than a similar amount of typical picture book reading (Arnold et al., 1994; Whitehurst et al., 1988~. Studies conducted with children from low-income families attending child care demonstrate that both child care teachers and parents using a six-week small-group center-based or home dialogic reading intervention can produce substantial positive changes in the development of children's language as measured by standardized and naturalistic measures (Lonigan and Whitehurst, 1998; Vaidez-Menchaca and Whitehurst, 1992; Whitehurst et al., 1994a)
From page 197...
... Children in control classrooms received the regular Head Start curriculum, and children in the intervention condition were involved in small-group dialogic reading several times each week in intervention classrooms over the course of the school year. These same children brought home the book that was being used in the classroom each week for use with their primary caregivers.
From page 200...
... , in order for benefits to persist, support for student achievement must continue. Mathematics and Science Findings from research support moves to develop suitable learning opportunities for preschool children in mathematics and science, opportunities that embed language learning, strengthen conceptual knowledge, and develop metacognitive skills.
From page 201...
... Mathematics educators need to appreciate young children's informal mathematics on entry into school their versions of counting, adding and subtracting, and understanding. That appreciation is a starting point: preschool programs can play an important role in consolidating children's informal understandings by providing opportunities to use and extend mathematical concepts and skills.
From page 202...
... The conceptual structure that 6-year-olds generally have in place allows them to successfully master a first grade mathematics curriculum. Students who have difficulty with that curriculum (a disproportionate number of whom come from low-income families)
From page 203...
... The curriculum was tested in multiple sites in Canada, California, and Massachusetts, with multiple sized groups of kindergarten children from inner-city schools with large minority populations. The Rightstart children were compared to matched control groups of children who were given an equal amount of
From page 204...
... Big Math for Little Kids™ Another preschool mathematics curriculum that incorporates the principles of learning discussed above is Big Math for Little Kids™. In the words of its developers, it is a challenging mathematics curriculum with the following characteristics: · It exploits and builds on the informal mathematics that all children construct in everyday life.
From page 205...
... · It helps children to explore mathematical ideas in depth. The goal is to explore key mathematical ideas over a lengthy period of time through extended activities.
From page 206...
... Nevertheless, in all cases, the teacher employs activities designed to be continued over a fairly lengthy period of time in order to introduce children in a systematic way to the various "big ideas" or strands. The developers believe that one distinctive feature of Big Math for Little Kids™ is that the activities are arranged systematically, lead to deep exploration of complex topics, and are pursued intensively throughout the year.
From page 207...
... Young children do not have to be protected from the study of mathematics or made ready for learning (Greenes, 1999~. Scientific Reasoning Infants, toddlers, and preschool children have considerable implicit knowledge about topics that are found in science books.
From page 208...
... Toddlers and very young children experiment with tools and work to learn about objects in the world. For example, Ann Brown has shown that 2-year-old children learn quickly about the kinds of objects they can use to retrieve something that is out of reach (German and Brown, 1986~.
From page 209...
... Research shows that young children actively process their experiences to form mental representations of "the way things are." Important in themselves, these mental representations (often referred to as scripts or generalized event representations) also form a crucial foundation for the development of a variety of competencies, including language, social interaction, understanding of social roles, classification, and planning (French, 1985; Nelson, 1981; Nelson and Gruendel, 1981~.
From page 210...
... Science activities are coherently organized, with each day's activities building on those of the previous day and providing a foundation for those of the next day. Activities are organized into units (e.g., Measurement and Mapping; Color, Light, and Shadow)
From page 211...
... Language development is a primary developmental task of early childhood and language skill is a potent predictor of learning to read and subsequent academic success. The activities therefore emphasize relevant receptive and expressive language and introduce key vocabulary.
From page 212...
... ScienceStart! ™ was developed in the context of a Head Start program serving low-income children, but it is sufficiently rich, open-ended, and developmentally appropriate that it can be used successfully with all preschool-age children.
From page 213...
... While young children can be instructed by adults to acquire much knowledge and many skills, dispositions and feelings are not likely to be learned from direct instruction, but by the application of particular pedagogical approaches and the nature of teacher/caregiver-child interaction. Much of the discussion above on curriculum content, particularly as it is described through exemplary programs, implies a pedagogical approach.
From page 214...
... Sociocultural theory places primacy on cognitive activity occurring through social interaction with more knowledgeable peers and adults who provide support as a child explores new understandings, knowledge and skills, a disposition toward learning, and insight about himself or herself as a learner (Dewey, 1976; Vygotsky, 1978, 1986~. Pedagogy is not ultimately about free play, instruction, or placing the child in carefully chosen stimulating environments; the critical factor is a high degree of direct adult engagement and guidance in the process of construction (Bodrova and Leong, 1996~.
From page 215...
... The interest in play is shared by ethnologists who have recognized the role of play in the development of animal species that have long childhoods, complex social organizations, and high-level skill requirements. Piaget and Vygotsky, both of whom have strongly influenced the field of early education, explicitly link symbolic play with language and literacy (Pellegrini et al., 1991)
From page 216...
... There are two likely reasons for this: first, play often has been viewed as noneducational and not related to intentional teaching (Hall, l991~. Second, play is difficult to define (rein, 1977~; thus, much of the research is labeled for attributes of the playing process, such as social interaction, symbolic representation (literacy)
From page 217...
... found play and positive social interactions with teachers predicted more complex cognitive activities in child care centers. When adults, either mothers or teachers, play with children, the children manifest more complex combinations of pretend and are able to demonstrate distancing and decontextualization more readily (O'Reilly and Bornstein, 1993; Howes and Matheson, 1992~.
From page 218...
... Children exhibit rudimentary metalinguistic abilities for thinking about language, analyzing it, and playing with it. Play fosters the use of symbols and symbolic representations (Piaget, 1962; Sigel, 1993~.
From page 219...
... Indeed, social competence is one of the primary skills that children develop and practice through engagement in pretend play. Early childhood programs are often considered contexts for the development of social competence with peers.
From page 220...
... Through these early developmental experiences, children internalize representations of social relationships and social networks, which influence their individual orientations to the social world as older children and adolescents (Howes and Smith, 1995~. The developmental advance in social competence with peers that children experience from ages 3 to 8 involves the construction of more and more complex forms of social pretend play.
From page 221...
... Children's performance on a number of cognitive tasks has been found to improve as a result of social interaction with more advanced peers (Murray, 1982; Perret-Clermont et al., 1991; Roazzi and Bryant, 1998~. Excerpted from a transcript of circle time conversations recorded as part of a collaborative study between the Child Care Service Centers of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Rochel Gelman's Laboratory.
From page 222...
... Children need to be competent in their social interactions with peers in order to engage in such activities. Social competence is defined as the ability to engage the interest of the partner, to attend to the social communication of the partner, to work collaboratively with the partner to construct complex and interesting play sequences, to sustain interaction, and to resolve conflict.
From page 223...
... The teachers began requiring that children ask for the materials available during free play. When a child initiated a request for material, the teachers used incidental teaching procedures.
From page 224...
... In effective instruction, multiple teaching strategies are used flexibly, the teacher understanding the effective use of these strategies based on curriculum goals. Direct instruction allows for the efficiency of simultaneous attention to a group of children, indirect instruction (taking advantage of moments of opportunity)
From page 225...
... In contrast, computers serve as catalysts for social interaction. In one study, children spent nine times as much time talking to peers while on the computer than while
From page 226...
... Computers can also contribute to the social interaction of young children with disabilities who are often unable to participate in play experiences with their peers due to physical, communicative, or other impairments. Toddlers and preschoolers with developmental disabilities who use computers exhibit more communication and social pretend play than comparison groups who do not use computers (Howard et al., 1996~.
From page 227...
... To develop concepts and higher-order thinking skills, discovery-based software that encourages and allows ample room for free exploration is more valuable. Such software is also more consonant with widely accepted principles of early childhood education (Clements, 1993~.
From page 228...
... In summary, teachers should seek to fully integrate developmentally appropriate, bias-free software matched to educational goals. Multimedia capabilities should be used when they serve educational purposes.
From page 229...
... In summary, across several subject matter areas, computers can positively affect how children learn and think, as well as their
From page 230...
... While we do not advocate an extension downward of the elementary school literacy curriculum, much can be done to develop emergent literacy skills that will better prepare children for elementary school, promoting an interest in, and enthusiasm for, language in oral and written form. While no single curriculum is identified as best, an extensive body of research suggests the types of activities that promote emergent literacy skills, from story reading and dialogic reading to providing materials for scribbling and "writing" in pretend play, and from participating in classroom conversation to identifying letters and words.
From page 231...
... Research suggests that many teaching strategies can work. Both direct instruction and child-initiated instruction, teaching through play, teaching through structured activity, and engagement with older peers and with computers are effective pedagogical devices.
From page 232...
... In the next two chapters, we turn to the tasks of assessing young children's development and of professional development that prepares those who take on the multifaceted, complex job of preschool teacher.


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