Instructional and Behavioral Support of Students in Early Childhood Class - Essay Example

In my observation in early childhood class, I observed a grade one class of students’ age ranging from 30 months to 48 months. The class was fairly diverse in gender and culture as well as race. The students were 25 in total; 10 boys and 15 girls. There were two distinct races in the class which comprised of blacks and Asians. However, the dominant race was the Asians. This is attributed to the fact that Asians were basically the locals. Most children came from small families of not more than 4 members; parents and two children or less. The community comprised of fairly rich people who owned lucrative businesses in cities which attributes to their high social class and economic levels. In the class, there were three special need students who had a common problem of reading. They barely captured what the teacher was teaching and as such, they needed special attention including having an extra class lesson during breaks.

To me, it was a challenge. I wanted to know how I would handle such students if I would be in the position of the teacher involved. In such a diverse class, the information I got would be very useful in preparation for instructing the class for better outcome in child’s development. For instance, students with special needs ought to be treated in a special way to enable them catch up with early childhood development at a higher rate. Giving them extra attention would be necessary. This would comprise using easily cognitive language to them. For the race diversity, I would use the information to make students interact fairly, hence promoting their social life. The family and cultural information would be used to promote development of the child’s mind in culture. Besides, there being diverse cultures attributed to different races, the children would learn how to respect the culture of different people so as to promote dignity towards other races.

Milestone development refers to the indicators of a child’s development to the adults. The diverse milestone areas include but not limited to social and emotional development, learning approaches of a child, language and literacy cognition of the child, physical development and fine art (VECDAP, 2013). There are different levels of development depending on the needs of the child. For instance, children with special needs do not develop at the same rate as normal children. In my observation, children with special needs developed cognition by the end of the term. In this case, the three of them were able to read and one of them could write something on the paper. Typical children learned good citizen behaviors. As such, they learned how to share seats and other staffs. More so, they learned to recognize diversity in culture, race and special needs. For instance, the children treated each other with respect in class and in the fields. Another observation is that the children learned to identify personal characteristics such as gender and family members. They would know that one is a boy and another is a girl. In any case, they recognized members of the family such as brothers, sisters, mother and father. Gifted children learned to use their gifts in different fields. For instance there was one gifted child who learned very fast in vocabulary use. He could read higher grade books and develop grammatically correct sentences at age three.

According to WHO (2012), factors that influence a child’s development are poverty, teacher-child interaction, institutionalization and stigma. in the class I was observing, the teacher was friendly to the children and gave special care to special children. Nonetheless, she was able to identify gifted children which meant giving them chance to show case their special abilities. As such, the children were able to develop at a normal rate. Institutionalization refers to sense of belonging to the family. Most parents in the class were responsible and would show care to their children. Besides, some other relatives would also visit the children at school. This contributed highly to the development of the children. During the gifted children events, family of the gifted child would show up in school to cheer him up which contributed to the development of the gift in the child. Special children were not sidelined and this eased the development process of the young brains. However, there was one child whose parents had passed on and no one seemed to care in the family in which the aunt was in charge. His performance indicated that he had low concentration. In my view, the child did not have the sense of belonging which left him lonely thus leading to low concentration and compromised development.

According to the theory of multiple intelligence, there exist eight faces of intelligence. This implies that all students are equally intelligent but in different ways. As such, a teacher should strive to accommodate all of them in teaching. For instance children with visual intelligence would be engaged in drawing, creating and learning from watching videos. Else, verbal intelligent children would be engaged in language art like speaking, reading and listening. (give2all.org, 2007). During class time, students who are visual intelligent would engage in drawing and molding letters and numbers. On the other hand, I would engage verbal intelligent children with dictation and loud reading in class. During the co-curricular activities, I would engage visual intelligent children with related games such as playing with toys. On the other hand verbal intelligent students would play games related to sound recognition.

In the class I observed, children who performed exemplarily in different fields were offered incentives such as trips to play parks. The students liked this incentive and everyone wanted to go to the parks. As such, they were prompted to perform well. Positive Behavioral Support (PBS) in the class was practiced through quick response to the challenging behaviors of the children. Parents were mostly involved in cases of bad behaviors. Response to the Positive Behavioral Support (PBS) was positive but I would change the sitting arrangement of the class to enable me to see the whole class. As such, I would respond promptly to any misbehavior. Nonetheless, I would prefer instructional approach in which I instruct the children on what to do. This way, the children would learn how to behave in the class (Hancock & Carter, 2017).

Instructions are ideal in dealing with children since they are young and just learning most of the things in their lives. Assessment on the other hand is tracking of the child’s development. Behavioral support dictates the character of the child. As such, giving instructions to children will shape their behavior in an environment which increases the concentration of the child leading to better performance. Assessment provides a platform in which progress is tested. This enables the teacher to know where to improve for the betterment of the children. Behavioral support enables the children to distinguish between good and bad behavior. The children are therefore shaped to adapt good behavior which promotes learning.

Building instructions entails use of simple instructions that children can understand. In my class, I would use direct instructions in which I stand before the class and give directions and demonstrations of how to do something; for example, holding a book. For special needs children who are slow learners, I would approach them and hold the book for them at first. Another approach is to use small group instructions in which I seat with a smaller group of children and give instructions as I demonstrate. Another beneficial approach would be free play in which children choose to join different groups and converse among themselves. This way, they get to identify the environment they fit in. For children who have learning problem, I would use projectors to fascinate them. This would increase their cognition due to concentration created in a new learning environment.