Successful Early Childhood Learning - Essay Example

QUESTION 1

Social and emotional development

Cognitive development

Motor development

Language and vocabulary development

Month

Activity

Activity

Activity

Activity

0-3

Occasionally show facial expression to the baby.

Sing to the child using her name for memory purposes.

In the morning, let the bay lie with the tummy to enhance the neck and shoulder muscles' development.

Talk to the baby and let her respond.

Shake a rattle for the baby for attention and enable the bay to follow.

Let the baby experience and feel different textures such as the floor, a paper, or carpet.

Gently and carefully move the baby’s legs as if pedaling a bicycle.

Sing to the child

Encourage the baby to imitate and follow the voice.

3-6

Eye spy which involve moving a colorful object across the baby's eye as she follows.

Container play enhances orientation skills.

Perform a treasure box surprise. The activity helps the baby develop motor skills.

Encourage the baby to bubble.

Say the baby’s first word to remind her and create word permanency.

Let the baby explore the external environment. While holding the baby, let her observe and touch tree, flower, and leaves.

Light show

the Disappearing cheerio.

Fly away can also enhance motor development.

Rhyme time which involves composing songs with made-up words and which provide a rhythm.

6-9

Hold the baby close and kiss him to show affection.

Show the child different colors and pictures.

Help the baby stand on her feet.

Sing to the child.

Let the child climb on your belly.

Make a sensory bag and bins for the child to play.

Perform Crawling games with the child.

Noisy games can enhance language development.

9-12

Music time which involves the exploration of a variety of music tunes, improve language.

Food faces, which involve choosing a type of food that the baby can easily pick, improve cognitive and motor skills. The activity helps enhance pattern recognition.

Tiny trampoline, which involves bouncing on the bed, helps improve walking and standing.

Musical rhymes can serve to enhance language skills.

Little steamroller enhances bonding.

Stacking blocks is another way to enhance cognitive development.

Cracking nuts is another fun game activity that can help a baby improve motor skills.

Routinely read to the child to enhance vocabulary learning.

QUESTION 2

Introduction

Educational interventions should focus on bringing the best out of children. Effective early childhood education should cover social, health, and language development. Changes are needed to incorporate literacy and language development among children. Language development forms a significant part of the learning process (De Botton, 2010). Therefore, all early childhood education programs should be geared to promote language development. Studies by the Sure Stuart have revealed that poor most of the early childhood education programs do not promote language and communication development leading to poor outcomes in early childhood education.

• Comprehensive curricula

Children aged between 0-2 years are at their peak of learning (De Botton, 2010). The abilities of the children at that age group to exhibit a high standard of learning depend on the foundation they are exposed to in their early stages of development. Comprehensive curricula refer to a written plan structured to guide program designers to develop appropriate goals for children. The primary goals captured in the comprehensive curricula include all the experiences that promote a child's learning and development. The comprehensive curricula call for staff and family members to actively support the child's learning and developmental needs. Effective and sound comprehensive curricula encompass resources, activities, guides, and ideas that children should perfume at home and school. The best part of the approach is that it relies on scientific evidence and not just theoretical hypotheses. Pieces of evidence outline the basic requirement for children's growth, development, and learning. When the different elements are combined, early childhood practitioners obtain a sound framework to manage children. As a result, early childhood professionals can offer fun-based, standardized, and challenging experiences for children. Current learning frameworks are inclined more on the cultural direction, and some early childhood professionals face to practice cultural inclusiveness.

Researchers have confirmed that comprehensive curricula contain all the domains of learning. According to the Sure Stuart reviews, comprehensive curricula address a child's physical, intellectual, language, literacy, and socio-emotional learning needs. While some curricula frameworks focus on specific domains, the comprehensive curricula have a wide scope to help children develop learning skills. The approach is a valuable resource for early education professionals who play a significant role in steering children's success. Apart from the comprehensive curricula, there are different teaching programs. Based on the review by Sure Stuart, it is evident that they share some fundamental features useful to the program designers and education practitioners.

• Teacher-led practice and child-chosen activities

Two primary features can describe the teacher-led program. The first property of the program is a centralized curriculum development with set goals from children. Also, the program is characterized by well-established learning goals and expectations (De Botton, 2010). However, the teacher-led curriculum is highly dependent on school readiness abilities such as numeracy and literacy. Teachers play a central role in directing children to achieve educational success. The curriculum sees education professionals apply direct instruction more often during their practice. Learning assessments primarily focuses on the level of achievements recorded by children during the learning process. A good example of the teacher-led practice is the direct instructions (DI), which is centrally designed to assist at-risk children in reading and performing mathematical concepts. The direct instruction program is set in such a way that it follows standardized teaching strategies. The program's main feature is its limited number (10) involving an instant teacher correction of mistakes (De Botton, 2010). The strategy has been identified to boost children’s communication learning. The major disadvantage of direct instruction (DI) is the lack of focus on the background knowledge necessary for learning. The DI program's use allows for regular tests to the children at the start of the academic year and throughout the year. During the assessment period, early education professionals can identify areas needing adjustments. Education professionals can recommend the inclusion or removal of existing activities. Such decisions are based on children learning progress and outcomes. Children are assigned learning groups and must meet a set learning requirement before promoting them to the next set of lessons. The strategy enables the children to master previous concepts. Repetitions and corrections from the teacher reinforce the strategy. Child-driven activities characterize Child-directed programs. The child-directed programs differ from the teacher-led programs in many domains. The child-directed curricula are driven by the children's interests rather than instructors. Children's' families and their immediate community members play a significant role in promoting learning. The curriculum's primary focus is on developmental achievements, interactivity with peers and teachers, play, and enhance the quality of life. The curriculum expounds on the targeted outcomes, assuming that educational skills are achieved as a by-product of children's overall experience. The emphasis is on academic goals such as letter, sound, and letter pronunciation to establish a background for reading and writing. The program is considered as the preparatory phase for children in their quest for learning.

• A focus to the disadvantaged children

Targeted approaches are designed to promote learning opportunities among disadvantaged children (De Botton, 2010). The early literacy and learning model is a good example of a targeted model developed primarily to increase learning opportunities for children from low-income families. The program has been incorporated in some states to promote early childhood learning in settings considered to experience learning failures. Some features have deemed ELLM successful, among which are data-rich, innovative, and teacher-led features.

Conclusion

The discussion pinpoints the key determinant of successful early childhood learning. Despite the program differences, they all converge at a single point, promoting early childhood learning. Academic-focused learning interventions significantly contribute to improved language and literacy.