The Early Years of Human Life - Essay Example

Development demands adequate influences from adults, certain forms of communication, and joint activity with a child. The causes of many problems, which parents and teachers face (lowered cognitive activity, infringements in communication, restraint and heightened shyness, or on the contrary, aggression, and hyperactivity of children, etc.), lay in early childhood. As matter of fact correction of these deformations at preschool and school, age represents essential difficulties and demands much greater efforts and expenses, than their timely prevention.

High-grade development of a child in the early years setting demands adequate and qualified psychological and pedagogical support from the professionals possessing the corresponding qualifications. However, nowadays there is a certain deficiency of such experts (psychologists and teachers) able to work with small children.
Today great attention is paid to the principle of the account of the individuality of each child. This principle predetermines the corresponding approach to education, especially at the age of 3 to 7 years. At first sight, all children of the same age seem similar to each other, but at a detailed observation of each of them, we can consider born or got particular features or deviations in their development. Some of them may and should be corrected and, on the contrary, observers should provide the best development to positive qualities of a child.

Not all adults working with children are involved in the formal observation of the children. However, “all are observing and making judgments daily. Structured, purposeful observation is a vital tool for the educator. Through observation, we can not only monitor young children and their learning, but we can monitor our actions and reactions to situations” (Sutherland, 2005, p. 22).
Observation is one of the most widespread and accessible methods of studying children in early years setting development. Scientific observation is understood as a specially organized perception of investigated object, process, or phenomenon in natural conditions. “Direct observation of preschool-age children in natural settings is a preferred strategy because it directly measures the behavior of interest does not impose artificial test room demands to which young children are known to be highly reactive and provides data that is less likely to be distorted by the expectations and biases of parents and caretakers” (Doll & Elliott, 1994).
The principal reasons for observation are:
• determine if the baby/child is developing according to recognized norms
• share information with parents or the main carer
• enable the practitioner in the early years setting to plan effectively for the baby's/child's continuing care and development
• share informed, accurate and objective information with other professionals on a need-to-know basis (MacLeod-Brudenell,2004. p. 273).
For maximizing of efficiency of observation it should be long, regular, versatile, objective, and mass. Moreover to conduct efficient and professional observation an observer should collect and fix all data using some kind of observation form (see sample observation form in annex). The method of observation assumes a purposeful and regular perception of an operational experience of children in natural conditions. This method helps to accumulate, to study, and to fix actual material. It allows the observer to do certain conclusions and to form judgments on this or that problem and creates ground for certain reasoning, which may be checked up and proved using other methods. It enables the observer to define, how much efficient this or that form of work with children is, and to check using other techniques if is there a possibility of strengthening cognitive and creative activity.
Observation has the following requirements:
• precise purpose
• systematic character
• planned character
• objectivity
• mass character
• duration
• presence of observation problem
• prospective result
It is possible to provide objectivity of observation using hardware: stereo or video recordings of the educational process. We shall note that concealed observation is more effective, as it enables to fix natural behavior of children.

Areas to be commented on may include:
• Questioning
• Understanding
• Creativity
• Logical thinking
• Remembering
• Communication with others, etc.
Observation of the development of children in early years setting, being included in preschool education, able to help teachers and parents of a child to maintain correct communication with a child taking into consideration his/her features. The specificity of preschool age consists in that all mental processes are very mobile and plastic, and the development of potential opportunities for a child substantially depends on conditions for this development. Such conditions are mostly created by teachers and parents. Read More