Early Childhood Curriculum

Please read Miseducation: Preschoolers At Risk by David Elkind.  Early childhood education should be a combination of what we know preschoolers should be exposed to at a developmentally appropriate level.  Science, math, language arts, social studies should all be part of the early childhood curriculum, however in a way that is developmentally appropriate.  The curriculum should be well designed and child centered.  Art (not craft) should be a focus as preschoolers display their understanding of the world through art work - 2 dimensional and 3-dimensional.  The program should be play orientated and adults should extend children's understandings through play.  In the USA we focus too much on preparation for kindergarten which is now termed the new 1st grade.  This is a huge mistake as more and more children are moving through the school system lacking in basic skills - socially, emotionally and academically.  The early childhood years, 0-8 years, are the foundation of education in the later years.  My heart breaks when I see so much developmentally inappropriate practice occurring in preschool through 2nd grade.  As an intermediate teacher with solid early childhood training (outside of the US) I see the fallout for not paying enough attention to developmentally appropriate practice in all levels of education.  Research Reggio Emilio in Italy, canvass and pressure our politicians to eliminate No Child Left Behind, which leaves most children behind.  If the US education system does not wake up to what is going on, we will be left behind as a nation in the worldwide economy. 

for more ideas on Preschool and Education Policy check out my blog: Circle-Time "Lead from the Start" 

I am a National Board Certified preschool teacher in Virginia. I think there are two things to remember about teaching preschoolers. They are capable of more than most people think, (I have 10 reading on a late Kindergarten early first grade level) and that kids must be addressed where they are developmentally. That said it is important to allow content to and student talents and abilities to decide how concepts are taught. At the preschool level this changed some of my core beliefs about how to teach reading. I realized that letter recognition and recognizing letter sounds is a behaviorally oriented activity. Not that some students don't need a more constructivist approach sometimes but the basic idea is: the more times I expose kids to letters and letter sounds the more likely they are to remember them. Period. The instant recall for letter sounds we use as adults in understanding new words is based on this simple recall of sounds and grammatic rules. This freed me up from having to do a hands on activity for every letter to help kids "remember" the letter. All I had to do was submerge them in the alphabet for them to learn the letters. So, I changed how I taught.

Changes that I made to my teaching included:

• singing 3 - 5 different alphabet and letter sound songs every day
• singing these songs daily at the same time and in transitions between activities
• incorporating movement into songs
• dedicating one of 3 "small groups" every day to letter recognition/letter sounds and stories
• asking students to name letters consistently through out the day (not just at certain times)
• teach all of the letters from day one instead of one letter at a time
• focused direct teaching of letters students were not learning quickly instead of following a prescribed order

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