The Right Way to Teach Math

In his article, "Math in Early Childhood," which forms the basis for the Exchange Out of the Box Training Kit by the same name, Francis Wardle talks about the right way and the wrong way to teach math to preschoolers...


"Studies show that children who play with unit blocks in early childhood do better in algebra in middle school. But it’s important to note that the outcome of playing in the block area is not demonstrated until middle school! Math standards during the early years will automatically focus on low level, rote skills: memorization, repetition, and adult views of math knowledge. What makes this most destructive is that young children are operating within Piaget’s preoperational stage, which means they cannot think logically. Thus, bureaucrats creating standards and assessment often include things that children this age simply cannot even do....

"Math knowledge and dispositions are not created in a vacuum. Math is about manipulating things: objects, shapes, concepts, and relationships; reproducing and documenting the world; and constructing, building, and estimating. The Reggio Emilia philosophy and the Project Approach understand this clearly. Thus, we must provide a myriad of opportunities for young children to have direct, concrete experiences in the real world. What is the value of discussing the speed of light if you don’t understand light? Seeing snow accumulate day after day is a real way to understanding increase in quantity. Carrying a large boulder teaches about mass; swinging on a rope about force, angles, and speed. Field trips, extensive classroom projects, exploration in nature, extensive use of the playground, observing the weath er, etc., must all be central to our math curricula."

Nutrition

Have you heard? The Federal Government has published new nutrition guideines at this link: http://www.choosemyplate.gov/.
Sample meal and snack patterns for children can be found at this link:
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/healthy-eating-tips/sample-menus-recipes/sample-meal-snack-patterns.html

The Outdoor Classroom

The outdoors can be a wonderful learning environment for young children, particularly in our favorable climate in Florida. Much more than gross motor activities, the outdoors can be used for nature/science, dramatic play, art, block play, sand/water play, even reading/storytelling.

The excerpt attached here may give you some ideas to pursue:

http://www.redleafpress.org/assets/clientdocs/social_media/CultivatingOutdoorClassrooms.pdf

Radio Show "The Art & Science of TA for Continuous QRIS"

Here is the link to a radio show about Coaching and QRIS. Thought it might be helpful. CoachingConnections Radio Show "The Art & Science of TA for Continuous QRIS," an interview with Muriel Wong of the WELS Foundation
http://www.linkedin.com/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2EBlogtalkradio%2Ecom%2Fcoachingconnections%2F2012%2F03%2F28%2Fthe-art-science-of-ta-for-continuous-qris-with-muriel-wong&urlhash=CO0Z&_t=tracking_anet

Zero To Three Article

http://main.zerotothree.org/site/DocServer/MaximizingPartnershipsParentsPediatricians.pdf?docID=13061

The link above will take you to an article recently published by Zero to Three titled:

Maximizing Partnerships With Parents and Pediatricians
The Role of Early Childhood Specialists


Abstract
The early childhood provider, because
of the consistent contact over time with
infants, toddlers, and their families, is
well positioned to observe the nuances
of the early caregiving relationship;
monitor early child behavior and
development; identify deviances;
and offer support, guidance, and
intervention when families struggle.
This partnership with families is further
enhanced when the observations
about child behavior, development,
and psychosocial functioning, are
communicated to the pediatric provider.
The opportunity for this enhanced
“developmental surveillance,”
incorporating additional observations
of child behavior and development in
multiple settings, provides valuable
information to the pediatrician and
adds to the comprehensiveness of the
pediatric care provided.

Environment Rating Scales Institute

Dear Environment Rating Scales User:

The Environment Rating Scales Institute (ERSI) is the organization that was started by Thelma Harms and Debby Cryer when they retired from the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We wanted to continue providing the accurate, “up-close and personal” help with the scales that we had always provided through the University. Cathy Riley and Tracy Link are partners in ERSI, and our other long-term associates that many of you will remember from UNC also continue to work with us. You will find our website at www.ersi.info.

ERSI, Inc.
711 Greenwood Rd.
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
(919) 924-0406

Preschool: The Best Job-Training Program

When economist James Heckman was studying the effects of job training programs on unskilled young workers, he found a mystery.

He was comparing a group of workers that had gone through a job training program with a group that hadn't. And he found that, at best, the training program did nothing to help the workers get better jobs. In some cases, the training program even made the workers worse off.
The problem was that the students in the training program couldn't learn what they were being taught. They lacked an important set of skills which would enable them to learn new things. Heckman, a Nobel-Prize-winning economist, calls these soft skills.

You might not think of soft skills as skills at all. They involve things like being able to pay attention and focus, being curious and open to new experiences, and being able to control your temper and not get frustrated.

All these soft skills are very important in getting a job. And Heckman discovered that you don't get them in high school, or in middle school, or even in elementary school. You get them in preschool.

And that, according to Heckman, makes preschool one of the most effective job-training programs out there.

As evidence, he points to the Perry Preschool Project, an experiment done in the early 1960s in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Researchers took a bunch of 3- and 4-year-old kids from poor families and randomly assigned them to one of two groups. The kids in one group just lived their regular lives. And the kids in the other group went to preschool for two hours a day, five days a week.
After preschool, both groups went into the same regular Ypsilanti public school system and grew up side by side into adulthood.

Yet when researchers followed up with the kids as adults, they found huge differences. At age 27, the boys who had – almost two decades earlier – gone to preschool were now half as likely to be arrested and earned 50 percent more in salary that those who didn't.

And that wasn't all. At 27, girls who went to preschool were 50 percent more likely to have a savings account and 20 percent more likely to have a car. In general, the preschool kids got sick less often, were unemployed less often, and went to jail less often. Since then, many other studies have reported similar findings.

These results made me think: What is going on in preschool?

So I visited the Co-Op School, a preschool in Brooklyn. Eliza Cutler, a teacher there, said the kids do a lot of the same things the Perry Preschool kids did back in the 60s: They play, they paint, they build with blocks, and they nap.

If you didn't know where to look, you wouldn't see the job skills they're learning.
Yet they are learning valuable skills: how to resolve conflicts, how to share, how to negotiate, how to talk things out. These are skills that they need to make it through a day of preschool now. And they are skills they will need to make it through a day of work when they're 30.
If they learn these skills now, they'll have them for the rest of their lives. But research shows that if they don't learn them now, it becomes harder and harder as they get older. By the time the time they're in a job training program in their twenties, it's often too late.
Heckman is an economist so he thinks about this as a cost-benefit analysis. To him, the message is clear: If you want 21 year-olds to have jobs, the best time to train them is in the first few years of life.

For more, see these studies:
A New Cost-Benefit and Rate of Return Analysis for the Perry Preschool Program: A Summary
The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children
Analyzing Social Experiments as Implemented: A Reexamination of the Evidence from the HighScope Perry Preschool Program

Broadcast on NPR 8-17-11