Early Childhood Classroom

Classrooms are different today from those of previous generations, they have become communities of learners where students assume more responsibility for learning. As opposed to a place where the teacher is in charge the modern class room there is often a hum of students, talking about books they are reading and working together in small groups using digital as well as print text. The students are more culturally and linguistically diverse, many have English as a second language (ESL). This Critical- reflective essay will explore using the four resource model developed by Luke and Freebody, focusing on; how young children learn to read, the four roles within the resources model are Code breaker, text user, text participant and text analyst. This essay will also articulate the understanding of the three phases of reading and writing development. Phase one, experimental reading and writing. Phase two, early reading and writing and phase three, transitional reading and writing. This understanding will then be applied to an early years setting including and application of strategies for cultural differences.

Chapter two discusses various theorists that helped to mold and shape early childhood education to where it is today. There are several different theorists that contributed to the development of early childhood education. Some of these theorists include Alfred Adler, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and John Dewey. Each theorist developed a unique theory that has caused early childhood guidance and education to flourish like it has today. Without learning and building on these theories, early childhood guidance and education would never develop or change. The chapter explains how some theories may seem strange to the contemporary families, but these theories are the foundation of how early childhood education got to where it is today. The book goes

Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak, in their article, “Write Soon!” from The Reading Teacher (2009) emphasize that reading and writing are important skills and explain how parents can easily incorporate them into everyday life. They support this idea by presenting simple ways that parents and their children can do this, such as writing notes to each other, exchanging journals, or making lists. The authors wrote this article in order to help teachers guide parents through developing and supporting their child’s literacy. Rasinski and Padak’s writing is aimed toward teachers who can ultimately use these instructions to encourage

Writing can be a daunting task for students in any grade. Teachers have to implement new basic components for those struggling to write. Finding new methods and being able to execute them requires teachers to design lesson plans that help

“Early roots of play as a best practice for early learning was documented by Plato, a Greek philosopher, who insisted that play is considered a natural activity of childhood.”(Ingrid Crowther, 2011, Pg. 2) Early Childhood Education is a term that refers to educational programs that are devoted to children from birth to the age of eight. “Children of this age learn by exploring and investigating; therefore, their environment should support and encourage this process.”(Rebecca Isbell and Betty Exelby, 2001, Pg. 11) Early childhood environments should be attractive and exciting. These environments should allow children to work and play using proper resources, materials, and tools.

This research report presents an analysis of and conclusions drawn from the experiences and perspectives of two educators that work in the early childhood setting. The main objective is to identify key elements and issues in relation to the families, diversity and difference. In particular how an early childhood educator implements, different approaches to honour culture and diversity, and to advocate for social justice in an early childhood settings. As such, it allows an insight into the important role that families and their background plays in the everyday lives of the children and educators within early childhood settings. In today’s ever-changing growing society it is essential for educators to be flexible to the

In early learning environments, children acquire knowledge and develop cognitive, social and emotional, physical and language acquisition skills in the content areas such as language arts, math, science, and social studies in a variety of ways. It is up to the teachers to plan and implement in-depth studies of themes and topics that are meaningful and relevant to the children, being sure to address the development of the whole child while integrating all of the content areas. In the physical classroom the environment should provide students with hands-on opportunities to grow and develop skills, gain knowledge, and have fun as they explore carefully designed learning centers. They should be provided with materials that are related to

For my ethnographic research I am observing a second grade classroom. I have chosen to observe classroom reading and writing time with the students. In addition I have decided to interview three people (teacher, parent, and student) from the school at which I am completing my observation hours, P.S. 152 Gwendoline N. Alleyne School in Woodside, Queens to have a solid understanding of my research. I will use alternative name for students and teacher. Mrs. S is piloting a writing workshop in her classroom and ELA/ literacy standards will be the primary focus throughout her teaching. My primarily focus will be on the classroom routine.

The standards that were chosen for this literacy development profile closely fit with what my class is learning this quarter. We are working with writing complete sentences with capital letters and punctuation, sight words, spelling, and letter sounds. The standards I chose also correlate with the kindergarten standards since many of my students are just transitioning into the first grade. The writing standard I chose allows for a broader spectrum when it comes to persuasive and opinion pieces. My first graders can only write very simple sentences and some have not master that skill at all. When I was trying to find the right writing standard for this project, it was very important that it focused on the voice of writing. First graders have very limited writing and spelling conventions now, so the voice is one of the components we can see in the very beginning of writing.

Graham et al. (2012) explores a meta-examination of the written work intercession writing, centering our endeavors on genuine and semi tests with an end goal to distinguish powerful instructional practices for instructing written work to elementary students (Graham et al., 2012). The article focused on meta-investigation of test and semi exploratory written work studies directed with elementary students (Graham et al., 2012). The authors contributed tables which displayed the effect sizes and results for written treatment. Graham et al. (2012) distribute several strategies that educators can implement in their classrooms. Some strategies included strategy instruction, grammar instruction, scaffolding, assessing writing, prewriting, and peer

Another article by Robin M. Bright takes the stance that children are often taught to fear writing. He states that it happens too often that assignments and enormous online tests that hinge on a writing capability likely not taught in the lower grades causes an inherent hatred for the subject. He goes on to say that this is why many adults regard writing as a chore that is necessary to the workplace, and avoid it at all other costs. This article is about how giving younger children fun and engaging writing prompts eases some of that fear and disdain when writing is reintroduced with greater weight years down the road. In rebuttal to Ms. Coffman’s statements, one can argue that the stats do not truly matter in a case against whether or not traditional writing should be eagerly enforced in Elementary school systems. Her statistics proved that honors and standard level children alike did better in high-technology learning environments, but she also failed to see that not only were these high school level children who were used to using today’s technology to its fullest, but she did not factor in what types of learning the children were even being exposed too, and her research fails to give any insight to how the children were taught at smaller ages, which in this argument is truly

Educators are charged with not only teaching the content of their subject, but also responsible for creating a learning environments that fosters communication, engagement, and reflection so that the students will be prepared for their future careers and learning. Creating a classroom that fosters reading and writing is one way to engage students while promoting that they reflect on the material and communicate their understanding or misconceptions of the content. In order to form a literacy-rich classroom educators need to increase the amount of time students interact with all forms of print and literacy and the classroom environment is an essential key to setting the precedent and model behaviors that will make students more successful and capable of high level learning. (Tyson, 2013)

A constructivist Early Childhood classroom is one that focused on the role of each child. The curriculum and lessons are guided by what the teacher knows about his/her students’ needs and interests. If the teacher has introduced something and it is not going as planned, he/she can reshape it based on what the children are interested in about the subject. It can also allow for the study of certain things to go much deeper than planned. As long as the students are interested and still wanting to learn about the subject things can keep being added to extend their knowledge. It allows the children to learn from the things that they already know, but reshaping or adding it to the knowledge that they have previously known. The children are allowed

My experience in this online class has really been inspirational! I gained a lot of knowledge about education and not only how students should conduct themselves but teachers. I have come across some teachers who had become fed up or disappointed in the students in the class room and allowed it to get to them and then they conducted their behavior poorly. I can understand the student to teacher ratio could be overwhelming but as a professional educators should not be brought out of character. Having the necessary tools available today should assist teachers in a more professional environment for themselves and their students.

Walking into my preschool classroom, I remember the cheerful smiles of three-year-olds ready to spend a fun-filled day among their friends and teddy bears. Their wide grins radiating a feeling of happiness to which I, for some inexplicable reason, was oblivious to.