Early Childhood Education: Approaches, Strategies, and Importance

Language and literacy skills are an important and necessary ability required to drive a person’s ability to think and learn as without these skills an individual’s developmental growth can decline due to their critical thinking and learning skills being reduced. An educator plays a significant role in assisting children in an early childhood environment to positively develop and enhance their diverse learning skills. Various planned experiences and methods are used in an education and care environment in order to assist and encourage the developments of children from diverse language skills as in a diverse environment the most important concept that an educator must keep in mind is the need to assist the children in their own individual way in order to encourage their learning growth, and this is done through observing and assessing the child and analyzing the several factors (strengths/weaknesses) so that they can gradually learn and enhance their diverse language and literacy skills. There are various types of diverse learning skills such as bilingual which is the ability to speak two languages, multilingual which is the ability to speak more than three languages, Aboriginal English which is the various dialects of English spoken by Aboriginal people in Australia, delayed speech which is children not being able to meet the language development milestone for their age and advanced language which is the ability to say words/communicate ahead of their developmental milestones for their age .

Contemporary Approaches

Some diverse learning styles that can be adapted for the early childhood students, which will be beneficial for the children to communicate and easily teach them are, based on the three most important learning styles- visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. These are completely based on the developing stage and learning process of the child. As the child develops, they are able to perceive and analyze things therefore the processes needs to be changed and revised frequently. Again the process of learning can be traced back to the child’s individual developmental needs and according to the centre routines. Hence the important factors based on this criteria are- verbal, logical or mathematical, social. The visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning style the student is given focuses on their sensory attributes and the styles are based on their needs. The visual style focuses on the use of the visionary senses of the child, whereas auditory learning style includes the use of their auditory senses and finally kinesthetic style includes the use of the physical attributes of the students which includes several activities and physical training as well. In case of the verbal, logical and the social learning styles the educator uses several approaches in how they should analyze and on what strategy or the mode or subject the child requires based on their diverse learning ability or delay. (Whorrall & Cabell, 2016).

Save your time!
We can take care of your essay

• Proper editing and formatting
• Free revision, title page, and bibliography
• Flexible prices and money-back guarantee

Place an order

There are various approaches that educators can implement in their daily routines and play experiences to help encourage the development of children with diverse learning abilities and needs such as the use of books and reading corners, verbal expression through songs and phrases from different languages, flashcards, inclusive play experiences, asking the children questions whilst reading them a book, using books with big words and bright colours/pictures, using books with different languages, playing games through using words from different languages, asking people from the child’s cultural community to come in and talk about the language and teach the children about it.

Inclusive Teaching Strategies

Teaching strategies that can be included, are knowing the child’s culture, analyzing their cultural language or their mother tongue, this can be done by analyzing what culture they belong to and knowing them deeply. Thus, they will be able to learn their cultural languages and will be encouraged to communicate using that language as well. Aboriginal English is a notable factor that needs to be looked after and the actual terms and conditions needs to be analyzed by the educator and this will help the child to understand their mode of communication and in what ways that they should be communicating in order to impose their actual cultural language (Tran, Luchters & Fisher, 2017). The process of communicating regularly in class and developing habits of correcting their habits is a very efficient strategy to rectify the Aboriginal English speaking. Both bilingualism and multilingualism can be processed by teaching more than one language to the student so that they can be able to perceive and practice several other languages together. The study of linguistics is very essential for the teacher and the student as well. The child will be encouraged to be proficient in their mother tongues and then Language 1 (L1) that is the First Language and the Language 2 (L2); second language and Language 3 (L3); third language will be decided and taught. The language delays and the language advancement can be taught by categorizing the students according to the number of languages and their fluency in the language and also proficiency in the respective languages they speak or know (Hardy & Woodcock, 2015).

Importance of Diverse Learning environment

A diverse learning environment is needed so that children can easily learn and analyze several other languages together as there will be children belonging from various cultures speaking various kinds of languages. Therefore the educators are required to provide inclusive training on their class that will enable them to look after and observe each and every child separately and gather the information needed to create the play experiences to further the children’s development. Therefore, optimal language learning is important and hence it helps in the diverse learning and teaching processes (Hodge, Lieberman, & Murata, 2017).

Literacy is a vital factor for which the family of the students will be aiming for in their early childhoods. Factors needs to assessed according to the mode of the development of the student as well as their ability to grasp the studies and also to learn fast. Thus the students are mainly taught by following several modules that will help them to work in a group and also be in a schedule and be in the mode of learning a process, which will be important for the student to learn quickly and easily (Elango, García, Heckman & Hojman, 2015). These methods and modules are followed and also are frequently changed and revised specially to analyze the students’ improvement and capability and also help them in learning and assisting them in their problems. According to Watson & Wildy (2014), there are certain methods and modules followed and the authors performed certain activities that helped the students gain knowledge easily. The authors selected four participants for analysis of their literacy pedagogy from the questionnaire data, that they were provided and all the various data and the mode of the task that is made to be applied. The participants demonstrated each of the pedagogical methods, that are- play-based, student-centered, teacher-directed and co-constructed learning. In another situation the authors described the number of the narratives that were taken into account and reflected on the varied and the daily experiences of the participants with the regard to the early literacy education pedagogical practices. The narrative are discussed addressing the research question that has been highlighted and also supported with literature (Westwood, 2018). The Documenting Learning is one of the most important factors that has been taken in to account to analyze the student’s outcome. The support provided is focused and is centered towards the students, thus the factor of understanding and helping the students with their problems is matter that was served by following the method or the module. Multiple pedagogical supports were included which served to be very helpful for the students as well as the teacher concerned (Sim & Berthelsen, 2014).

Diverse approaches has been included in the lesson plan prepared by the teacher. Experiences of a teacher has been included in the research work who has gone throughout the process, according to the teacher, along with an assistant they prepared lesson plans according to the interest of the students. They included three programs simultaneously to make the students associated with the teachers and learn accordingly. The teacher being novice handled the students by depicting the intentional and rigorous in the pedagogical approach that included the planning, communication, relationships, classroom design, interactions with the students. The teacher focused and continued professional learning as well as along with an assistant they analyzed several factors that are essential for teaching (Watson & Wildy, 2014).

Another example of the teaching experience has been analyzed that has been made by an experienced teacher, who is compatible with handling students and actually how to lead a class despite of the class being chaotic or restless. Therefore though the class may seem to be chaotic she brought in the productiveness from the students. Thus the handling of the students is also an important factor that a teacher needs to understand and analyze to continue with the class (Evans & Green, 2018). The pedagogical practices included therefore by the teacher are linked with the experience and qualifications therefore the mode of teaching that was framed by the teacher was quite unique compared to that of the novice teacher thus the inclusive mode of the teaching is very important for the diverse student base. The common themes that the teacher took in preparing the lesson plan for the class are- rich demonstration, stimulating environment and adaptive instruction. All these modules were identified through the data analysis, for highlighting the practice and shape the abilities of the students accordingly (Morgan & Sellner, 2017).

Conclusion

The two important areas of early childhood development are language and literacy, although they are connected, and both lead to the intellectual development of a child they refer to two distinctive areas and needs. Language development aims towards developing the skills needed to communicate with others through languages and words, whereas literacy development aims to provide the child with the ability to read and write. Babies are born with the capabilities for development in diverse learning skills and there are many ways that educators can support this development and help ensure that children with advanced language and literacy skills are encouraged and carefully planned experiences enable educators to keep track of how far the child has advanced and how they can further be assisted. Educators are also responsible for the care of children with common communication disorders, which may cause delays in their language and literacy development, it is vital for the educator to be able to create individually planned experiences and plays to assist these children to reach their language and literacy milestones gradually in order for the child to experience a healthy developmental environment.

References

1. Elango, S., García, J. L., Heckman, J. J., & Hojman, A. (2015). Early childhood education. In Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 2 (pp. 235-297). University of Chicago Press.
2. Evans, V., & Green, M. (2018). Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Routledge.
3. Fellowes, J., & Oakley, G. (2011). Language, Literacy and Early Childhood Education. Oxford University Press.
4. Hardy, I., & Woodcock, S. (2015). Inclusive education policies: Discourses of difference, diversity and deficit. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 19(2), 141-164.
5. Hodge, S., Lieberman, L., & Murata, N. (2017). Essentials of teaching adapted physical education: Diversity, culture, and inclusion. Routledge.
6. Morgan, J. L., & Sellner, M. B. (2017). Discourse and linguistic theory. In Theoretical issues in reading comprehension (pp. 165-200). Routledge.
7. Newman, L., Arthur, L., Staples, K., & Woodrow, C. (2016). Recognition of family engagement in young children's literacy learning. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 41(1), 73-81.
8. Roskos, K. A. (Ed.). (2017). Play and literacy in early childhood: Research from multiple perspectives. Routledge.
9. Sim, S., & Berthelsen, D. (2014). Shared book reading by parents with young children: Evidence-based practice. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 39(1), 50-55.
10. Tran, T. D., Luchters, S., & Fisher, J. (2017). Early childhood development: impact of national human development, family poverty, parenting practices and access to early childhood education. Child: care, health and development, 43(3), 415-426.
11. Watson, R., & Wildy, H. (2014). Pedagogical practice of early childhood teachers: Explicit enhancement of students' literacy. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 39(2), 82-90.
12. Watson, R., & Wildy, H. (2014). Pedagogical practice of early childhood teachers: Explicit enhancement of students' literacy. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 39(2), 82-90.
13. Westwood, P. (2018). Inclusive and adaptive teaching: Meeting the challenge of diversity in the classroom. Routledge.
14. Whorrall, J., & Cabell, S. Q. (2016). Supporting children’s oral language development in the preschool classroom. Early Childhood Education Journal, 44(4), 335-341.