Parents as partners in the early years

Good teaching practice in the early years is guided by partnership with families, as advocated by the early childhood curricula of New Zealand and Australia specifically. Yes, families should be part of their children's learning and development. I always try to include them in the assessment and evaluation process, as they have a wealth of information and understandings regarding their child. In terms of planning, when I recognise some interests are emerging, I will solicit parental inputs into the topics of investigation or interest.

First and foremost, all aspects of the kindergarten environment should be designed to encourage parent participation in the programme.  The environment needs to be welcoming. Think about furniture...are there chairs and tables which are at adult heights? They should feel comfortable to hang around a bit. It's an attitude of respect for the parents. In my kindy, parents are often seen sitting on a couch, reading a book with their child or enjoying their child's folder/ portfolio.

Communication is definitely critical for effective partnership. The drop off and pick up times provide opportunities for the teacher to talk with the parent about their child's interests; sharing information about what the child enjoys doing while he is not at kindergarten etc..

In addition, observations and records should be part of two-way communication that strengthens the partnership between the early childhood setting and families. While the teacher is trying to learn about each child to plan for the teaching programme, parents need to be aware of the teaching that goes on in the kindergarten.

In my centre, there are plenty of documentation on the walls to communicate with parents about the children's experiences. Documentation may include photos of children learning, samples of children's work/ creation, and text describing some aspect of what the children are doing.  In addition, the documentation boards should explain the teacher's planning, which will facilitate dialogue and exchange of ideas with parents. Ideally, the teacher will have time to update a daily journal, in which the teachers will communicate to parents how the children spend time during the day, areas where children spent most of the time, and some text reflecting on what children said they were thinking about specific topics. In partnership with parents, teachers will be better informed when they try to make sense of the topics of emergent interest.

It certainly is very demanding to update a daily journal everyday at the end of the session. I usually do it first thing after a session and put it out before the next session. It will help children revisit what they have done in the previous session, while the parents are informed of the current learning happening at kindy. Instead of a daily journal, I am aware that one kindy takes advantage of ICT and creates a daily slideshow for parents with photos of children working and learning in the day. At pick up time, parents are welcomed to watch the show with the children, while teachers are on the side making comments, sharing ideas, and answering questions.

Both parents and teachers are the contributors to the child's capacity to learn. In the learning story I write for each child, I will reserve some space to seek parents' feedback. I will use
prompting questions to encourage them to write something in return. For example, "Have your child told you about this?" or "Does your child like to do drawing at home too?" or " Your child seems to have a lot of knowledge about ....Do you know where he learns that from?"

Finally, parents are valuable resource persons with many talents. I have invited parents coming to kindergarten to cook and bake with children; demonstrating the Japanese craft of origami; running show and tell sessions about their profession; leading music and movement activities; and even constructing a cockpit for the children.

Hope you enjoy working with the parents at your kindergarten too!

Group size contributes to quality outcomes in early childhood education

It has been shown that group size influences the nature of the interactions between children and their teacher in the early childhood setting, which makes teaching and learning possible. 

In my previous two posts, I talked about a video called supporting early writers, in which a teacher was attempting to support a group of young writers by jotting down their ideas one after one, demonstrating how verbal language can be recorded in print. She probably understood that adult guided learning required one to one attention, so she worked with the children one at a time, while letting the other children queueing up for their turn. However, she looked flustered when children in the queue demanded attention. As a result, she seemed unable to focus on the learning activity, as she hardly gave the children eye contact, nor talked responsively with the children.  I think the issue here is the size of her writing group.

The appropriate size for a group will differ across the range of learning activities. Generally, for adult guided learning, the group should better be small. When I cook or bake with children, and I intend them to read the recipe with me, learn to measure with proper equipments, talk about and make connections with any possible home cooking experiences, so I will only work with not more than five children. I either carry out the activity at the kitchen bench or set it up at a small table and put only four chairs out. Group size can be shaped by the physical environment. 

However, when I write with children, such as writing a story down while the child narrates it, I will definitely work with one at a time. I have learnt to say "not now" to enthusiastic writers who wait eagerly on the side. I usually ask them to go and do something else and promise them I will go and find them as soon as I can. Another option could be putting their names down on a waiting list, and I'll ask a child to find the next one when I've finished with the current one. 

A teacher must keep thinking how many children should be grouped together to enable her interaction with the children are effective and responsive. As such, the teacher is able to spend more time teaching and less time managing children. It needs planning about group size, in order to create the physical and social environments that support quality learning and teaching.

Group size contributes to quality outcomes, because it can determine the level and quality of interactions and relationships between children and between children and adults. Effectively, a desirable group size can transform the group into a genuine “learning community”, with the benefit of of fostering and supporting the development of each child as an individual. 

When groups are appropriately sized, teachers can offer more individualised attention. The teachers are able to make more stimulating comments and ask thought provoking questions; and to respond readily with interest and enthusiasm. At the same time, the children are genuinely listened to and supported to express themselves. The teacher and the children are engaged in meaningful conversation, which enhances learning. 

Click here to read about group size being a quality indicator; and here about the effects of group size on children in relation to the various domains within which the individual child develops physically, cognitively, socially, emotionally, and culturally.

Literacy in early childhood - adult guided learning?

Intentional teachers should plan adult-guided learning activities to enable children to learn systems of knowledge, which they can't develop on their own, as suggested by Epstein. In a video titled "supporting early writers", posted by the National Quality Standard Professional Learning Program of Australia, a teacher carried out a guided activity to support children's learning in writing letters of the alphabet. In the video, she diligently wrote down what a child said, put the paper aside and moved on to the next child. She looked stressed as several children were queuing up for their turn.

I think the teacher's planning is informed by the notion of literacy as social practice. She  could be demonstrating how to put words into print. However, she could have stated the obvious, talking with the children about what we say can be written down in words, so everyone can read it, and the message is recorded and will last for a long time. So, if Mum and Dad read the writing, they will know what happen in the kindergarten and so on. As such, the activity will be more meaningful. Writing a letter, a card, a story or a sign is meaningful.

Also, the teacher could have supported the learning of literacy skills and knowledge by describing how to form the letters, for instance, letter "t" is a tall stick and a little line across. When spelling a word, the teacher could model the way to sound the word out or invite the child to try. Depending on the capabilities of the child, the teacher could encourage the child to listen for the beginning sound of a word. Of course, don't overdo it. I've made a silly mistake by asking a child to work out how to spell ninja, after we have done a few words. He walked away leaving this comment: "you figure it out yourself, you are a teacher!"

The key to adult guided learning is responsive and reciprocal relationship, as the teacher applies her knowledge of the child to engage and involve him in his learning. The teacher should listen to and talk with the child patiently, slowing down and affirming the child that his idea is so important that it worths to be written down. After writing, read it back to the child to confirm what he wants to say is correctly recorded. True, time could be a hurdle, but learning activities should not be designed as an one off experience. If it is impossible to cover everyone on this occasion, find another time and do it again.

Most importantly, the child should not feel the need to please the teacher by doing what is told. The child is central to all types of learning, adult-guided or child-initiated. The teacher could have acknowledged the funds of knowledge which the child already have, by asking the child whether he would like to write or let the teacher write for him. The child's attempt should be encouraged while the teacher provides the technical support, ranging from how a particular letter looks like to how to spell a word. The teacher in the video wrote down what a child said and moved on as quickly as possible, which only reinforces the child's dependency and becomes inclined to turn to the teacher for help.

Lastly, I feel for the teacher in the video, as it seems she was responsible for a big group at the time. Just hope the management will step up and contribute a better learning environment for the children and an effective teaching condition for the teacher.

Literacy in early childhood

About supporting early writers , the recent Australia National Quality Standard newsletter uploaded a video for educators to ponder about. Comments seem to be critical. Here I share some learning stories relating to children at various stages of literacy capabilities, and they are all 4 years old.

Mya decided to WRITE her story today. She emphasized that she was not going to dictate her story for me to jot down, as we did before. Instead, she would write the words while I spelt them out for her. Mya was definitely confident of her emerging ability and knowledge of letters of the alphabet.

So, Mya narrated her story sentence by sentence, and I broke the sentence down into words and spelt out each word slowly. Mya had visual image of some letters, and she was able to write them independently when I named the letters. She mostly used the capital letters, but she was gradually learning the lower case of some letters. For those letters she did not know, I wrote them down on a piece of paper and Mya copied. It was amazing to see Mya writing diligently letter by letter. During her story writing, Mya was interrupted by lunch. But she remembered to return to her writing task afterwards.  Mya was definitely taking responsibility for her own learning.

What learning was happening here?

Mya was learning to write by being involved. She has been creating stories lately, so writing a story was a meaningful activity for Mya to practice her literacy skills. On her own initiative, Mya decided to challenge herself to write. She was really motivated to learn and demonstrated confidence and enthusiasm. Mya told me she wrote at home on a notebook. I can see the literacy link between home and kindergarten. I would like to thank Mya’s family for being very supportive of her literacy development.

Sam asked me to help her write up a list. I know she is able to write all letters, so I decided to jot down what she wanted to write and let her copy. She was happy with the idea, and she organised a set of pen and paper for me and another for herself.

The first thing on her list was chocolate. I wrote them in small letters, but when Sam copied them off, she converted them into the capital letter. Interesting! Sam has knowledge of both the upper and lower cases of the letters of the alphabet, and she feels more comfortable to use the upper case.

The next item on her list was computer games. I tried to demonstrate the thinking process behind hearing the sounds in word, so I said the word slowly, ‘com-pu-ter’. Sam was learning to hear the consonants of the word, and she made an informed guess that the word had a ‘p’ in the middle and that it sounded like there were an ‘e’ . It’s a joy to watch Sam grow in her early writing efforts.

Recently, children at the kindergarten have been buzzing around with enthusiasm, producing puppet shows.  Grace was keen to stage her own show.

First, she dictated the story for me to write down. Grace developed a simple but interesting plot for her show, sharing her fantasy and imagination. Grace also wanted to make sure that she would not lose her story, so she punched a hole in the paper and threaded a piece of string through it and hung the paper round her neck. What a unique idea!

Next, Grace drew the characters, including Rapunzel (the princess), the baby Rapunzel, the queen and the prince. Grace needed help to cut out the puppets and she asked her friend, Mya to cut them out for her. The last step was laminating the puppets so Grace could keep them for a long time. But then, it was lunch time. Grace was so eager to complete the preparation that she suggested working through lunch. I said ‘no’ and she quickly finished her lunch and came back to her work.

As we have been using mat-times for the children to showcase their talents, Grace was all smiles when the bell rang for mat-time. During mat-time, while I narrated the story, Grace and her friends held the puppets and acted out the story. We all had a good time, including those who were performing and who were watching.

I am so amazed that the show/story telling project has been achieving so much learning for grace. It’s about creative expression and literacy development (both verbal and written language). Also, the experiences support the disposition of perseverance and a sense of responsibility.  The teachers are impressed that grace took ownership of her show and her contribution was valued.

Ava and Manaia wanted to put up a show and wanted to make a sign to advertise their show. Manaia chose a long strip of paper to be the sign. She intended to inform everyone at the kindergarten about the event.  She asked me to write down the name of the show for them and planned to decorate the banner by herself and with Ava. They drew the octopus and the mermaid, but they did not feel confident to draw the dragon.  Manaia knew that Eden was good at drawing dragons, so she persuaded her to draw a dragon on the banner. When the banner was ready, Manaia suggested using the cellotape to secure the banner and even fetched me a chair to stand on when I hung up the banner high above, so ‘everyone can see it’, as suggested by Manaia.

Mya and Sam are ready for independent writing, and they know messages and ideas can be represented in print. To respect Mya's determination to write all by herself, so I focus on practising letter writing, whereas I extend Sam's knowledge and skills in sounding out the words, i.e. letter-sound relationship. Grace is not ready to write letters and I promote her interest in emergent literacy by modelling writing. I wrote while she narrated a script, which was performed in front of the whole kindergarten. Ava and Mania's story shows that writing sign to inform is a valid way to promote awareness of print.