Are We Improving?

Yesterday I got a new grandson. A cute little guy who will come home to two older sisters. As I was holding him in the hospital, I was thinking about how early childhood has evolved since my own children were infants. I wondered if we are improving as a nation in caring for our most active learners. Having worked in early childhood for almost 30 years, I have definitely seen highs and lows. There have been times that I have been encouraged by the promised commitment to early childhood only to be disappointed when the support wanes after a few years. I do, however, think that we are improving. Early childhood educators are getting the word out and studies are showing that investments in early childhood do pay off. I think that good parents nowadays are very good parents. There are a lot of resources for them that were unavailable to me. The mothers of my grandchildren know so much more than I did as a new parent. As I held that little guy yesterday, I was thinking how lucky he is to have caring, nurturing parents that have a solid knowledge of early childhood development. I wish all kids were that lucky.

Road Map to Success

I have been writing an article for the magazine, "Early Childhood News." The article is about using preschool state standards, as well as Head Start Outcome indicators, to create a road map for the success of preschool children. While researching the article, I was again reminded why many early childhood teachers fear standards. Their fear comes from believing that they cannot create a developmentally appropriate classroom when there is a prescribed plan. I appreciated the new book by Carol Copple and Sue Bredekamp (2006), published by NAEYC, called, "Basics of Developmentally Appropriate Practice." I was happy that the authors explained that if the teacher is not following an organized plan of skills, the classroom is not developmentally appropriate. We must have a plan to help children grow developmentally. Following standards does not mean that every child is at the same point at the same time. As long as the approach to learning is developmentally appropriate, having a road map of skills will help a teacher create activities that support development. As mentioned in an earlier post, skills in developmental order create a great support for the classroom.

Is funding the issue?

Whenever I have spoken with legislators and other government officials, I always get the story that funding is the reason that they do not invest in early childhood services. While I know that money is big part of the equation, I don't think it is the driving reason in many cases. In almost 30 years in the early childhood field, I have seen first-hand that most lawmakers lack the understanding and commitment to really invest in early childhood. It doesn't seem to matter that virtually all research studies indicate that in the long run we will save money by investing in early education. Unfortunately, in my state, there is still the mentality that if they don't fund early childhood services, mothers will be forced to "stay home and care for their own children, which is where they belong". Every year my state fails to qualify for millions of dollars in child care subsidies because they won't fund the matching small percent. While I think it is a richly rewarding experience for a child to be able to stay home with a parent, in 2006 it is an unrealistic expectation for many families. When early childhood services are not funded many children go without good early childhood training and support. Then when the child is in school, everyone cries "foul" because the child can't pass academic tests. Everyone cries even louder when the child can't control his/her behavior long enough to learn and allow others to learn. Everyone, especially lawmakers, need to understand how critical those early years are to the development of the person.

Funding, Funding.....

Numerous studies continue to show how important it is to invest in early childhood. Study and study has shown that the investment of resources in early childhood actually saves money on future support and intervention. Although behind the early childhood programs U.S. for many years, Great Britain has recent made grand steps to investing in children. Check out the article recently published in the New York Times: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0112preschool-ON.html
Bravo to Great Britain for making a financial investment in the future. It is a bit disheartening when at this moment our government is cutting funding to early childhood.

Sequential Order of Skills

While attending the NAEYC conference recently in D.C., I was able to introduce many preschool teachers to the new POCET program that is a preschool organizational tool for preschool settings. I was again amazed (as mentioned in a previous post) that many preschool settings have not listed their preschool skills/guidelines in developmental order. That should be the first step in addressing the progress of individual children. I doubt a teacher can track a child without tracking skills in the order they should be introduced and supported. As mentioned earlier, I do think this is a problem with many core curriculum standards. They are listed randomly instead of in order of introduction. When tracking children, this order is essential.

Individual Tracking

January is a great time to re-evaluate the progress preschool children have made since the beginning of the school year. Teachers should continually track and monitor, but January (mid-year) is a great time to chart progress. Charting progress is important so the teacher can provide support and plan activities that mirror the needs of the general group. Each program should find a system that makes it possible for the teaching staff to individualize tracking for each child. Preschools can have so many procedures that the regular classroom staff have a difficult time keeping up with all of the paperwork. The trick is to find a system that is easy to use, yet effective in keeping tack of each child's progress.

Social Emotional Crisis

In a new study by UC Berkeley and Stanford, researchers found that all children, not just children from low socio-economic households, benefit cognitively from attending preschool. Children in universal preschools made gains in language and mathematics regardless of their social class. Some of the researchers in the study, however, indicate that there is a dark cloud over the findings. Their concerns stem from the fact that preschool did not do much toward closing the gap between low income children and middle and high income children. Their second concern, and the one that casts the largest shadow on the study, is that attending preschool seems to have a negative effect on social development.
Considering the first concern, I am not sure much can be done to close the gap between the economic classes. We can't withhold preschool education from middle and high income children so that the lower income children can catch up. Many low socio-economic children have little support from home. Those struggling families fight just to put food on the table and have little time to provide educational help to their children. These families often lack resources and skill, not desire, to be a positive influence in their child's life. As long as these social conditions remain the same, it will be difficult for school systems to provide enough support to help the child "catch up." I applaud Head Start programs that are making every effort to find children at a young age so that they may influence the family longer than just one year.
The concern regarding negative effects of social development, does not seem to be credible to me. There was no effort made in the study to monitor the quality of the programs that were part of the study. Without monitoring the preschool setting, it is impossible to make an assumption that all preschool provides poor social and emotional development. I think the key is in preparing the early childhood educators (see my previous posts). In all my travels and workshops, I find that many preschool teachers lack skills in teaching social emotional strategies. The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, found in their studies that training teachers in social emotional strategies helped children develop those very skills.
My conclusion from the study is that we should be thrilled that children are making cognitive gains. At the same time we should work on providing as much support as possible for low-income families and provide social emotional training for preschool teachers and caregivers.