Significance Of The Environment In Early Childhood Education

EDU60003 Curriculum Design and Assessment

EDU60003 Curriculum Design and Assessment

Attributes of an early childhood environment

The learning process of young children is greatly affected by their environment. The space, daily schedule, learning materials and how educators communicate to children are some of crucial features that affect the teaching and learning process (McLachlan, Fleer & Edwards, 2018). A good learning environment is significant factor and can be prepared to support the healthy development of the child. The surroundings of young children affects child’s brain development. A good environment for the child supports the brain development of a child and vice verse.

Early childhood education is emerging as one of world agendas where parents, teachers, policy makers and political leaders are eager to improve quality and easy access of childhood education.  This eager is brought by multiple evidence that suggests that children who attend quality early childhood education settings benefits a lot in relation to their behavior and their education life. One of the most common cited evidence demonstrates that children who are taken to quality education centers are able to perform well in their academic level when compared to these who fail to attend education centers (McLachlan, Fleer & Edwards, 2018).  Also, these children are able to engage with their peers appropriately, have a high chance of attending universities and colleges, and have a lower risk of incarceration.

Environmental practices can be defined as aspects of materials, equipments, routines, space and activities that educators and parents can intentionally modify in order to support the learning process of toddlers. An early childhood environment settings may involve many things. For example, (Bagnato , McLean, Macy & Neisworth, 2011), defines it as a safe place where toddlers are supervised while protecting them from elements. It also involves significant practices of the day like bathing, washing hands, playing, sleeping and eating.  Safe and responsive surroundings are crucial part of supporting not only the learning process but also the development children. Such environment also serves as a main component of challenging behavior interventions for toddlers with disabilities.

A safe environment for children may also involve creating conducive environments like classes or playing grounds that will support children in their learning process across all age groups and development of domains for social, communication and cognitive. A well designed environment will support responsive care giving, decrease challenging behavior, promote toddlers engagement and encourage independence and feelings of competence in infants. A well designed environment will also facilitate appropriate social interactions and provide structure and predictability among children.

Importance of curriculum programs

According to (Arthur, Beecher, Death, Dockett & Farmer, 2017), early childhood environment settings should be; Rich in play- playing is one of ways that helps toddlers to be able to integrate all their new experience into their developing brains, emotions and bodies. This is supported by evidence which demonstrates that toddlers learn best through playing. A safe early childhood setting should also be rich in experience where toddlers can experiment, explore and learn basic knowledge via direct experience. This is important since during this time, children are involved in learning about the physical world.

A good childhood environment should also be rich in teaching. The role of a teacher is crucial in toddle’s life. This is because infants depend on their teachers or educators to be their model, confidant, instructor and their colleague. Additionally, childhood environment should be rich with people. Toddles have desire of a lot of exposure to diversified group of people who are living in the local village. The types of people may range from farmers, carpenters, nurses, bakers piano tuner among others.

Besides, early childhood setting should be significant to children. Toddlers have that desire or feeling of important. They have the desire to feel what they do is good and is important to someone else beside themselves. Furthermore, early childhood setting should be a place where children can call their own. All human beings have the need to belong as well as children. They have that desire to be near to people whom they know, have comfortable objects or are familiar.

There are several attributes that are important based on early childhood education field. These include passion for early childhood education, creativity, flexibility, understand all children are different, good communication skills and should have patience and sense of humor (Steinberg, & Darling, 2017).

In order to achieve high quality levels of early childhood education, good decisions have to be made on curriculum programs. While each curriculum programs will be unique for quality early childhood education, the following are some of the decisions that are important for a quality programs. These decisions may include professional and stable teacher workforce, age appropriate curriculum and effective leadership (Steinberg, & Darling, 2017).

Decision regarding professional and stable teacher workforce is crucial component of quality early childhood education. All employed teachers need to have knowledge of early childhood development. They should also be able to plan for activities that can promote toddler’s learning process (Shonkoff, 2010). This critical role needs educators to have formal education, skills and knowledge in early childhood education. Moreover, early childhood professionals require compensation and benefits that reflects the significant of their role in educating young children. Good decisions should be aimed to professional and stable teacher workforce in order to promote a quality and health learning surroundings for young pupils.

Professional and stable teacher workforce

Furthermore, curriculum needs to be staffed at the appropriate level that can support quality learning process of young children. For example, low teacher child ratio should be incorporated in early childhood education programs at it helps educators to be able to concentrate and focus on the needs every child and engage them in a  meaningful interactions (Van Hoorn, Monighan, Scales & Alward, 2014). This means adequate number of educators specifically assigned to classrooms and others for physical education. Early childhood education should also involve workforce that reflects the growing diversity of young pupil population, thereby ensuring that toddlers have educators whom they can relate (McLachlan, Fleer & Edwards, 2018).

The other decision is effective leadership. Early childhood administrators have a broad range of tasks in ensuring early childhood education programs are run in the right manner that can support the learning process of children. Good decisions of employing best leaders with the sound managerial skills with varied skills is encouraged for smooth running of early childhood education programs (Wortham, 2002).

Furthermore, age appropriate curriculum decision is important in ensuring smooth running of early childhood education. Decisions on choosing the best curriculum that can accommodate every child in relations to their age, culture, language and their physical. The best early childhood education curriculum should relevant to all children in regards to culturally, linguistically and developmentally. In other words, curriculum decisions should take into account the toddler’s age, economic status, linguistic, culture and the behavior of the child.

                                   

There are numerous resources and teaching materials that can be used to support my kindergarten environment above. These materials includes; neat and spacious classrooms, neatly arranged chairs and desk, teaching materials such as books, charts, chalks and chalkboard. Furthermore, creative and attractive physical features such as poetry and comic pictures will be required to help in the learning and development process of the child.

The kindergarten design is the best as it has neat, well ventilated and spacious classrooms that will allow free movement. Also, chairs should be well arranged to provide educators a clear view of all children (Jacobs, 2010).  All learning materials such as chalks, charts and books should be present as they play key role in developing the learning process of children. The play ground is also important as it will act as a venue where children can integrate what they have learned in classroom by playing.

Importance of age-appropriate curriculum

Conclusion:

There are several curriculums for programs that can support early childhood education including high score curriculum and creative curriculum. Besides, a well designed environment will support responsive care giving, decrease challenging behavior, promote toddlers engagement and encourage independence and feelings of competence in infants (Harms, Clifford & Cryer, 2014). A well designed environment will also facilitate appropriate social interactions and provide structure and predictability among children.

In conclusion, early childhood environment settings should be; Rich in play- playing is one of ways that helps toddlers to be able to integrate all their new experience into their developing brains, emotions and bodies. This is supported by evidence which demonstrates that toddlers learn best through playing (Bornstein, & Bradley, 2014). A safe early childhood setting should also be rich in experience where toddlers can experiment, explore and learn basic knowledge via direct experience. This is important since during this time, children are involved in learning about the physical world. A good childhood environment should also be rich in teaching. The role of a teacher is crucial in toddle’s life. This is because infants depend on their teachers or educators to be their model, confidant, instructor and their colleague. Additionally, childhood environment should be rich with people. Toddles have desire of a lot of exposure to diversified group of people who are living in the local village (Jones et al., 2011). The types of people may range from farmers, carpenters, nurses, bakers piano tuner among others.

References:

Arthur, L., Beecher, B., Death, E., Dockett, S., & Farmer, S. (2017). Programming and Planning in Early Childhood Settings with Student Resource Access 12 Months. Cengage AU.

Bagnato, S. J., McLean, M., Macy, M., & Neisworth, J. T. (2011). Identifying instructional targets for early childhood via authentic assessment: Alignment of professional standards and practice-based evidence. Journal of Early Intervention, 33(4), 243-253.

Bornstein, M. H., & Bradley, R. H. (2014). Socioeconomic status, parenting, and child development. Routledge.

Harms, T., Clifford, R. M., & Cryer, D. (2014). Early childhood environment rating scale. Teachers College Press.

Jacobs, H. H. (2010). A new essential curriculum. Curriculum, 21, 7-17.

Jones, R. A., Riethmuller, A., Hesketh, K., Trezise, J., Batterham, M., & Okely, A. D. (2011). Promoting fundamental movement skill development and physical activity in early childhood settings: a cluster randomized controlled trial. Pediatric exercise science, 23(4), 600-615.

McLachlan, C., Fleer, M., & Edwards, S. (2018). Early childhood curriculum: Planning, assessment and implementation. Cambridge University Press.

Shonkoff, J. P. (2010). Building a new biodevelopmental framework to guide the future of early childhood policy. Child development, 81(1), 357-367.

Steinberg, L., & Darling, N. (2017). Parenting style as context: An integrative model. In Interpersonal Development (pp. 161-170). Routledge

Van Hoorn, J. L., Monighan-Nourot, P., Scales, B., & Alward, K. R. (2014). Play at the center of the curriculum. Pearson.

Wortham, S. C. (2002). Early childhood curriculum: Developmental bases for learning and teaching. Merrill/Prentice Hall.