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• Standards of Quality for Primary Programs
• Developmentally Appropriate Art Instruction
• Readying Schools for Students
• Constructing Curriculum
• Transition to School
• Perspectives on Quality
• Welcomes and Appreciations

The Michigan State Board of Education has issued a document entitled Early Childhood Standards of Quality for Prekindergarten Through Second Grade. Its purpose is to provide assistance to administrators, teachers, and parents as they develop quality early childhood care and education programs for children ages four through eight years old. The concepts presented are based on research in the area of the individual needs of young children of preschool and primary age, children's developmental stages, and the environments in which children learn best.

Critical components of the developmentally appropriate practices which Michigan advocates include: philosophy, accountability, coordination/cooperation and program support, family and community collaboration, child development, curriculum, and assessment and evaluation. Each component is presented as a distinct area for which standards have been established, and is used to define quality and to delineate expected program outcomes. The Early Childhood Standards incorporate the licensing regulations for the care and protection of children attending Michigan's child care centers, public school sponsored preschools, and before- and after-school (school age) programs.

The document defines quality early childhood care and education programs as those which recognize each child as a whole person, whose growth occurs in developmental stages that are sequential and continuous. Such programs "recognize and value families in their cultural, linguistic, and social diversity as active partners within the school community." According to the standards, any list of the benchmarks of quality should incorporate the following:

• a qualified and nurturing staff,
• a warm, stimulating, and multi-sensory environment,
• developmentally appropriate materials,
• a curriculum that supports children individual rates of development,
• teaching practices that reflect developmentally appropriate practices,
• a continuous evaluation system that regularly assesses and reviews program goals and learner outcomes,
• a cooperative venture between home and school,
• collaboration with the community, and
• continuous staff development.

The curriculum component consists of five standards, each of which is elaborated by a list of criteria, which are further described by specific quality indicators. Standard F.5, for example, reads that "Curricular goals (scheduling, transitions, and grouping practices) are reflected in the management and organization of the day." Criterion F.5.3 elaborates the concept by stating that "Grouping practices are used to strengthen children's learning." Six quality indicators provide details of these grouping practices, the fifth one specifically addressing class size and student/teacher ratios: "Minimum classroom ratios are to be maintained as follows: preschool children 8:1 (one teacher, one paraprofessional); all kindergarten children 20:2 (one teacher, one paraprofessional); first grade children 20:2 (one teacher, one paraprofessional); second grade children 25:2 (one teacher, one paraprofessional)."

Curriculum content areas are organized in the cognitive, creative, language, physical, and social-emotional domains. Concrete indicators and illustrative classroom strategies accompany each learner outcome.

Copies of Michigan's Early Childhood Standards of Quality for Prekindergarten Through Second Grade may be obtained by contacting Michael C. McGraw, Education Consultant, Michigan Department of Education, Early Childhood Education/ Parenting/ Comprehensive School Health Unit, P. 0. Box 30008, Lansing, Michigan 48909.

Developmentally Appropriate Art Instruction

A. National Art Education Association briefing paper entitled Developmentally Appropriate Practices for the Visual Arts Education of Young Children highlights practices that are both developmentally appropriate and inappropriate for children from preschool through the primary grades. According to authors Cynthia Colbert of the University of South Carolina and Martha Taunton of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, quality art education is instructionally appropriate as well as developmentally appropriate:

"Developmentally appropriate practices in the visual arts recognize children's changing capacities to create, perceive, and appreciate the visual arts, while accommodating a variety of individual characteristics such as emotional, intellectual, physical, perceptual, social, aesthetic, and creative development. Instructionally appropriate art education incorporates the best known practices derived from research and from practical experiences (with children) to offer programs that maximize opportunities for learning and success for all children."

The authors state that quality art instruction consists of the following three important themes:

1. Children need many opportunities to create art.
2. Children need many opportunities to look at and talk about art.
3. Children need to become aware of art in their everyday lives.

These themes are addressed throughout six components of a quality programcurriculum, choice of art materials, correlation of arts concepts with other areas of curriculum, creation of art, display of artwork, and responses to works of art.

The report provides examples of appropriate and inappropriate art education practices. The goals and objectives of the curriculum should be based on the interests and needs of the children, not on the teacher's preferences. The curriculum should consist of a balance of art, perceptual activities, and responsive activities. It should not focus on the making of crafts, which necessitates children following step-by-step instructions, or be centered around pictures and objects based on holidays and seasons.

Materials, which may be used in experimental ways, should be available to children for self-initiated art activities. Children should be allowed to work individually or in groups, as they create relying on their imaginations, experiences, and subjects of importance to them. They should not be hurried, but allowed to return to their work, as the need arises, or even to complete it the following day The teacher should neither control the distribution of materials nor take all of the responsibility for clean up.

Art should not be taught as a separate area of the curriculum. It should be integrated throughout other areas, since the goals and objectives of a quality art program are, in fact, the goals of a quality early childhood program. Art experiences should, for example, facilitate the development of language, increase visual and tactile perceptions, provide experiences with shapes, colors, and patterns, and re-enforce classification efforts.

Children should be allowed to select items of their artwork to be displayed; teachers should display the art of all children, not merely the works which they personally like. Work should be displayed at children's eye level and should be used to facilitate discussion. As part of the display, the thoughts of the teachers and children should be posted along with the goals and objectives of the lesson.

Art works should reflect the individuality of each of the young artists and thus differ from child to child; products therefore should be unique, individual, not similar to each other. Rather than teachers' lecturing about reproductions of works of art, they should encourage children to describe what they see and discuss how they feel.

Copies of the briefing paper may be purchased from the National Art Education Association, Publication Sales, 1916 Association Drive, Reston, Virginia 22091-1590.

Readying Schools for Students

The Southern Regional Education Board has issued a report focusing on the national education goal of insuring that all children will enter school ready to learn. Entitled Getting Schools Ready for Children: The Other Side of the Readiness Goal, the report indicates the progress that preschool programs are making in applying current knowledge to their programs about how children learn. Many elementary schools, however, are using "outmoded" teaching methods which are "inappropriate for the developmental levels of virtually all children in the fiveto eight-year-old group." The readiness goal will not be attained, the report warns, unless practices in the primary grades change, because "the benefits of high-quality preschool programs and other measures to improve children's readiness can be lost very quickly when students enter schools that are not ready for them."

The report recommends that primary programs be based on hands-on learning and recognize and respect individual developmental differences of children. One of the obstacles professionals face is that parents and the public continue to exert pressure on teachers to "do inappropriate things" with their students. Although federal Chapter 1 funds can be flexibly used to make the primary grades more responsive to the needs of young children, and to minimize the need for remediation when these students are older, the changes which should be made are at the state and local levels.

Other recommendations include:

• requiring teachers and administrators to have training in child development,
• adopting policies to improve communication among parents, teachers, and caregivers, and to support parents becoming involved in their children's education;
• instituting transition procedures for children entering kindergarten from preschool, and those going to first grade from kindergarten;
• eliminating practices which hinder children from entering kindergarten when they are legally able to attend; and
• prohibiting the use of standardized tests to assess children's progress, instead using methods which include observation.

Copies of the report are available for $8 each from the Southern Regional Education Board, 592 10th Street, NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30318.

Constructing Curriculum

Teaching Strategies' Constructing Curriculum for the Primary Grades was published at the end of September. Authored by Diane Trister Dodge, Judy R. Jablon, and Toni S. Bickart, it provides a practical framework for making curriculum effective for children in the primary grades. The book is written for classroom teachers, but its user-friendly format and straight-to-the-point writing offer insights to others (parents, administrators, and other education professionals) about what creates successful classrooms.

Based on the assumption that teachers, with the input and involvement of families, are the ultimate decisionmakers in their classrooms, the authors propose a framework "which allows teachers to construct and clarify their own ideas and beliefs about the teaching practices that work best for them and the children they teach." Their framework provides a practical way to organize and implement curriculum in the primary grades.

The framework is based on a knowledge of child development (how children grow and develop emotionally, socially, cognitively, and physically); a respect for the unique qualities of each child in the context of her/his family and culture, and an understanding of how children think and learn.

The authors define curriculum as a plan to achieve the fundamental goals of education. These goals are in place to assist children to:

• gain an increasing understanding of themselves and the world around them;
• develop the dispositions to be a learner -curiosity, independence, responsibility, initiative, creativity, willingness to take risks, to ask questions, and to persevere;
• acquire the skills they need to be successful learners - language and literacy, mathematical thinking, scientific thinking, social inquiry and the ability to express their ideas through the arts and technology; and
• function as contributing members of a community by developing social skills and by making choices that are good for their own welfare and helpful to society at large.

These goals of a developmentally appropriate approach to curriculum are designed to answer the question: 'What do we want children to learn during the primary grades that will help them to become successful learners, lead fulfilling lives, and contribute to society?"

Written by and with teachers, Constructing Curriculum provides a framework for making decisions about curriculum. Six of its chapters provide a foundation for the implementation of curriculum: Knowing the Children You Teach, Building a Classroom Community, Establishing a Structure for the Classroom, Guiding Children's Learning, Assessing Children's Learning, and Building a Partnership with Families.

Five chapters discuss approaches to content areas: Language and Literacy, Mathematical Thinking, Social Studies, Scientific Thinking, and the Arts and Technology. Throughout the framework, assessment is considered an integral part of curriculum. In fact, there are close ties between Constructing Curriculum and The Work Sampling System, the performance-based assessment system developed by Samuel Meisels and his colleagues at the University of Michigan. Dodge and her co-authors used Meisels' performance indicators for each domain of development to inform their thinking about skills and knowledge in the content chapters and about the role of assessment in curriculum planning and implementation.

Constructing Curriculum was piloted in elementary schools in the District of Columbia and in Brattleboro, Vermont; it is credited with helping to improve the learning environments in both urban and rural schools. It is a practical guide, including past and current research, with many examples to support teachers in developing ongoing curriculum for their classrooms. The authors "hope that this book will validate what teachers already know, help them construct a clear philosophy for themselves, and give them the confidence to follow their own beliefs."

The 427 page paperback guide costs $39.95 and may be ordered from Teaching Strategies, Inc., P. 0. Box 42243, Washington, DC 20015,800-637-3652 (phone), 202-364-7273 (fax).

Transition to School

In the November 1994 issue of Phi Delta Kappan, Sharon Landesman Ramey and Craig T. Ramey have authored an article entitled "The Transition to School: Why the First Few Years Matter for A Lifetime." Looking beyond academic achievement, the Rameys discuss eight signs which indicate that children have made a successful transition to school and the formative primary grades:

1. Children like school and look forward to going to school regularly.
2. Children will show steady growth in academic skills.
3. Parents will become actively involved in their children's education-at home, in school, and in the community.
4. Classroom environments will be emotionally positive ones for both teachers and children.
5. Teachers and families will value each other.
6. Schools will celebrate the cultural diversity in their communities and in the nation as a whole.
7. Developmentally appropriate practices will be visible in classrooms.
8. The community will show consistent investment in the education of children and will strive to increase the learning opportunities available.

As descriptors of the "emotionally positive" classroom environments which they prescribe, the authors highlight some of the "adult/child transactions that can promote cognitive development within environments that are influenced by the child, are responsive to the child, capture and hold the child's interest, and are trustworthy and comprehensible to the child." These "essential minimal elements" are necessary to promote cognitive development and good attitudes toward learning: encouragement of exploration; mentoring in basic skills; celebration of developmental advances; guided rehearsal and extension of new skills; protection from inappropriate disapproval, teasing, or punishment, and a rich and responsive language environment.

Copies of the article are available from the Director of Administrative Services, Phi Delta Kappan, P. 0. Box 789, Bloomington, Indiana 47402 (812-339-1156).

Perspectives on Quality

Lilian G. Katz has offered a new way of addressing the issue of quality in early childhood care and education programs, including primary-grade classrooms. Katz states that in current practice the definition of quality is related to variables such as adult/child ratios, group size, and "a set of pedagogical practices subsumed under the rubric of developmentally appropriate practice." Such a conceptualization of quality is too limiting, she argues.

Katz describes five perspectives on quality:

• a top-down perspective in which the quality of early childhood programs is assessed by examining selected features from the perspective of the program administrator and of those responsible for the supervision and licensing of the program;
• a bottom-up perspective in which quality is assessed by attempting to determine how the program is actually experienced by the participating children;
• an outside/inside perspective in which quality is determined by assessing how the program is experienced by the families it serves;
• an inside perspective which takes into account how the program is experienced by staff members responsible for it; and
• the ultimate perspective which considers how the community and the larger society are served by the program.

Katz believes that each of the five perspectives contributes in an unique way to the determination of overall program quality, and that the expansion of early childhood programs in the last decade should make educators more aware of the complexity of assessing program quality.

Her article, "Perspectives on the Quality of Early Childhood Programs," appeared in the November 1994 issue of Phi Delta Kappan. Copies of the article are available from the Director of Administrative Services, Phi Delta Kappan, P. 0. Box 789, Bloomington, Indiana 47402 (812-339-1156).

WELCOMES AND APPRECIATIONS

An exciting collaboration marks the beginning of the second year of publishing Of Primary Interest. The Iowa Department of Education and the Nebraska Department of Education have joined with the Colorado Department to cooperatively support this endeavor aimed at providing support, communication, and networking for the parents and teachers of primarylevel children, The Early Childhood Initiatives team at the Colorado Department welcomes the opportunity of working together with Susan Andersen (Iowa) and Harriet Egertson (Nebraska) and their colleagues.

The Colorado Department of Education wishes to again thank the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) for the Membership Action Group Grant, which supported the creation of Of Primary Interest last year, and the Colorado Association for the Education of Young Children (CAEYC) for the funding it provided for the publication of the first year's issues.

   

This page last updated: December 13, 2007