Looking at the Early Learning and Development Benchmarks is a daunting task because of how long it is. Once you really dive into reading and looking at it, you begin to see how truly valuable these are to those who care for and teach young children. These Benchmarks recognize the importance of the first five years of life in a child and how children at this age rely heavily on adults for their development and learning. These Benchmarks do not follow any one theory, but blend together all of the different theoretical perspectives with scientific research. The purpose of these Benchmarks is to assist early childhood programs know what the children should know and things they should be able to do when they enter Kindergarten. One of the purposes of the Benchmarks is for teachers and professionals to share the tool with their student’s parents so that they know what developmental expectations they should expect from their children. The Benchmarks are split into four critical stages: 18 months, 36 months, 60 months, and entering into kindergarten. The Benchmarks is not meant to be used as a guide to child development and should not be used as a checklist for teachers or families. This is also not supposed to be used as a basis for a curriculum in the classroom for teachers. The Benchmarks are not meant to be used as an assessment instrument to determine any eligibility for any services or programs and it is not to be used to gauge children’s functioning or skills for an Individual Education Plan or an Individual Family Service Plan or to collect statewide information on the status of the children. These Benchmarks should recognize all children as capable of learning, achieving, and making developmental progress regardless of any b... ... middle of paper ... ...ly intertwined. Language Development has three aspects, content (vocabulary and meaning), form (grammatical structure or syntax), and use (function). Communication requires much previous knowledge and skills and children communicate before they master an actual symbolic language. Literacy Development is defined as encompassing reading, writing, other creative or analytic skills, and comprehension of the environment. The Washington State Early Learning and Development Benchmarks can be used for children birth to entry into Kindergarten. The Benchmarks can be applied to basics in a classroom and given to parents so that they know the basic guidelines in their child’s learning and development. Parents want information on if their child is developing “normally” or typically, and guidelines like these in a condensed form can give those parents some of that information.
California Department of Education. (2010). Desired Results Developmental Profile Preschool. Retrieved May 8, 2014, from: http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/ci/documents/drdp2010preschooleng.pdf
Early childhood education is important since 90% of a child’s brain develops by the age of 3. Early childhood education can set young children on a good path. But there is an unfair advantage that makes receiving this education, simpler for higher income families. At a young age, lower income students are shown to have lower language skills than higher income students. They are also shown to not be as ready for school as kids from higher income families. Preschool or daycare can also help expose kids to numbers and words. Children from high class families are exposed to 45 million words by the age of 4. Children from low class families are only exposed to 13 million though. Good quality childcare is expensive and many families do not see the importance. Parents in the low social class may not have the money or time either. The unfair element is that children at such a young age are already leaps and bounds ahead of other...
Price, Hugh B. Achievement Matters: Getting Your Child the Best Education Possible. New York: Dafina /Kensington Pub., 2002. Print.
Early childhood education is a very important step during a child’s educational career. This is the level where the entire framework is laid. The four major areas of development are further defined ...
One important lesson of the past decade, however, is just how difficult it is to close longstanding achievement gaps experienced by students from low-income families, students with disabilities, English Learners, and racial and ethnic minorities. We know from research that these gaps often start during the first years of life, even before children enter our education system, with children from low-income families starting kindergarten, on average, 12 to 14 months behind their peers in language development and pre-reading skills.
Shala, Merita et al. "Early Learning Development Standards for Children Age 0-6." www.masht-gov.net. Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, n.d. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. .
This added to the baseline I already generated with the pre-parent surveys (Appendix D) and the individual learning plans. Once I completed the assessment on the eight children I noticed that some children may need additional support in handling the pencil to build their fine motor development. But many children needed to be reminded the order of the letters in their name to begin writing their name, along with the directions of how to form some letters that they had trouble making. I did an overview of all eight children’s individual learning plan goals which the parents created at the beginning of the school year. The goals that were set from the beginning of the year were in alignment with the pre-parent surveys (Appendix D).
Over time, there has been an expansion in our knowledge of the ways in which humans develop and learn. It is now known that babies are beginning to learn even before they are born. I often find myself wishing I had known these things when my children were developing. We all want our children to be the best that they can be; with some knowledge of how children learn and the sequential steps they must go through in many areas of development, we can provide many experiences at home to help them reach their potential. When educators discuss children 's development, they usually talk about physical, mental, social, and emotional development.
This article Curriculum-Based Early Literacy Assessment and Differentiated Instruction with High-Risk Preschoolers by Maribeth Gettinger and Karen Stoiber (2012) claims that the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) was chosen to examine literacy practices used with young children due to the growing national recognition the importance of early childhood education mainly achievement of early literacy and language skills. NELP found during its analysis of the literacy practices used with young children to be moderate-to-large positive effects with preschool interventions. With the knowledge gained from the NELP report, teachers and researchers will develop prereading skills prior to kindergarten entry.
The Bench Mark Assessments are based on each individual state’s standards. It is important for schools to know how students measure up against national and state standardize grade level tests. The Bench Mark Assessments can also provide valuable information for making the right decisions. For example, it provides teachers and school administrators with valid information about the students’ actual knowledge. It also examines the classroom performance and teacher instruction. In addition, The Bench Mark Assessments’ scores show how they might be used to improve academic instruction. However, it has not being helpful in my fourth grade classroom, because there are different academic levels. It varies from second grade to third grade none of my stude...
Popham, W. James. “Standardized Achievement Tests: Misnamed and Misleading.” Education Week. September 2001. Web. 28 June 2015.
On August 30, 2000, the Maryland State Board of Education made a request for mandatory full-day kindergarten to be added into their budget for the fiscal year of 2002. The Board’s goal is to have full-day kindergarten programs implemented in all state public schools by the 2004-2005 school year (Maryland State Board of Education [MSDE], 2000). Making this change from half-day kindergarten to full-day kindergarten, they hope full-day kindergarten will help children benefit academically in the long run. Despite these goals, it is unclear as to whether full-day kindergarten is actually beneficial to all children.
Infants and Children: Prenatal Through Middle Childhood. Pearson/Allyn and Bacon. Cooper, J., Masi, R., & Vick, J. (2009). The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. Social-emotional Development in Early Childhood.
In order to promote the best outcome from the curriculum we must consider that each child is an individual in their own right. Tricia David (2001: 55) states that early childhood should be a time of “spontaneity and of exploration according to individual interests”. Thus accounting for the child’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as their likes and dislikes, provides a curriculum, which will promote optimum development. This is also known as a ...
In this practicum, I will discuss an interview that was done with a pre-k teacher, who teaches four and five-year old’s. I will also discuss an observation that was conducted in a pre-k classroom. The interview and observation focuses on assessing students learning. Which will include four developmental domains, language, social emotion, cognitive, and physical progresses.