Teaching 4- to 8-Year-Olds: Literacy, Math, Multiculturalism, and Classroom Community / Edition 1

by Carollee Howes

Overview

In this exciting book, education professionals will tune in to how 4- to 8-year-olds think and learn—and get sound research-based information and developmentally appropriate teaching practices in four crucial areas:

• Literacy—including promoting enthusiasm for reading, developing phonological awareness, and improving reading comprehension
• Mathematics—including creating data displays, looking for patterns, drawing on everyday experiences, and working math into classroom conversations
• Multiculturalism—including accepting differences, discouraging stereotypes, and developing an awareness of diverse cultures and family structures
• Classroom community—including making friends, resolving conflicts, and strengthening student–teacher relationships

For each topic, a theory chapter brings current research together in everyday language and shows readers how the concepts work through lively examples. Then, a corresponding practice chapter translates the research for each topic into real-world tips and strategies. Readers get brief, to-the-point advice on issues like teaching English-language learners, assessing skills, enhancing school readiness, and giving all children a voice in the classroom.

Enriched with best practices from high-quality classrooms and insight from teachers, this book gives education professionals practical solutions to common challenges.

This book is part of a series edited by Donald B. Bailey, Jr., Ph.D., and developed in conjunction with the National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL). Visit NCEDL's website for information on the center's research, upcoming meetings, and free online publications.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781557665973
Publisher:	Brookes Publishing
Publication date:	11/01/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Carollee Howes, Ph.D., is the director of the Center for Improving Child Care Quality, Department of Education, and a professor of the Applied Developmental Psychology doctorate program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Howes is an internationally recognized developmental psychologist focusing on children's social and emotional development. She has served as a principal investigator on a number of seminal studies in early child care and preschool education, including the National Child Care Staffing Study; the Family and Relative Care Study; the Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Study; and the National Study of Child Care in Low Income Families.

Dr. Howes has been active in public policy for children and families in California as well as across the United States. Her research focuses on children's experiences in child care, their concurrent and long-term outcomes from child care experiences, and child care quality and efforts to improve child care quality. Dr. Howes is the editor of Teaching 4- to 8-Year-Olds: Literacy, Math, Multiculturalism, and Classroom Community (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2003) and the coeditor of The Promise of Pre-K (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2009) and Foundations for Teaching Excellence: Connecting Early Childhood Quality Rating, Professional Development, and Competency Systems in States (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2011).

Donald B. Bailey, Jr., Ph.D., is Distinguished Fellow at RTI International. He is internationally known as an expert on young children with disabilities. For 27 years, he was on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor and, for 14 years, director of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. Dr. Bailey has addressed a variety of issues in his research and publications related to early intervention of children with disabilities and their families, with a particular focus on family support, inclusion, early identification, and fragile X syndrome. He has an extensive record of publications, with more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and books on a wide variety of topics related to early education, early intervention, disability, and family support.

M. Susan Burns, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita at George Mason University. She is educated in the disciplines of Education and Psychology and received her Ph.D. from George Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. Her entire career has focused on literacy/cognition and early childhood education (birth through grade 3) of children and families, especially those from culturally diverse backgrounds and low-income backgrounds, and professional development for teachers and others serving these children and families. Her expertise in promoting mental health for young children and their families and the role of play-based education as a foundation for intellectual and literacy development is integrated throughout her professional activities. Major publications include Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children and Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers, reports of the National Academy of Sciences, and Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading, report of the National Academy of Education. Dr. Burns’ publication listings (over 75), includes books, chapters, and journal articles.

Linda Espinosa, Ph.D., has had experience as a preschool teacher, child care center director, elementary school principal, central office administrator, State program director, and corporate Vice President of Education. Her practical experience and research interests focus on the design and evaluation of optimal learning environments for young children who are at risk for school failure. Dr. Espinosa has worked extensively with low-income Hispanic/Latino children and families throughout the state of California. She completed her B.A. at the University of Washington, her Ed.M. at Harvard University and her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at the University of Chicago.

Read an Excerpt

Excerpted from Chapter 1of Teaching 4- to 8-Year-Olds: Literacy, Math, Multiculturalism, and Classroom Community
Edited by Carollee Howes, Ph.D.
©2003. Brookes Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

Creating Community-Oriented Classrooms: Nurturing Development and Learning

COMMUNITY-ORIENTED APPROACHES TO SCHOOLING

Without a sense of community, people experience loneliness, alienation from others, and disconnection from the society at large. Durkheim (1893/1964) explained that involvement in community is a fundamental human experience that meets emotional needs and helps individuals find a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. Some contemporary social theorists (e.g., Etzioni, 1993) have applied this idea to the nature of American schools. A community-oriented classroom approach employs these theories of community and emphasizes personal relationships as a vehicle for teaching and learning.

Community is the bond between people with shared values and ideals who are pursuing a meaningful, common goal (Sergiovanni, 1994). Relationships are crucial to the organization of community life. They tie individuals in a community together and provide a sense of belonging to the collective unit. Students have relationships that create a unique bond with each other as well as with the teacher. Members of a community also share common values and ideals. Community activities have a clear focus and purpose. Students and teachers have a shared sense of why they are in the classroom and how the classroom should function. There is a clear sense that school is important or that kindness is valued as a core commitment in the classroom. In addition, a community activity is meaningful; members are committed to and actively engaged in pursuit of a goal. For students ages 4–8, this goal is typically learning the early academic and social skills that permit school success.

The goals within a community are shared. There is a sense of mutuality and support that functions both to cement relationships and to keep the community focused on attaining its goal. There is a sense of "we-ness" in which students help each other and remind each other of the class rules. Finally, there is a collective memory or common "story" to a community; there is an enduring sense of unique history and identity that makes a community distinctive. Stories about common experiences, such as field trips, might be retold or the class might decide on a class name or mascot. Community is essentially a shared social contract that allows individuals to derive a sense of purpose and meaning within a behavior setting. In community-oriented schools, children feel a sense of belonging, commitment, and shared venture in learning.

Community-oriented classrooms are structured around two ideas central to a sense of community (Baker, Terry, Bridger, & Winsor, 1997; Battistich, Watson, Solomon, Schaps, & Solomon, 1991). First, these classrooms intentionally develop rich, warm, interpersonal relationships among students and teachers. Such relationships enhance children's development and help them achieve optimal learning. Second, community-oriented classrooms develop a collective responsibility for achieving goals. Teachers and students in a community-oriented classroom share responsibility for success, so they have a feeling of togetherness. Students and teachers work to develop shared goals (e.g., learning to transition between activities smoothly) and values (e.g., treating each other with kindness or cooperating with each other) that guide the "mission' of the classroom. Practices and instruction in such classrooms support a collective sense of purpose in the context of personally meaningful relationships. Students in community-oriented classrooms feel cared about, care about others, and work in an environment that makes sense to them.

Community-oriented classrooms work differently from traditional American classrooms. In the 19th century, American schools became increasingly structured, formalized, and standardized (Tyack & Cuban, 1995). Schools since then have evolved into institutions with hierarchical administrative structures with formal role expectations (e.g., principal, vice principal, teacher's aide) and a businesslike notions regarding education (e.g., report cards a designated number of times per year, bells to mark the beginning and end of the day). An individual's value is based on his or her ability to "produce" or contribute to the success of the school (Sergiovanni, 1994).

Traditional education reflects this formal organizational model as seen in 1) the enduring interest in the "science" of education as evidenced through the formal study of the discipline and its tenants by scholars; 2) the administrative, structural, and pedagogical emphases in teacher training (e.g., pre-service classes in methods and instructional models); 3) the emphasis on individual achievement and competition among students (e.g., some students are labeled "gifted" whereas others are "challenged"); and 4) the bureaucratic and rule-governed nature of schooling (e.g., the clear differentiation between administrative and teaching positions within schools). Policy initiatives with an emphasis on teacher accountability, standardized testing with high stakes, school choice, and competition illustrate the model of schools as businesses.

Community-oriented classrooms use a different model to organize the purpose, functions, and tasks of schooling. By valuing personal relationships and shared goals and values, community-oriented classrooms seem more like families or neighborhoods than businesses. They teach students by placing them in a supportive, intentionally constructed web of relationships (Schaps & Solomon, 1990). In a learning community, each individual is valued as an important part of the community and is committed to a shared purpose with others in that environment. Children develop a sense of collectiveness that can provide cohesion and motivate them to participate in community activities.

The community-oriented approach addresses the fact that the traditional model of schooling does not work well for all children or for all teachers (Baker, 1998a). The formal structures of school ignore the fact that children enter schools with different developmental capacities and move through the curriculum at different rates. The emphasis on academic study as the primary purpose of schooling ignores the historical mission of schools to socialize children for participation in society. Children need their social, ethical, and civic development nurtured in addition to their academic development. Teachers in traditional schools often are bound by the demand to move children through the curriculum at a prescribed rate and are not able to use their expertise to adapt the classroom so that children's development is adequately supported. These teachers may value similar ideas found in community-oriented classrooms (e.g., the importance of group cohesion, classroom climate, and pro-social norms), but they do not believe these ideas are as important to teach as academic learning. Community-oriented classrooms are distinguished by their intentional focus on the development of community in order to accomplish these goals and their reliance on authentic, meaningful social relationships among members of the classroom community as an important vehicle through which learning occurs.

Because of their roots in sociological ideas such as community, these schools recognize the environments in which learning occurs and pay attention to shaping them in order to influence learning and development of children in the classroom. They typically use intensive staff training as the means to change the school's climate and thereby influence children's academic performances. For example, a community-oriented school might hold an in-service training session on using positive and inclusive language to build cooperation and caring among students. Community-oriented schools pay significant attention to interactions between individuals as opportunities for learning. For example, if two children are fighting, the teacher will use this opportunity to teach students conflict resolution.

A community-oriented classroom environment may be especially important for young children at risk for poor school outcomes. Children who come to school without the social and psychological preparation for learning perform worse on indicators of early school adjustment (e.g., grades, retention, social competence) than peers without such disadvantages (Birch & Ladd, 1997). Some children may not know certain cultural assumptions regarding schooling (e.g., raise hand and wait to be called on) and need additional support from teachers and the social organization of the classroom to learn the school behavior and how to participate in school (e.g., Mrs. Rosa hands John a picture of a student raising his hand when John calls out in class; Ogbu, 1992). Classroom community may act as a bridge between home and school cultures. In a caring classroom community, children are accepted as individuals and encouraged to share their experiences with the class. Home routines and traditions can be incorporated into school activities by teachers who know children well and value their cultural traditions. Because of the intentional focus on social-emotional development in these classrooms, community-oriented teachers can also help children understand and affiliate with the school environment by providing more instruction or practice with school routines they might not be familiar with (e.g., raising hands, doing homework; Wang, Haertel, & Walberg, 1994). Thus, community-oriented experiences at school may provide a compensatory function for children at risk for school failure, helping them feel comfortable with the school's culture and to develop the competencies to support school success.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS

Community-oriented classrooms are supported by developmental systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Pianta & Walsh, 1996; Sameroff, 1995), which views development as the result of complex interactions between the individual and his or her environment. Behavior and learning result from the child's integration of skills across various domains of functioning (e.g., cognitive, social, emotional) within the context of and in response to the social environment (Rogoff, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978). Thus, development cannot be viewed in isolation but rather exists as a result of the child's interaction with the social world.

Although different in their emphases, social and contextual theories maintain that children acquire increasingly complex cognitive and social competencies through shared or mediated experiences with significant others. An environment supports development when it provides interesting and challenging experiences in the presence of a competent guide who can nurture the child's involvement and help sustain the acquisition and consolidation of skills. Community-oriented classrooms for young students enhance development by constructing the social context of the classroom so that it adequately builds on children's emerging personal and social abilities. For example, teachers might teach specific social skills each day or include a class meeting in which social concerns are addressed. An important goal of community-oriented classrooms for young students is to provide optimal support for the consolidation of key cognitive, social, and civic skills early in schooling to enhance adaptation to school and successful school learning.

Many theories of child development show the importance of social connectedness to others as a prerequisite for learning. For example, self-determination theory (Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Deci & Ryan, 1985) states that people have three basic psychological needs: to be engaged in meaningful social relationships with others, to have developmentally appropriate autonomy and self-direction, and to be competent in their endeavors. From an attachment perspective, children require caring relationships in order to develop the complex behavioral, emotional, and social-cognitive competencies that help them adapt to school and have good mental health (Bowlby, 1982). Children with positive, caring, consistent caregiving relationships develop both the security and the abilities required for success in any social environment, including school. These competencies include valuing social exchange; trusting the intent of adults; accurately "reading" complex patterns of social behavior; willingly taking positive risks; displaying age-appropriate self-regulatory skills; and developing a sense of worth, self-acceptance, and personal agency. These students look "comfortable in their own skin," get along well with others, feel good about themselves and their accomplishments, and try new things with confidence.

Children without secure relationship experiences face a host of mental health and school adjustment problems, such as being overly aggressive, feeling unsure of their ability to succeed, crying easily when school is challenging, or not having the social skills to play well with others (Greenberg, Speltz, & DeKlyen, 1993; Pianta & Steinberg, 1992). The degree to which schools structure the classroom environment to both meet and enhance psychological and social needs has a critical affect on children's development and adaptation to schooling.

Table of Contents

About the Editors
About the Contributors
Foreword
For the Reader
Introduction

1. Creating Community-Oriented Classrooms: Nurturing Development and Learning
   Jean A. Baker, Laura J. Dilly, and Carol L. Lacey
2. Community-Oriented Classroom Practices: Developing Positive Teacher–Child Relationships
   Sharon Ritchie
3. Early Literacy for Young Children and English-Language Learners
   Linda M. Espinosa and M. Susan Burns
4. Emergent Literacy Practices in Early Childhood Classrooms
   Sharon Ritchie, Jolena James-Szanton, and Carollee Howes
5. Fostering Young Children's Mathematical Understanding
   Megan Loef Franke
6. Classroom Practices that Support Children's Mathematical Ideas
   Elham Kazemi
7. Understanding Multicultural and Anti-Bias Education
   Aisha Ray
8. Classroom Practices in Multicultural and Anti-Bias Education
   Peter Hoffman-Kipp

Afterword
Index

Editorial Reviews

Very well-organized and well written . . . the teachers are fighting over this one in our faculty room!

educator

Very well-organized and well written . . . the teachers are fighting over this one in our faculty room!

From the Publisher