Strategies for Readiness in Each Developmental Domain
Ready Child + Ready Family + Ready School = Successful School Readiness
This 2006 definition expanded understanding of school readiness to recognize the influence of
families and schools on young children. This group of papers focuses on the Ready Child
developmental domains. The All Children Ready for School series combined information from
research literature and the authors' practical knowledge of the topics. Each is a four page paper.

Cole, P. (2006). Health and Physical Well-Being.

Conn-Powers, M. (2006). Approaches to Learning.

Cross, A. F. (2006). Cognition and General Knowledge.

Dixon, S. D. (2006). Communication, Language, and Literacy.

Hutter-Pishgahi, L. (2006). Social-Emotional Development.

Bibliography for the Series.
Early Childhood Briefing Paper Series
All Children Ready for School:
Approaches to Learning
—Michael Conn-Powers
T
Ready Child + Ready Family + Ready School = Successful School Readiness
his working paper focuses on positive approaches to learningg associated with ready children. It is part of
a series identifying early education practices associated with successful school readiness for all children.
Topics in this series include ready children (health and physical well-being, language and literacy, cognition and
general knowledge, social-emotional skills), ready families, and ready schools.
W
hile Luis is hard at work on that puzzle, he is demonstrating
important skills that will serve him well when he enters kindergarten next year: the ability to “stick with it” and persist with a task,
especially when it is challenging; the disposition to try something
different when the first strategy doesn’t work; and the self control he
maintains in keeping his attention on the task when it would be easier
to see what else is going on in the classroom.
Four-year-old Luis is hard at work
completing a puzzle. The puzzle,
given to him by his teacher, is a
little harder than the ones he has
worked on before. He picks up
a puzzle piece and looks at the
puzzle, trying to decide where it
might go. He tries it one way. It
doesn’t fit. He turns it around and
tries again. Success! He has been
working at the puzzle for a long
time. His teacher comments, “Luis,
you are working so hard to finish
that puzzle.”
When we think of what early educators can do to prepare children for
kindergarten and school, we tend to think of the skills and knowledge
they may teach children to get them ready for kindergarten. This may
include knowledge of books and early literacy skills, basic concepts,
social competence, and the ability to get along with others. Another
important dimension, demonstrated by Luis, is how children approach
and engage their learning environment.
Approaches to learning is one of five key dimensions of children’s
school readiness identified by the National Education Goals Panel
(1995). This facet of school readiness pertains to children’s inclinations,
dispositions, and learning styles in using their knowledge and skills to
interact with their learning environment. For example, when educators
present children with new tasks or activities, do the children approach
these novel undertakings with curiosity and enthusiasm or with
caution and tentativeness? Do they persist in investigating and mastering the task or materials, or do they quickly move on to activities that
are more familiar or less difficult?
© 2006—Indiana University. All Rights Reserved. The Early Childhood Briefing Paper Series:
All Children Ready for School is a publication of the Indiana Institute on Disability and
Community, Early Childhood Center. (www.iidc.indiana.edu/ecc). The information presented
herein does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Trustees of Indiana University,
and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Early Childhood Center, Indiana Institute on Disability and Community
Indiana’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities
2853 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47408-2696. 812-855-6508. 812-855-9396 TTY.
EARLY
CHILDHOOD
CENTER
What We Know: Important Child Outcomes Associated with Approaches to Learning
C
hildren differ in how they approach new and novel
tasks, difficult problems or challenges, and teacherdirected tasks. An individual child’s approach to learning
may have little association with his or her level of knowledge
or skill. For example, children may have considerable
knowledge and skills they can bring to bear on a task or
activity; however, their inclination to use their skills may be
influenced by their temperament (for example, shyness), the
way they were raised (girls politely wait), or their cultural
values (showing initiative may be considered rude).
Approaches to learning may vary in their origin (such as
gender expectations, cultural patterns, learned approaches)
and malleability. Some researchers believe that there are
approaches to learning that reflect predispositions, and are
shaped at birth or developed very early. These include
temperament, gender expectations, and cultural patterns
and values. Approaches to learning that are predisposed may
be less conducive to change. Learning styles, however, are
approaches to learning that reflect the child’s attitudes
toward the learning process, and are much more malleable.
Learning styles include openness to new tasks and challenges, initiative, persistence, reflection, imagination, and
problem solving.
There is research that suggests strong links between positive
approaches to learning and children’s success in school. For
example, one study found that children with higher levels of
attentiveness, task persistence, eagerness to learn, learning
independence, flexibility, and organization, generally did
better in literacy and math at the end of the kindergarten
school year and the beginning of their first grade year. In
addition, children who approach learning tasks or novel
situations with these positive approaches to learning are
better able to regulate their learning experiences, and more
quickly acquire general knowledge and cognitive skills. A
review of the literature identifies six key skills or learning
dispositions that reflect important approaches to learning
(Figure 1).
Figure 1
Approaches to Learning: Important Learning
Outcomes
1. Curiosity/Initiative. The child chooses to engage and
participate in a variety of new and challenging activities.
2. Persistence. The child is able to persist in and complete a variety of tasks and activities.
3. Attention. The child demonstrates increased attentiveness during teacher-directed activities.
4. Self-direction. The child is able to set goals, make
choices, and manage time and effort with increased
independence.
5. Problem solving. The child is able to solve problems
in a number of ways, including finding more than one
solution, exploration, and interactions with peers (Education Development Center, Inc., 2004).
6. Creativity. The child is able to approach tasks with
increased flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness
(Education Development Center, Inc., 2004).
What We Know: Effective Early Education Practices
H
ow can early childhood educators promote these
positive approaches to learning that successfully
prepare young children for school? Research is scant in this
area. Much of the information and recommended practices
come from longstanding beliefs and traditions about young
children’s learning and development. A review of this
literature suggests four strategies.
„ Approaches to Learning included in the
program’s curriculum.
The first and most straightforward strategy is to make these
positive approaches to learning a goal of early education, to
include them as part of the program’s curriculum goals. This
strategy is important because it emphasizes children’s
capacity for change. While a child’s early temperament may
be difficult to change, the approaches identified above are
malleable and early educators can influence their presence
in children. A child who is less persistent and unable to
complete tasks can receive support and encouragement to
nurture and strengthen this learning style. Children who are
less organized in managing their time and efforts can
receive the guidance and models for approaching tasks to
increase concentration and organization skills.
„ Provide opportunities that elicit these skills.
The second strategy for promoting positive approaches to
learning is to include child-directed activities during the
daily routine. By providing multiple activities from which
children can choose, early educators offer opportunities for
children to explore activities of their interest. This presents
an environment in which children’s curiosity and initiative
in approaching tasks is stimulated. It also gives children
opportunities to practice how well they can self-direct and
organize their time and actions. If the bulk of the activities
planned by early educators are more teacher-directed, then
children have fewer opportunities to initiate and practice
their explorations, self-direction, or problem solving.
„ Challenge children with moderately difficult tasks.
The third strategy involves choosing activities and materials
that are moderately difficult and offer multiple possibilities
for child interaction. In order to encourage children’s curiosity and initiative, persistence, and problem solving, early
educators should choose materials that are neither too easy
nor too difficult for the child. If the materials are too easy
and familiar, they may not grab the child’s interest, and he or
she will be less eager to explore. If the materials are too
complex or difficult to interact with, children may quickly
become frustrated and lose interest. Choosing activities and
materials that are just beyond children’s level of understanding and skill, and in which they have shown some interest,
provides the necessary stimulus for children to approach
challenging tasks with some eagerness and self-direction.
Likewise, materials that offer more than one right way to
interact provide the stimulus for problem solving and
creativity.
„ Directly teach and support children to use these
approaches.
The first three strategies work to create opportunities that elicit
the desired approaches to learning. The fourth strategy is the set
of early educator behaviors and interactions that prompt, guide,
support, and reinforce the child to engage in the desired
approaches to learning. Early educators face the difficult task of
providing the right amount of guidance and support without
being overly directive and stifling. The goal is to prompt,
suggest, and guide children’s actions, without helping too much,
to preserve the child’s sense of self-direction and autonomy.
Providing the right amount of support to scaffold children’s
interests and engagement, so they take initiative and persist on
their own, is key. Early educators’ encouragement, praise, and
feedback in response to the child’s actions communicate
expectations, acknowledge the child’s attempts and/or success,
and provide language models for the child and other children to
internalize and use to figure out and describe what happened.
Making These Practices Work for ALL Children: The Universal Design of Early Education
T
he strategies summarized above answer
the question, “How can early childhood
educators promote these positive approaches
to learning that successfully prepare young
children for school?” The next question to
answer is, “What do early educators need to
do to insure these strategies will work for all
learners, regardless of differences in abilities,
cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and
economic status?” The focus of this section is
on the universal design of early education—
designing our physical, social, and instructional environments to ensure every child is able
to participate, learn, and benefit (see Figure 2).
The principles of universal design are applicable to the field of early care and education
because of the increasingly diverse groups of
children entering into early childhood programs. We know that a one-size-fits-all
approach simply will not work. We know that
some children may struggle in learning specific
skills for reasons related to their abilities,
cultural and linguistic background, and
economic status. We need to design or
redesign our approach because although all
children can learn and bring specific gifts to
the classroom, some children may also face
challenges due to their diverse backgrounds
and ability levels.
Figure 2 offers suggestions for universally
designing the recommended practices
presented earlier.
Figure 2
Application of Universal Design Principles to
Early Education
1. The design of the physical environment enables all children to have
access and equitable opportunities for full participation in all program
activities. This includes structures, permanent and movable equipment and furnishings, storage, and materials.
2. The design of health and safety program components minimizes risks
and hazards for all children. It ensures all children, regardless of
health status or condition, have ongoing access to early care and
education by minimizing interruptions to their learning due to illness
and injury.
3. The design of the social-emotional environment offers all children
equitable access and full membership to the social-emotional life of
the group, and supports their social-emotional development.
4. The design of the instructional environment enables all children
equitable access to learning opportunities and multiple means for
engagement and learning. This includes the curriculum, instructional
practices, materials, and activities.
5. The design of individual assessment and program evaluation practices
provides multiple approaches to finding out what children know and
can do in order to equitably assess individual learning, development,
and educational progress.
6. The design of family involvement practices supports the equitable
access and engagement of all families in the full range of experiences.
This includes ongoing communication, learning opportunities, and
program involvement activities.
Table 1
Universal Design Applications
Evidence-Based Practices
1. The early educator includes positive
approaches to learning as part of
his/her program’s curricular goals
targeting what all children should be
learning
2. The early educator balances
teacher-directed with child-directed
activities to provide children
opportunities to take the initiative in
exploring their environment and to
organize and manage their time and
effort.
3. The early educator chooses
activities and materials that are
moderately difficult and offer
multiple possibilities for each child’s
interactions.
4. The early educator directly teaches
children to use more positive
approaches to learning by prompting and modeling their use, encouraging and supporting their initial
attempts, and reinforcing their
efforts and successes.
Universal Design Considerations for the Early Educator
„ Recognize that all children need to acquire positive approaches to learning,
including children with significant disabilities or from diverse cultural backgrounds.
„ Gradually introduce and teach children to learn positive approaches to learning, particularly children who have had minimal learning experiences.
„ Explain to families the importance of these positive approaches to learning (e.g.,
taking initiative, being independent, organizing and managing their time), and
how they can encourage their children to acquire these dispositions.
„ Design the physical environment to enable all children to engage in child- and
adult-directed activities, and provide easy access to spaces and materials regardless of children’s body sizes or means for moving around (e.g., wheelchair,
crawling).
„ Use a variety of communication techniques to help children know how to use the
environment, for example to put away toys and materials, by including children’s
home language, English, signs, pictures, labels, signals, and other means.
„ Design activities that accommodate a wide range of individual interests,
experiences, understanding, and abilities.
„ Arrange the storage and display of materials to allow for access and reach by all
children, including children with different motor abilities, and which support
children to take on clean-up responsibilities.
„ Plan activities and materials that support different means of exploration and
manipulation, accommodating different skill levels and abilities.
„ Communicate with families to identify culturally appropriate activities and
materials they can carry out at home.
„ Provide culturally and linguistically appropriate language models for children to
use in figuring out and describing what happened and what happens next.
„ Clearly communicate the desired expectations of the child- and teacherdirected activities, using multiple ways for presenting the directions and tasks
(e.g., simple sentences, pictures, and models).
„ Use different levels of prompting, modeling, and guidance to initiate a specific
positive approach to learning. Through minimal cueing or prompting in the
beginning, then gradually increased levels of assistance as needed, the child
can be encouraged to act.
„ Support multiple means of expression (e.g., words, actions, symbols) among children.
Summary & Implications
P
ositive approaches to learning are important for children
to successfully enter school. Early educators can teach and
nurture these approaches to learning by creating opportunities, designing appropriate activities and materials, and
providing children with the guidance, support, and encouragement they need. These same positive approaches to
learning are important for all children to learn, including
children who may struggle to implement them because they
have had little experience (e.g., poverty, family culture) or
because of the presence of physical and cognitive disabilities.
Early educators can design their activities and lessons to
ensure all children acquire these positive approaches to
learning.
Effectively designing early education environments to
nurture curiosity, independent exploration, problem solving,
persistence, etc. is challenging in programs that include
children with diverse family backgrounds and/or skill levels.
The need to ensure that all early education programs can
embrace this diversity and design effective physical, social,
and instructional environments is critical, however. The
principles, ideas, and strategies in this brief represent a
starting point for giving early educators the tools to make
this happen.
The bibliography for this briefing paper series is online at: http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/ecc/products_research.htm
Early Childhood Briefing Paper Series
All Children Ready for School:
Cognition and General Knowledge
—Alice Frazeur Cross
T
Ready Child + Ready Family + Ready School = Successful School Readiness
his working paper examines cognition and general knowledge associated with ready children. It is part of
a series identifying early education practices associated with successful school readiness for all children.
Topics in this series focus on ready children (health and physical well-being, language and literacy, cognition and
general knowledge, social-emotional skills), ready families, and ready schools.
Two children in Ms. Mary’s Head
Start class have been building
with blocks. Ms. Mary calls out,
“It’s time for clean-up.” Anna
and Jimmy continue to build. Ms.
Mary helps them begin by saying,
“Can you put four blocks away?”
Jimmy isn’t sure how many four is
and picks up as many as he can
hold in his arms. The teacher says,
“Wow, you’ve got a lot of blocks.
Let’s count them together” and
helps Jimmy count his six blocks
as he slides them onto their places
on the shelf. Anna puts her four
away and gets another four, saying,
“That’s eight so far!” Later at circle
time, Ms. Mary guides the children
in remembering what they saw on
a walk. She asks, “What did we see
when we looked up high? Do you
remember?” A child says, “The sky
had clouds.” Ms. Mary adds it to
the remembering list.
M
any people think that a child who is ready for school is one who
knows numbers, letters, and colors. These are indeed important
for a child to know and are a part of cognitive skills and general
knowledge. However, looking at the readiness equation above, one
can see that cognition and general knowledge are only one part of the
school readiness equation.
What We Know: Important Child Outcomes Associated
with Cognition and General Knowledge
C
ognition is how we know, learn, and remember. It involves the
thinking skills that children use to make sense of all the general
knowledge that they acquire. Cognitive skills enable children to make
meanings, patterns, and relationships in their learning, for example,
the ability to understand how to count objects in order to pick up four
blocks. Among the most basic cognitive skills are perception, attention,
imitation, and memory. Children’s ability to retain memories increases
over time, and they learn strategies to help with remembering, for
example, practicing what they want to remember.
The ability to combine cognitive skills helps children to expand their
learning. Children begin to make observations, understand cause and
effect, learn intentionally, and use symbolic and representational
thinking for reading, writing, mathematics, and other skills. At the
same time, children begin developing the ability to see relationships
among objects by putting them in order and sorting them by type. As
they develop and learn, children also learn to solve problems, think
logically, and form explanations.
© 2006—Indiana University. All Rights Reserved. The Early Childhood Briefing Paper Series:
All Children Ready for School is a publication of the Indiana Institute on Disability and
Community, Early Childhood Center. (www.iidc.indiana.edu/ecc). The information presented
herein does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Trustees of Indiana University,
and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Early Childhood Center, Indiana Institute on Disability and Community
Indiana’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities
2853 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47408-2696. 812-855-6508. 812-855-9396 TTY.
EARLY
CHILDHOOD
CENTER
General knowledge has two components. One
component is details about the world in which we
live, such as, “The sky has clouds.” This component
of general knowledge also includes social understandings, such as, “People have jobs like firefighter,
teacher, and doctor.” The second component is the
processes of how things work —“Balls fall down
when dropped” and “The light comes on when you
move the switch,” for example. An important part
of process knowledge that contributes to learning is
the idea that a process conducted twice in the
same way will have the same result.
Cognitive skills and general knowledge are
building blocks for school readiness. Cognitive
development, along with language and socialemotional development, predicts academic
outcomes. Readiness checklists include many
items that educators and family members may
think of as a single skill, such as naming colors.
However, it is important to remember that
naming colors involves perception, observation,
memory, and language, all cognitive skills, plus
being one discrete bit of general knowledge.
Figure 1 presents the cognitive skills and general
knowledge that a child has when ready for school.
Included are examples of traditional readiness
checklist items that relate to each outcome.
Figure 1
Cognition and General Knowledge:
Important Learning Outcomes
1. The child uses intentional strategies to remember, learn, and do,
including practice, private speech, planning, and reflecting.
(Traditional checklist items: follows a two-step direction; sings a
song or retells a story.)
2. The child explores, observes, and compares things about himself
and his world using color, size, shape, number, and other characteristics. (Traditional checklist items: sorts items by color, size, and
shape; orders three objects by size; identifies bigger/smaller.)
3. The child uses representation, as well as invented and common
number and letter symbols, to communicate observations, ideas,
experiences, and experiments. (Traditional checklist items: recognizes
name in print; recognizes some letters and single digit numbers; draws
a person with head, eyes, mouth, body, arms, legs.)
4. The child makes predictions, conducts investigations, solves
problems, and provides explanations by combining his knowledge
and various cognitive skills. (Traditional checklist items: completes a
ten piece puzzle.)
5. The child acquires and uses knowledge about the world including
names and attributes of things, categories, and relationships. This
includes the traditional learning areas of mathematics, science,
language and literacy, social studies, music, and art.
What We Know: Effective Practices to Promote Cognition and General Knowledge
E
ducational research clearly indicates that there are things
early educators can do to increase the amount of cognitive
skills and general knowledge children attain. The focus of the
research has been to determine the effectiveness of early
mathematics and science curricula and instructional strategies.
One important research finding is that there is a developmental sequence to how children acquire certain mathematics
skills and concepts. Many early educators have thought that
providing the right environment and exposure to the right
activities would be enough to promote learning. However,
educators also need to plan the order of the ideas they
introduce to children, so that they present activities that build
from one idea and skill to the next. A good way to do this is
to choose a curriculum that research has shown to be
effective. When educators are continuously aware of how
children are developing and learning, they can offer new
activities at the best time for each child.
Another research finding pertains to the critical role of the
early educator’s communication with the child and how that
communication takes place. Language is important to the
learning process, and since children are just acquiring language, early educators must provide the vocabulary and
descriptions of children’s mathematics and science activities
and other projects for them. Conversations and questions are
techniques that early educators use, but research shows that
educators should also explicitly describe to the children what
they observe them doing, use the “think out loud” technique
to help children understand the problem-solving process, and
ask questions that help a child move to the next level of
understanding. In addition, early educators can support and
reinforce children’s learning by writing what children say
about their activities, using photos and work samples to help
children remember what they have done, and recording key
points that have been learned in their math and science
activities.
Research on early math and science learning has also found
that children acquire more mathematics and science knowledge and skills when provided with a balance of open exploration and focused investigation. Offering the open exploration of
well-equipped learning centers during free choice and small
group times gives children a chance to become comfortable
and learn with the equipment and materials. Focused investigations ask children to use the equipment and materials in new or
specific ways, find new solutions, and solve problems in order
to stretch their learning. Research has also identified the value
of an organized learning environment that includes equipment,
materials, games, books, and computer programs that specifically promote exploration and investigation of math, science,
and other learning areas.
In summary, the early educator promotes children’s cognitive
skills and general knowledge when she:
1. Plans math, science, and other learning goals for the children
using (a) a coherent, integrated, standards-based curriculum and
(b) knowledge of each child’s developmental characteristics,
knowledge, skills, learning styles, and preferences.
2. Provides children with a well-organized environment
with equipment, materials, games, books, and computer
programs that specifically promote exploration and investigation of math, science, and the other learning areas.
3. Promotes learning in math, science, and other areas by
providing a balance of open exploration and focused
investigation activities.
4. Uses “thinking out loud,” prompting, conversation, games,
and other strategies to enable each child to acquire thinking
skills.
5. Uses open-ended questions, provides examples, writes what
children say, and verbalizes connections between ideas, skills,
activities, and routines to enable each child to acquire knowledge
and skills in math, science, and the other learning areas.
Making These Practices Work for ALL Children: The Universal Design of Early Education
A
n early educator might find it easy to say, “I’ll use
‘thinking out loud,’ prompting, conversation,
games, and other strategies to enable each child to
acquire thinking skills.” As usual, saying and doing it for
each child are two different things. The children who
come to our settings bring a wide range of individual
characteristics that influence their ability to learn. The
data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study and
other research have shown that there are differences in
school readiness associated with the child’s health and
well-being, the kinds of early learning experiences the
child has previously had, the child’s home language,
the child’s abilities and disabilities, and more. Each of
these could prevent a child from being able to be ready
for school. Furthermore, children who do not have
school readiness tend not to catch-up.
A critical question that every early educator must
answer is, “What practices should I use to make sure
each child is able to access the learning needed for
school readiness?” The principles of universal design for
school readiness, presented in Figure 2, are an effective
approach to ensuring that each child is able to access
learning. The basis of the universal design concept is
that an object, environment, or other thing has been
designed in a way that ensures that everyone can use
or access it from the start. An early educator can use
the principles to guide her thinking as she adds or fine
tunes the evidence-based instructional strategies to
respond to children’s learning characteristics.
Table 1 presents the strategies and offers suggestions
for implementing them based on universal design.
Figure 2
Application of Universal Design Principles to Early Education
1. The design of the physical environment enables all children
to have access and equitable opportunities for full participation in all program activities. This includes structures, permanent and movable equipment and furnishings, storage, and
materials.
2. The design of health and safety program components
minimizes risks and hazards for all children. It ensures all
children, regardless of health status or condition, have
ongoing access to early care and education by minimizing
interruptions to their learning due to illness and injury.
3. The design of the social-emotional environment offers all
children equitable access and full membership to the socialemotional life of the group, and supports their social-emotional development.
4. The design of the instructional environment enables all
children equitable access to learning opportunities and
multiple means for engagement and learning. This includes the
curriculum, instructional practices, materials, and activities.
5. The design of individual assessment and program evaluation practices provides multiple approaches to finding out
what children know and can do in order to equitably assess
individual learning, development, and educational progress.
6. The design of family involvement practices supports the
equitable access and engagement of all families in the full
range of experiences. This includes ongoing communication,
learning opportunities, and program involvement activities.
Summary & Implications
R
ecent research has contributed to our knowledge of young
children’s cognition and general knowledge. Examples of
cognitive skills include attention, representational and symbolic thinking, and problem solving. General knowledge
includes the details of the world in which we live. Research
has also identified practices that are effective for promoting
children’s development and learning in this area. Strategies for
promoting children’s readiness include planning the sequential
introduction of concepts and skills, providing a learning
environment that is thoughtfully organized to give children the
equipment and materials that encourage learning in math,
science, and other areas, and using strategic conversations
and questions to prompt children’s learning.
Furthermore, application of the principles of the universal
design of early education to these strategies can ensure that
each child will be able to access the learning needed for
school readiness. The first step is adopting the personal goal
of ensuring that each child will access the needed learning,
just as Ms. Mary in Head Start is doing for Jimmy. The next is
to begin refining and adding the instructional practices that
support each child’s learning. The third is the step of increasing professional learning to take advantage of new results
coming from research and practice in the area of cognitive
skills and general knowledge, as well as in the other aspects
of school readiness. Following these steps, each early
educator can contribute to a child’s success in school.
Table 1
Universal Design Applications
Evidence-Based Practices
1. The early educator plans math,
science, and other learning goals for
the children using (a) a standardsbased curriculum and (b) knowledge
of each child’s developmental
characteristics, knowledge, skills,
learning styles, and preferences.
Universal Design Considerations for the Early Educator
„ Choose a curriculum that addresses the sequential development of skills in
math, science, and other learning areas, and that has guidance for adjusting
activities, ideas, and skills to meet each child’s needs.
„ Enable each child to demonstrate his learning by using multiple, but comparable, methods of assessment that take into consideration the child’s developmental and experiential characteristics.
„ Talk to each child’s family to understand the goals they have for their child and
to learn about the family’s preferences and culture.
„ Offer activities that incorporate children’s interests, experiences, and local culture
and that help children to reach goals by participating and learning in multiple ways.
2. The early educator provides children with a well-organized environment, with equipment, materials,
games, books, and computer
programs that specifically promote
exploration and investigation of
math, science, and other learning
areas.
3. The early educator promotes
learning in math, science, and other
learning areas by providing a
balance of open exploration and
focused investigation.
„ Create a physical environment that ensures each child’s easy and independent
access to all activities, spaces, equipment, and materials by considering each
child’s sensory, motor, linguistic, cognitive and experiential characteristics.
„ Provide equipment, materials, games/toys, books, and computer programs that
use children’s home languages and English, and which reflect family experiences
and local culture.
„ Offer multiple types of equipment, materials, games, books, and computer
programs that provide each child with equal access to the concepts and skills in
math, science, and other learning areas.
„ Provide guidance and support that enables each child to explore learning
centers and the larger environment by motivating some children, helping others
to play, or assisting others to try new activities based on individual learning
styles and skills.
„ Present children with focused investigations in math, science, and other learning
areas by communicating in languages children understand, using pictures,
symbols, graphics, and other means.Communicates with families to identify
culturally appropriate activities and materials they can carry out at home.
„ Help each child learn to investigate by modeling, prompting, and elaborating
on what each is doing and by providing multiple guided practice opportunities.
„ Arrange the environment and the schedule in ways that let children continue
projects later in the day or on other days, in response to children’s individual
energy levels, attention spans, or interests.
4. The early educator uses thinking out
loud, prompting, conversation,
games, etc. to enable each child to
acquire thinking skills (recall, logical
thinking, prediction, planning and
reflection, and problem solving).
„ Offer activities that facilitate each child’s thinking skills, such as individual and
small group planning and playing word, card, and tile games to facilitate
memory, while considering each child’s various cognitive skills.
„ Explicitly name and demonstrate thinking skills by “thinking aloud” using the
child’s home language, English, or communication system.Uses different levels
of prompting, modeling, and guidance to initiate a specific positive approach to
learning. S/he may begin with minimal assistance and gradually increase his/her
level of assistance to assist the child to act.
„ Adjust activities that promote thinking skills by shifting the pace of the activity,
including adequate wait time for any child to respond, and by providing devices
to support memory and communication.
„ Use individualized questioning and prompting techniques to nudge each child’s
thinking to the next level.
The bibliography for this briefing paper series is online at: http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/ecc/products_research.htm
Early Childhood Briefing Paper Series
All Children Ready for School:
Health and Physical Well-Being
—Pat Cole
T
Ready Child + Ready Family + Ready School = Successful School Readiness
his working paper focuses on the health and physical well-beingg of ready children. It is part of a series
identifying early education practices associated with successful school readiness for all children. Topics in
this series focus on ready children (health and physical well-being, language and literacy, cognition and general
knowledge, social-emotional skills), ready families, and ready schools.
Tilly, age 4, didn’t follow directions,
always spoke in a loud voice, and her
attention span was short for a child her
age. The child care program examined
Tilly’s physical exam records to see if
there might be a physical connection
to the behavior, and noted a loss of
hearing acuity from the previous year.
The program director arranged to meet
with Tilly’s parents at a time convenient
for them. At the meeting, the parents
shared that they also noticed the
changes in Tilly’s voice volume and
ability to follow directions. The program
director asked the parents if they
would be able to return to her medical
provider for further assessment. After
the visit to the medical provider, the
parents informed the child care director
that Tilly had a wax build-up creating
the hearing loss and they noticed an
immediate change in Tilly’s voice level
and ability to focus once the wax was
removed. The program director noted
the same changes and shared her
observation with the parents.
A
child’s physical well-being is the cornerstone for all components of
school readiness. Researchers agree that children’s physical wellbeing frames their learning opportunities, either expanding or limiting
them. A child’s physical well-being can affect the ability to actively
engage, physically and mentally, in the intended and unintended
learning opportunities during the most formative years. Disruption in
continuous or full engagement with learning, resulting from injury or
from chronic or communicable disease, can have a negative impact on
the attainment of the breadth and complexity of skills necessary for
school readiness.
Researchers and health professionals define physical well-being as the
ability to be fully engaged, on a regular basis, in all developmentally
appropriate activities. Activities of preschool-age children that are
critical to school readiness require energy, stamina, visual and auditory
acuity, and large and fine motor skills. The promotion and maintenance of a child’s physical well-being in early care and education
require a focus on prevention through safe and healthy environments
and safe and healthy practices by staff and children.
Equally important is comprehensive health care for children, and
support for effective communication between early education and
care providers and parents to ensure access to, and utilization of,
services and supports for the child’s physical well-being. Without an
investment of resources equal to that in other school readiness areas, a
child’s ability to take full advantage of an early childhood education
program may be compromised.
© 2006—Indiana University. All Rights Reserved. The Early Childhood Briefing Paper Series:
All Children Ready for School is a publication of the Indiana Institute on Disability and
Community, Early Childhood Center. (www.iidc.indiana.edu/ecc). The information presented
herein does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Trustees of Indiana University,
and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Early Childhood Center, Indiana Institute on Disability and Community
Indiana’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities
2853 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47408-2696. 812-855-6508. 812-855-9396 TTY.
EARLY
CHILDHOOD
CENTER
What We Know: Important Physical Health Attributes Associated with School Readiness
H
ealth and early care and education experts have
identified several physical health attributes that
are crucial to ensuring that young children are ready
and able to succeed when they enter school (Figure 1).
Research has found that the presence of these attributes is significantly influenced by the socio-economic
status of the family. Children from lower socioeconomic families are less likely to receive routine
health care, including immunizations, developmental
and other screening, and dental care. Lack of screening and assessment for physical and developmental
needs decreases children’s enrollment in programs that
provide supportive services to meet identified needs,
often resulting in developmental delays. Research has
shown that pre- and post-natal exposure to environmental toxins (e.g., lead, mercury) has a lifelong
negative impact on children’s cognitive development.
Figure 1
Physical Health Attributes Associated with
School Readiness
1. Children have up-to-date recommended immunizations.
2. Physical and developmental disabilities, mental health, and
chronic health conditions are identified and treated.
3. Children are free of communicable disease and accidental,
unintentional, or intentional injuries.
4. Children have sufficient energy and stamina to engage in ageappropriate activities.
5. Children’s teeth are free of decay and pain, and children have
good oral hygiene and healthy teeth.
6. Children have age-appropriate large and small muscle development.
What We Know: Effective Early Education Practices
H
ow can early childhood educators promote these health
indicators, to help successfully prepare young children
for school?
„ Implement policies and practices that promote
physical well-being.
Children depend on adults to make healthy choices for them
and to teach them to make healthy choices for themselves.
While some degree of risk taking is desirable for learning, a
quality early care and education program prevents hazardous situations and practices that are likely to result in adverse
health and safety consequences for children.
Development of policies and recommended practices based
on research, combined with input from local subject experts,
parents, and staff can result in greater adherence to policies.
Enrollment, nutrition, sanitation, transportation, exclusion of
ill children, sleep, and emergency preparedness are examples of policy and procedures necessary to promote physical
well-being of children and staff.
Children mimic the actions of adults, creating the need for
sound health and safety practices on the part of early care
and education professionals. Research cites nutrition,
physical activity, and hand washing as staff practices that
have the greatest impact on children’s health habit development.
„ Provide safe and healthy environments.
Programs must develop and maintain a safe and healthy
environment that provides appropriate and well-maintained
indoor and outdoor physical environments to minimize
exposure to illness and injury. Environments are never
neutral in their impact on children. Too little or poorly
designed free space creates risks for injury and disease for
children and staff. Interaction between the space and the
furnishings helps direct people to desired activities. For
example, placement of the eating area and the toileting area
adjacent to sinks promotes the practice of hand washing.
Careful attention to large motor equipment and spaces is
critical due to the exploratory nature of young children. Also,
the creation of different areas for large and small muscle play
encourages appropriate use of materials and decreases the
likelihood of injury resulting from an incompletely developed
sense of body image and coordination.
Sufficient ventilation and air circulation, removal of toxic
materials such as lead and mercury, moderate room temperature and humidity, a combination of natural and artificial
light, and easy to clean wall and floor surfaces are all
important environmental elements in early care and education settings that affect a child’s physical health.
„ Provide and maintain age-appropriate equipment,
furnishings, and materials.
Properly maintained and cleaned equipment, furnishings,
and materials will result in fewer outbreaks of communicable
disease and injuries. Additionally, the arrangement of
furnishings to facilitate a child’s ability to focus and interpret
the experiences provided by the program is critical to the
development of all good health habits, as well as other
related school readiness skills. Provision of too little or too
much equipment and materials will result in less than
optimal safety for the children. Children’s non-engagement
due to a lack of materials, or overstimulation due to a
cluttered environment, increases their risk of injury.
Adhering to a regular schedule of equipment and toy
inspection and cleaning is important to reduce the potential
for injury from unsafe materials and illness spread by contaminated objects.
„ Ensure that staff is knowledgeable about health
services in the community.
The attainment and maintenance of optimal physical health,
to facilitate a child’s consistent attendance at and engagement in all components of early care and education, require
the utilization of health services for immunizations, wellchild checks, treatment of illness, and identification of
special health issues. Early care and education providers’
knowledge about available community health services,
eligibility, and processes for enrollment in those services is
crucial to the health status of individual children and,
consequently, to the overall level of health in the facility.
Equally important is familiarity with eligibility for and enrollment in Medicaid and Hoosier Healthwise, programs that
provide healthcare cost coverage for children.
Requesting support, consultation, and education for staff
from community-based health professionals increases the
ability of the staff to meet the needs of all children, and helps
health professionals become more knowledgeable about
early care and education, increasing their ability to talk with
parents about childcare concerns.
„ Ensure that staff communication with families and
health care providers is consistent, timely, and
meaningful.
Children’s chronic and temporary health conditions can
affect their ability to fully engage in the activities critical to
the development of school readiness skills. When conditions
such as hearing and vision impairments, respiratory conditions, chronic ear infections, food allergies, physical and
mental disabilities, and diabetes are unknown to early care
and education providers, the implementation of accommodations to ensure the acquisition of school readiness skills is
compromised. To prevent this, childcare programs should
obtain child and family health histories upon children’s
enrollment, and then update records yearly at a minimum.
All information provided must be kept confidential by staff.
Implementation of and support for consistent, timely, and
meaningful communication between the program, the child’s
family, and the child’s community-based health professionals
and agencies, to address any health, mental health, or safety
matter that affects a child, are critical components of school
readiness. It is estimated that over 12 percent of children
under five live in poverty, increasing the likelihood that
access to preventive and therapeutic health services is
extremely limited or nonexistent.
„ 6. Obtain health histories.
Making These Practices Work for ALL Children: The Universal Design of Early Education
T
he strategies summarized above answer the
question, “How can early childhood educators promote these positive approaches to learning that successfully prepare young children for
school?” The next question to answer is, “What
do early educators need to do to insure these
strategies will work for all learners, regardless of
differences in abilities, cultural and linguistic
backgrounds, and economic status?” The focus
of this section is on the universal design of early
education—designing our physical, social, and
instructional environments to ensure that every
child is able to participate, learn, and benefit (see
Figure 2).
The principles of universal design are applicable
to the field of early care and education because
increasingly diverse groups of children are entering into early childhood programs. We know that
a one-size-fits-all approach simply will not work.
We know that some children may struggle in
learning specific skills for reasons related to their
abilities, cultural and linguistic background, or
economic status. All children can learn and all
bring specific gifts to the classroom, but some
children may also face challenges related to their
diverse backgrounds and ability levels. Figure 2
offers suggestions for universally designing the
recommended practices presented earlier.
Figure 2
Application of Universal Design Principles to Early Education
1. The design of the physical environment enables all children to have
access and equitable opportunities for full participation in all program
activities. This includes structures, permanent and movable equipment
and furnishings, storage, and materials.
2. The design of health and safety program components minimizes risks
and hazards for all children. It ensures all children, regardless of health
status or condition, have ongoing access to early care and education
by minimizing interruptions to their learning due to illness and injury.
3. The design of the social-emotional environment offers all children
equitable access and full membership to the social-emotional life of
the group, and supports their social-emotional development.
4. The design of the instructional environment enables all children
equitable access to learning opportunities and multiple means for
engagement and learning. This includes the curriculum, instructional
practices, materials, and activities.
5. The design of individual assessment and program evaluation practices provides multiple approaches to finding out what children know
and can do in order to equitably assess individual learning, development, and educational progress.
6. The design of family involvement practices supports the equitable
access and engagement of all families in the full range of experiences.
This includes ongoing communication, learning opportunities, and
program involvement activities.
Summary & Implications
P
hysical and mental health and well-being are important for
children to be successful in school and later in life. Early
care and education professionals profoundly affect children’s
physical and mental health status through a program’s environment, equipment and materials, practices, collaboration with
health service providers, and partnership with parents to
address health issues. These same early education concerns are
even more critical for children who have had limited interactions with the health care system because of poverty, family
culture, or inadequate health services. The application of the
principles of universal design to meeting children’s early health
needs can help to ensure that each child will enjoy the health
and well-being necessary for school readiness and success. The
principles, ideas, and strategies in this brief represent a starting
point for giving early educators the tools to make this happen.
Table 1
Universal Design Applications
Evidence-Based Practices
Universal Design Considerations for the Early Educator
1. Health and safety policies and
practices exist that address the
promotion of good health habits
(e.g., disease transmission prevention, nutrition, physical activity),
responses to emergency situations
(fire, natural disasters, serious injury,
and illness), and sanitation.
„ Ensure that emergency evacuation policies include provisions for children or
staff with physical limitations.
2. The outdoor and indoor environments are safe, clean, attractive, and
comfortable for all children and
ensure their personal health and
safety.
„ Ensure that protective surfacing in fall zones allows maximum mobility for
children with motor impairments.
„ Establish practices that ensure children with dietary restrictions due to food
allergies and/or religious preferences receive proper nutrition.
„ Ensure that children with chronic health conditions requiring medication or
medical procedures are included in care.
„ Implement policies and practices that minimize risk of exposure of children and
staff to communicable diseases, but that enable enrollment of children with lifethreatening health conditions.
„ Make passageways between furniture and equipment wide enough to accommodate all children.
„ Ensure that environments are free of clutter to allow equal access to all areas by
staff and children.
„ Place bathroom fixtures to allow easy access to toilets and hand-washing sinks by
all children.
3. All equipment, furnishings, and
learning materials, including toys,
are in good repair, easily cleaned,
and developmentally appropriate for
the children enrolled.
„ Arrange furnishings to ensure access to learning materials by all children. Make
sure shelf height and fasteners do not limit access.
4. Early care and education staff are
knowledgeable about the availability
of health services in the community,
eligibility requirements for the
services, and the process for
enrollment.
„ Have a directory of services available on site that includes those that support children’s physical, mental, and social-emotional health.
5. Consistent, timely, and meaningful
communication between the
program, the child’s family, and the
child’s community-based health
professionals is implemented and
supported in order to effectively
address health, mental health, or
safety matters.
„ Use a variety of communication strategies to accommodate all families’ literacy
levels, languages, and physical challenges.
6. Child and family health histories are
obtained upon enrollment and
updated yearly, at a minimum. All
information provided is kept
confidential by staff.
„ Use health history forms that include information from the family and any
health professionals involved with the child.
„ Choose and arrange furnishings, such as tables and chairs, to promote and
facilitate small and large group activities for children of all physical statures.
„ Choose learning materials, including books and clothes for role playing, that
reflect multiple cultures in socially acceptable ways.
„ Make accommodations for interpretation to avoid language barriers to access.
„ Provide sufficient staffing to allow review of copies of applications for enrollment in
health services.
„ Convey communication, both written and oral, in a culturally sensitive manner.
„ Schedule staff to allow time for the meaningful and timely exchange of information in the preferred language of the parent.
„ Ensure that the timing and volume of communication reflect an understanding
of families’ life circumstances.
„ Ensure that questions included on the form are easily understandable by
parents and presented in a culturally sensitive way.
„ Post notices of dietary restrictions, alternative positioning of infants as requested by a physician, and necessary medication records in key locations, with
adequate covering to ensure confidentiality.
The bibliography for this briefing paper series is online at: http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/ecc/products_research.htm
Early Childhood Briefing Paper Series
All Children Ready for School:
Communication, Language,
and Literacy
T
—Susan D. Dixon
Ready Child + Ready Family + Ready School = Successful School Readiness
his working paper focuses on communication, language and literacy skills and approaches associated with
ready children. It is part of a series identifying early education practices associated with successful school
readiness for all children. Topics in this series focus on ready children (health and physical well-being, language
and literacy, cognition and general knowledge, social-emotional skills), ready families, and ready schools.
Four-year-old Kim is being picked
up from her child care. She is
excited because she has drawn a
picture for her mom. “Look at my
picture, Mommy.”
O
ur ability to interact with others is one of the key skills developed
throughout the early years. An individual’s ability to understand
and use language determines largely
“It’s a picture about the ‘Wheels
on the Bus’ song. See? It’s raining.
The wipers are going swish swish
swish, and Ms. Linda helped me
write ‘swish’ right here. Here’s my
name, and ‘I love you Mommy’
right here,” Kim says, pointing to
evolved to an understanding that
“Reading, writing, listening
and speaking are streams
that flow into the same
pool: they are constantly
refreshing each other.”
early literacy skills can be seen as
(Braunger & Lewis, 1997)
her writing on the page.
skills support language development.
“It’s beautiful,” says Kim’s mom,
giving her a big hug. “We can put
it on the refrigerator with the other
pictures when we get home.”
This brief examines four aspects of communication development—
“I see. It’s beautiful. Tell me about it.”
how successful he or she will be not
only in school, but also in life. Over
the past decade, the conversation
on the growth of language has
one facet of language. Many of the
conditions that support the growth
of language skills that allow a child to interact on a meaningful level with
others are also those needed to support growth in literacy skills. In addition, without doubt, the conditions required for the growth of literacy
spoken and heard oral language, and written and read print language— and how universally designed early childhood education
supports the child’s development of these critical communication skills
in anticipation of entry into school.
© 2006—Indiana University. All Rights Reserved. The Early Childhood Briefing Paper Series:
All Children Ready for School is a publication of the Indiana Institute on Disability and
Community, Early Childhood Center. (www.iidc.indiana.edu/ecc). The information presented
herein does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Trustees of Indiana University,
and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Early Childhood Center, Indiana Institute on Disability and Community
Indiana’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities
2853 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47408-2696. 812-855-6508. 812-855-9396 TTY.
EARLY
CHILDHOOD
CENTER
What We Know: Important Child Outcomes Associated with Language and Literacy
B
y the time children enter kindergarten, they
should be demonstrating several important
language and literacy skills. Figure 1 identifies six
key skills children should have.
This is not where we start, however. Even babies
are observing the world around them. The early
interactions between caregiver and child lay the
foundation for later social communication interactions and language growth. Everything a child does
during the day, whether at home or in child care,
has the potential for communication interactions.
From the first cooing hugs between an infant and
caregiver, we are shaping knowledge not only of
how the social dance of communication happens,
but also of how sounds work, how words are
formed, how sentences are put together, and how
we get information from all of these symbols.
Babies are beginning to make connections between
sounds and events, words and people, and this
early awareness of the sounds in the environment
is, in a way, the beginning of learning to read.
Figure 1
Language and Literacy: Important Learning Outcomes
By the time children enter kindergarten, they should be:
1. Using language to get information, give information, and explore
ideas.
2. Telling and retelling familiar stories (both favorite fictional stories
and narratives about their own lives).
3. Understanding that pictures and print represent objects or
ideas.
4. Matching spoken words with familiar written ones, such as their
name or signs in their environment.
5. Identifying some letters and making some letter-sound matches
for familiar words.
6. Engaging in writing attempts that demonstrate understanding of
the use of writing to share information, and that approximate
known letters in written language.
What We Know: Effective Early Education Practices
„ Engage children in conversations that encourage
them to use language to get information, give
information, and explore ideas.
Research tells us that children who grow up in environments
where the adults engage in meaningful conversations with
them develop knowledge of how language works. Extensive
research on mother-child interactions, and nonparental child
care providers, has demonstrated how well linguistic responsiveness supports children’s language development.
„ Children whose communication interactions are encouraged and expanded by adults have advantages in school
over children who have more limited access to meaningful conversation. Since language proficiency is a strong
predictor of reading success, it is important to recognize
that our language-based interactions play a critical role
in our children’s development of both sets of skills.
„ Children who hear more words develop knowledge
about their world, and have a larger vocabulary by age
3. Research tells us that vocabulary size is another
indicator of later reading success.
„ Children who play with sounds (nursery rhymes, finger
plays, songs) have an increased understanding of the
sounds and letters that make words. Another important
factor research has identified in successful reading is
phonemic awareness, or the ability to hear and manipulate separate sounds in words. The early sound play,
rhymes, finger plays, and songs all prepare a child’s brain
for the eventual task of learning that those sounds
translate to the letters on the page. Research further
shows that instruction in phonemic awareness helps all
types of children improve their reading.
„ Plan activities to help children develop storytelling skills.
Story-telling is an activity that meets many language and
literacy needs. Through telling stories about daily activities,
we provide vocabulary and language experiences, and we
introduce the child to constructing narratives that have a
beginning, a middle, and an end. Conversations about what
you are currently doing together, at home or in child care,
set the stage, followed by conversations about what you have
done in the past, and will be doing in the future. Story-telling
can be as simple as talking about daily events, but clearly has
parallel opportunities using books. By reading and re-reading
favorite books, children are learning about how words work,
how language works, and how print works.
„ Design environments in which books and other
print and writing materials are available to
children throughout the day.
Research has found that print awareness is another critical
factor influencing literacy development. Children who have
had early experience with books enter school having
knowledge and skills that are important for learning to read:
„ They know how books work;
„ They know that the words on the page have meaning;
„ They know that words are made up of sounds which fit
together to make meaningful units; and
„ They have experience with the types of behaviors
expected when reading.
of the words, furthering their phonemic awareness,
understanding of the letters, and word recognition.
Reading improves children’s writing, and teaching both
together improves both areas.
„ Integrate writing instruction into routines and
play, and across learning areas.
Provide families with opportunities, information, and
materials that help them facilitate their child’s language,
literacy, and writing skills at home.
Another way children can see and use print in functional
ways is through writing. Researchers have shown that
children who have repeated exposure to writing as an
activity have an increased understanding of the way print
works. Research further shows that teaching reading and
writing together improves children’s skills in both areas.
Writing encourages children to break down the components
One of the most important things adults can do to enhance a child’s language and literacy skills is to talk with
children, and this includes reading with them. One of the
most important things early educators can do is to promote a continuity of experiences between home and the
early care and education setting.
Making These Practices Work for ALL Children: The Universal Design of Early Education
A
s educators, how do we
ensure that all children
and families, whatever their
economic, academic, social, or
cultural differences, ability
level, or health status, have
access to information and
activities that can support
school-readiness?
Figure 2 discusses the universal design of programs to
ensure that each and every
child can access and engage in
the learning opportunities
available, and can benefit from
that learning environment.
We can begin to consider
these principles in relation to a
child’s language and literacy
needs in a number of ways.
Table 1 presents several ideas
for universally designing the
practices described earlier.
Figure 2
Application of Universal Design Principles to Early Education
1. The design of the physical environment enables all children to have access and equitable
opportunities for full participation in all program activities. This includes structures,
permanent and movable equipment and furnishings, storage, and materials.
2. The design of health and safety program components minimizes risks and hazards
for all children. It ensures all children, regardless of health status or condition, have
ongoing access to early care and education by minimizing interruptions to their
learning due to illness and injury.
3. The design of the social-emotional environment offers all children equitable access
and full membership to the social-emotional life of the group, and supports their
social-emotional development.
4. The design of the instructional environment enables all children equitable access to
learning opportunities and multiple means for engagement and learning. This
includes the curriculum, instructional practices, materials, and activities.
5. The design of individual assessment and program evaluation practices provides
multiple approaches to finding out what children know and can do in order to
equitably assess individual learning, development, and educational progress.
6. The design of family involvement practices supports the equitable access and
engagement of all families in the full range of experiences. This includes ongoing
communication, learning opportunities, and program involvement activities.
Summary & Implications
F
rom the moment a baby is born, the chain of events that
creates a child who is ready to enter kindergarten begins.
The many relationships in which the child engages are the
first and most critical support in learning the language which
will enable the child to explore ideas and interact with the
world. Early educators and families provide experiences with
sound play, words, print, and activities that expand the
child’s understanding of the world around him or her, and
the meaningful symbol system that is our spoken and print
means of communicating.
Through exploration and experience with sounds and
words, through conversations that provide a significant
source of new ideas and vocabulary, and through exposure
to the variety of print media that informs our lives, our
children can enter kindergarten with the language and
literacy tools necessary for success. By ensuring that our
practices are universally designed, we can ensure that all
children and families can not only access and engage in
the experiences, but also benefit from them.
Table 1
Universal Design Applications
Evidence-Based Practices
1. Engage children in conversations
that encourage them to use language to get information, give
information, and explore ideas.
Universal Design Considerations for the Early Educator
„ Demonstrate social and communication interactions that respect all children’s
abilities, health status, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and social and
educational experiences.
„ Immerse children in multiple ways of representing and interpreting information
around them.
„ Utilize different modes (speech, pictures, gestures, sign language) for presenting
information.
„ Provide information and ask questions at varied levels of language comprehension.
„ Positively reinforce all communication attempts, then expand or restate
attempts to use new vocabulary or language.
„ Ask open-ended questions, allowing exploration of ideas at varied levels as well
as multiple means of responding.
2. Plan activities to help children
develop story-telling skills which
give them experience with narrative
styles, with vocabulary and language, with phonological awareness,
and with story structures.
„ Embed story-telling opportunities into multiple routines or activities throughout
the day.
„ Adjust language, pace, content, and repetition.
„ Integrate the use of varied formats in the construction and sharing of stories.
„ Repeat the story multiple times over time.
„ Use pictures, props, etc. to prompt children’s recall based on individual
learning styles.
„ Record children’s stories via written language, audio, or video.
3. Design environments in which
books and other print and writing
materials are available to children
throughout the day for children to
use for pleasure and as resources.
„ Provide books and other print materials that represent varied ability levels and
health status, and reflect economic, academic, social, cultural, and linguistic
diversity.
„ Design contexts in which the many uses of print materials are embedded,
encouraging their use for a wide variety or purposes.
„ Illustrate written instructions or labels with photos or pictures.
„ Present multiple examples of differences in ability levels, health status,
economic, academic, social, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds over time.
„ Schedule time for direct instruction in reading skills.
„ Plan writing experiences that engage children on multiple levels of difficulty.
4. Integrate writing instruction into
routines, into play, and across
learning areas.
5. Provide families with opportunities,
information, and materials that help
them facilitate their child’s language,
literacy and writing skills at home.
„ Include time for both exploration and explicitly taught skills in writing letters.
„ Take into account varied physical needs (e.g., materials are available for writing that
are thick and thin, large and small, have grips to assist with proper grasp, etc.).
„ Strive to provide opportunities, information, and materials that are responsive to the
wide range of families’ ability levels and health status, and reflect economic,
academic, social, cultural, and linguistic diversity.
The bibliography for this briefing paper series is online at: http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/ecc/products_research.htm
Early Childhood Briefing Paper Series
All Children Ready for School:
Social-Emotional Development
—Lois Hutter-Pishgahi
T
Ready Child + Ready Family + Ready School = Successful School Readiness
his working paper focuses on the social-emotional development of ready children. It is part of a series
identifying early education practices associated with successful school readiness for all children. Topics in
this series focus on ready children (health and physical well-being, language and literacy, cognition and general
knowledge, social-emotional skills), ready families, and ready schools.
Omeed and his mother arrive at
preschool hand-in-hand. The teacher
greets them by name, and both Omeed
and his mother look down and smile
shyly. Omeed greets some of his peers
enthusiastically, but then he hovers
near them as an onlooker, not sure of
how to join in their play. His teacher
approaches him and asks if he would
like to make something with the blocks.
She gives him the words he needs to
enter their play, and then she asks his
mother how to say this in her native
language. The children in the block
corner have fun trying out these new
and unusual words. However, Omeed’s
playmates have difficulty understanding
his request to play, and his first
response is to lash out at them in
frustration. Luckily, the teacher is ready
to intervene, and she helps Omeed to
enter the group by modeling simple
words and gestures for him to use. He
is welcomed into the block corner.
Mom leaves with a smile on her face
knowing that her son is in good hands
in this classroom.
I
ncreasing numbers of children enter school without the skills or
abilities necessary to succeed, and ongoing research confirms the
need to think about children’s readiness for school as multi-faceted.
There is growing consensus among researchers and educators that we
must consider social and emotional maturity as part of school readiness, rather than simply focusing on a limited set of academic skills.
This brief focuses on the skills young children need in the area of
social-emotional development, and how best practices that support
these skills can be implemented in order to help all children and their
families benefit, regardless of differences in their abilities or cultural,
linguistic, or economic backgrounds.
What We Know: Important Skills
N
umerous studies have found that a lack of social skills and emotional
maturity contribute to the deficit in school readiness. In order to avoid
difficulties at school entry, identifying and addressing these skills in young
children is important while there is still time for improvement.
Key social-emotional skills include the following:
„ The child is able to understand and talk about his/her own feelings.
„ The child understands the perspective of others and realizes that their
feelings may be different from his/her own feelings.
„ The child is able to establish relationships with adults and maintains an
ongoing friendship with at least one other child.
„ The child is able to enter a group successfully.
„ The child is able to engage in and stay with an activity for a reasonable
amount of time with minimal adult support.
© 2006—Indiana University. All Rights Reserved. The Early Childhood Briefing Paper Series:
All Children Ready for School is a publication of the Indiana Institute on Disability and
Community, Early Childhood Center. (www.iidc.indiana.edu/ecc). The information presented
herein does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Trustees of Indiana University,
and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Early Childhood Center, Indiana Institute on Disability and Community
Indiana’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities
2853 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47408-2696. 812-855-6508. 812-855-9396 TTY.
EARLY
CHILDHOOD
CENTER
„ The child is cooperative with companions most of the
time and understands the need for rules and fair play.
„ The child is able to manage feelings of anger, frustration,
and distress when faced with emotionally charged situations (e.g., another child tries to take a favorite toy away).
What We Know: Effective Practices
W
hat are the evidence-based practices that research
shows are effective in enhancing or supporting the
social-emotional skills young children need for school
readiness? Numerous studies view strategies to support
social-emotional development as a pyramid of practices.
Inherent to such models is the idea that basic strategies must
be in place before more intensive strategies. Each model
describes the levels of the pyramid as a hierarchy that begins
with building positive relationships with children, families,
and colleagues, and it continues with classroom preventive
practices, social and emotional teaching strategies, and
intensive individualized interventions. The strategies that
make up the base of the pyramid must be in place in order
to support the higher, more intensive levels.
Research also supports the idea that, on all but the top level
of the pyramid, using either incidental or explicit teaching
strategies supports social skills. Incidental strategies are those
that are embedded within the routines of the day, and
educators use them during unstructured activities for brief
periods. This type of intervention is effective in encouraging
both communication and social skill development, and it
supports children who may require numerous opportunities
to practice skills in order to ensure they develop competence. Early educators look for opportunities that may occur
during a variety of activities, and then use this knowledge to
embed an occasion for either an individual child or a group
of children to practice social skills. In contrast, explicit
strategies are those that have been planned ahead of time,
and they can target either one child or the whole group. For
example, anger and impulse control includes being able to
calm down instead of acting out. Specific interventions are
utilized incorporate these skills into activities that children
understand, can remember when needed, and enjoy doing.
Early educators provide specific times throughout the day for
children to practice this self-calming response so that it
becomes a natural part of their repertoire of behaviors.
The literature demonstrates that the following strategies are
effective in supporting social-emotional skills in young
children:
„ Adopting a specific social skills curriculum:
The early educator adopts and implements a specific social
skills curriculum on a classroom-wide basis. The reinforcement of social skills becomes an explicit part of the curriculum, and specific activities that support social skills become
a part of the routine (e.g., a daily or weekly circle time where
children explore emotions). The presence of a specific social
skills curriculum also provides opportunities for the incidental support of social skills because the early educator is
tuned into embedding the practice of these skills within the
routines of the day. The frequency and duration of children’s
social interactions increase as a result of friendship activities,
along with generalization of the skills to free-play periods.
„ Manipulating the schedule, routines, materials,
and activities:
The early educator manipulates these variables in order to
support social skills. Everyday activities and routines, such as
coming and going or meal and snack times, provide ideal
incidental occasions to embed opportunities to practice
social skills. Friendship skills, like sharing and taking a turn,
can also be explicitly introduced and reinforced through
activities that are adapted to promote social interactions, by
purposefully embedding pro-social responses in common
early childhood songs, games, and activities. Materials such
as the sand table or games that require give and take among
children are available to support and promote social/
friendship skills.
„ Peer modeling, peer tutoring, and peer proximity:
Through these strategies, socially competent peers, rather
than the teacher, serve as the direct intervention agents to
teach social behaviors. Teachers provide instruction to peers
on ways to initiate and prolong social interactions with
children needing help with their social skills, and they
prompt or reinforce peers’ initiations. They naturally embed
these strategies within the routine of the day, or plan the
strategies as an intervention for a specific child. Increased
rates of social interaction, increased use of language, and
longer interactions between children have resulted from the
use of such peer-mediated techniques. These strategies can
be very effective because children tend to learn more from
watching and imitating their peers than from adults.
„ Adult priming, modeling, prompting or
reinforcing:
In these strategies, the early educator/adult serves as the
direct intervention agent. The teacher may provide the initial
structure for social interactions/activities and then pull back
to allow the activity to develop naturally. For example, the
teacher might help the children to set up a play situation
such as playing store, assigning roles and helping the children
get involved in the play, and then leave when the children
become engaged and capable of continuing on their own. In
other situations, the teacher models a behavior, prompts a
child to imitate other children’s appropriate behavior, or
reinforces appropriate, effective social behavior that is being
displayed by the target child. The implementation of these
strategies may be either incidental or planned ahead of time.
„ Social integration activities:
The early educator designs or arranges individualized peer
interaction interventions that require advance planning and
some level of expertise. The early educator arranges for a
child with limited peer interaction skills to have planned
opportunities on a daily basis to interact with children who
are socially competent and responsive to the other child.
Making These Practices Work for ALL Children: The Universal Design of Early Education
T
he strategies summarized above answer the question,
“How can early childhood educators promote these
positive approaches to learning that successfully prepare
young children for school?” The next question to answer is,
“What do early educators need to do to insure these strategies will work for all learners, regardless of differences in
abilities, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and economic
status?” The focus of this section is on the universal design of
early education—designing our physical, social, and instructional environments to ensure that every child is able to
participate, learn, and benefit (see Figure 1).
The principles of universal design are applicable to the field
of early care and education because increasingly diverse
groups of children are entering into early childhood programs. We know that a one-size-fits-all approach simply will
not work. We know that some children may struggle in
learning specific skills for reasons related to their abilities,
cultural and linguistic background, or economic status. All
children can learn and all bring specific gifts to the classroom, but some children may also face challenges related to
their diverse backgrounds.
Research highlights the social-emotional challenges that
specific groups of children may face. Several major factors
appear to build or maintain individual social-emotional
resiliency, including three that speak to the importance of
universal design: access to culturally appropriate support,
continuance of rituals, celebrations, and practices, and
interaction with positive role models from one’s own cultural
tradition. Another factor that may influence pro-social behaviors is the language used in the child’s home. Parents and
teachers have reported that children whose home language
is one other than English are less likely to engage in three
important pro-social behaviors: joining others in play, making
friends, and comforting or helping other children. Children
who exhibit these pro-social skills may have an easier time
adjusting to school because the ability to make friends and to
be sensitive to others contributes to a more positive learning
environment. In addition, children with developmental
delays may have feelings of being different from peers and
adults other than their parents, which can affect their school
experiences. Finally, additional research points out that
children from low-income households have increased risks
for being socially rejected or withdrawn from peers and
teachers. This increases their risk of later school failure.
Therefore, as we look at the strategies we use to support
socio-emotional development in young children, we must
implement these strategies in ways that are meaningful to all
individual children. In a universally designed early childhood
setting, this goal should guide the design of the curriculum,
practices, and environment so that children’s individual
needs and strengths are acknowledged and addressed by the
early childhood educator.
Table 1 offers suggestions for universally designing the
recommended practices presented earlier.
Figure 1
Application of Universal Design Principles to Early
Education
1. The design of the physical environment enables all
children to have access and equitable opportunities for
full participation in all program activities. This includes
structures, permanent and movable equipment and
furnishings, storage, and materials.
2. The design of health and safety program components
minimizes risks and hazards for all children. It ensures
all children, regardless of health status or condition,
have ongoing access to early care and education by
minimizing interruptions to their learning due to illness
and injury.
3. The design of the social-emotional environment
offers all children equitable access and full membership to the social-emotional life of the group, and
supports their social-emotional development.
4. The design of the instructional environment enables
all children equitable access to learning opportunities
and multiple means for engagement and learning. This
includes the curriculum, instructional practices,
materials, and activities.
5. The design of individual assessment and program
evaluation practices provides multiple approaches to
finding out what children know and can do in order to
equitably assess individual learning, development, and
educational progress.
6. The design of family involvement practices supports
the equitable access and engagement of all families in
the full range of experiences. This includes ongoing
communication, learning opportunities, and program
involvement activities.
Summary & Implications
O
ur current educational system places emphasis on
academic goals for children. As we move forward and
make efforts to improve the outcomes that children are
achieving, we must keep in mind that emotional development and behavioral self-regulation are as important to early
development as learning to read. We must pay attention to
the whole child. As we consider the social-emotional
development of young children in relationship to their school
readiness, we are reminded of the key role it plays and the
need to provide support in ways that acknowledge differences in abilities as well as in cultural, linguistic, and economic backgrounds, in ways that reflect a philosophy of
Universal Design. The principles, ideas, and strategies in this
brief represent a starting point for giving early educators the
tools to make this happen.
Table 1
Universal Design Applications
Evidence-Based Practices
Universal Design Considerations for the Early Educator
1. The early educator adopts a specific
social skills curriculum that is
implemented on a classroom-wide
basis so that the support of social
skills becomes an explicit part of the
curriculum, and specific activities
that support social skills become a
part of the routine. For example, the
curriculum includes a circle time
activity devoted to identifying
emotions.
„ Use a variety of materials and/or methods to portray the different emotions.
Children may respond to pictures, act out an emotion, describe it, or draw their
own picture portraying the emotion.
2. The early educator manipulates the
schedule, routines, materials, and
activities in order to support social
skills. Everyday activities and
routines, such as coming and going
or meal and snack times, provide
ideal incidental opportunities to
embed and practice social (friendship) skills like sharing and taking a
turn. For example, a water table
provides the activity for supporting
children’s social interactions.
„ Arrange the physical aspect of the circle time activity to ensure that all children
are able to engage and participate as independently as possible (e.g., toys/
materials in the water, sand, or bean table allow for the fact that children have
different abilities in physically manipulating materials).
3. The early educator utilizes peer
modeling in which he or she
provides instruction to the child’s
peers on ways to initiate and
prolong social interactions with
children needing help with their
social skills, and prompts or
reinforces peers’ initiations. For
example, the early educator
prompts one child to help another
with his puzzle while modeling
appropriate social skills.
„ Consider the verbal repertoire of both children by giving the helper (child) the
words to use in offering help so that the offer is understood and/or acknowledged.
4. The early educator Includes social
integration activities in his or her
classroom by arranging for a child
with limited peer interaction skills to
have planned opportunities on a
daily basis to interact with children
who are socially competent and
responsive to that child. For example, one child has the responsibility
of greeting everyone entering the
classroom in the morning
„ Support each child’s individual way of communicating his or her greeting (e.g.,
verbally, through a communication device, with a written sign, by a gesture, etc.).
„ Allow for different ways of responding and demonstrating understanding of the
emotions. Children may make a choice by pointing, vocalizing, responding with
words, or picking up the picture that represents their answer.
„ Understand that a child’s response to or comfort with different emotions may
vary. Reassure children in order to increase their comfort level in the classroom.
„ Ask parents and families to share their cultural experiences and expressions of
different emotions, so that children understand that there are differences in
how people express emotions. Discuss and reinforce the classroom norms, so
that parents have a better understanding of the expectations for social-emotional behavior within the classroom.
„ Acknowledge that some children will not have had an opportunity to play in a
water table. Add some familiar element to the activity in order to gain the child’s
interest and comfort in participating in this activity.
„ Know that sensory-motor issues may prevent positive play for some children.
Consider the best way to introduce children to this activity.
„ Provide the receiving child with a nonverbal way of responding, if needed.
„ Be available initially to interpret communicative attempts (e.g., vocalizations,
body language, facial expressions, etc.) for this strategy to be successful.
„ Provide a puzzle that portrays an image that is familiar to both children to
support their interest and extended engagement in this social opportunity.
„ Provide a choice of puzzles that reflects the physical and cognitive needs of the
target child and supports his involvement.
„ Accept that greetings may take many forms (e.g., eye contact, smiling, nodding the
head, shaking hands, a small bow at the waist, a high five, etc.).
„ Provide for a variety of physical needs in this activity. Some children may physically
tire before greeting everyone, and an alternative means of communicating a greeting
may need to be substituted.
„ Be flexible and responsive to a broad range of emotional needs and abilities. Some
children may not have the emotional regulation to stay with the activity long enough
to greet the whole class, so a backup plan should be in place.
The bibliography for this briefing paper series is online at: http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/ecc/products_research.htm
Early Childhood Briefing Paper Series
All Children Ready for School:
Bibliographies by Topic
T
Ready Child + Ready Family + Ready School = Successful School Readiness
his bibliography references the eight topics covered in All Children Ready for School, the briefing paper
series identifying early education practices associated with successful school readiness for all children.
Topics in this series focus on ready children (health and physical well-being, language and literacy, approaches
to learning, cognition and general knowledge, social-emotional skills), ready families, and ready schools.
Contents
Approaches to Learning - Michael Conn-Powers
Cognition and General Knowledge - Alice Frazeur Cross
Communication, Language, and Literacy - Susan D. Dixon
Getting a Good Start with Infants and Toddlers - Elizabeth Traub
Health and Physical Well-Being - Pat Cole
Ready Families - Cathy Beard
Ready Schools - Jim Ansaldo
Social-Emotional Development - Lois Hutter-Pishgahi
© 2006—Indiana University. All Rights Reserved. The Early Childhood Briefing Paper
Series: All Children Ready for School is a publication of the Indiana Institute on Disability
and Community, Early Childhood Center. (www.iidc.indiana.edu/ecc). The information
presented herein does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Trustees of
Indiana University, and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Early Childhood Center, Indiana Institute on Disability and Community
Indiana’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities
2853 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47408-2696. 812-855-6508. 812-855-9396 TTY
EARLY
CHILDHOOD
CENTER
Approaches to Learning
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