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February 15, 2008
PreSchool Foundations in "Parent-Ease"
Four and five-year-olds go to school just like the big kids. Those who don’t go to school are learning faster than you can figure out how to use you new ipod. What are they learning? Anything they see, hear, taste, or touch. If you don’t believe me, listen to their conversation with their favorite pet or their baby brother. “Go sit in the corner, you’ve been bad,” tells you they’ve been listening to you even when you think they haven’t.
So have you figured out what you’d like them to know and remember? If you haven’t, the California Department of Ed Child Development Division is here to help you. They started working several years ago to identify what preschools need to learn and what would be helpful for them to know when they start to school-big kid school. Two weeks ago the Learning Foundations, identifying learning skills for social/emotion skills, language and literacy, math and English language development, were approved and released.
Now you know. Well, you sort of know. The foundations are on the CDE website and available for use. Who’s using them? Probably not many folks yet. It takes a while for word to get out. It takes a while for the administrators and staff to be trained and held accountable for what’s being taught. It just takes a while.
How about you, Mom or Dad? Are you ready to help your child? I haven’t found many parents who don’t want to help, especially preschoolers. Here are a couple ideas for you that will give you some direction and are parent friendly. I’ll include the foundations, but, I’m taking the prerogative of rewording them a bit. We educators sometimes have a tendency to use more complex words than are needed. I want to make it easier for all of us.
Science Walk: Take a walk in your backyard. Say the words for what you see. “There’s a yellow flower. That plant is green. Fido is running across the yard. Here he comes. Throw the ball for him. There is a bird on the fence.” Plants and animals are all part of science and in this case are a part of language development.
Foundation: 1.0 Language Use and conventions
1.1 Use language to communicate with others in familiar social situations for a variety of basic purposes, including describing, requesting, commenting, acknowledging, greeting, and rejecting.
In “Parent Ease”-Kids learn to talk by listening to you and other people talk.
So the bottom line is talk about everything you’re doing with them. Oh, and enjoy the walk. The weather’s been great for it.
Posted by Dr Joni at February 15, 2008 08:20 AM
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