Learning styles

http://es.scribd.com/doc/96969067/Learning-Styles-Ppp

Young language learners

http://es.scribd.com/doc/96968715/Characteristics-of-the-Young-Language-Learner

Young learners: Early Years Band: Age 3-Age 5

Early Years Band: Age 3-Age 5

Focus and features of the phase

… our image of the child is rich in potential, strong, powerful, competent and, most of all connected to adults and other children.

Loris Malaguzzi in Dahlberg, Moss and Pence 1999 page 48

It is in this light that consideration is given to the complexity of childhoods and children in the 

Age 3-Age 5 phase.

Children in this phase enter early childhood settings with a diverse range of knowledge, skills, values, attitudes and dispositions, reflecting the diversity of their backgrounds and experiences. The role of early childhood education and care is to connect with and build upon children’s home and community learnings as well as opening up new and multiple possibilities. Children of this age learn most effectively when their physical and emotional needs are met and they are able to feel safe and secure in a climate of consistency, stability, support and high expectations. They develop at different rates and in different ways: emotionally, intellectually, morally, socially, physically and spiritually. All aspects are important and interrelated. When these differences are respected and honoured children build a sense of trust and confidence, a willingness to take risks and thus make new discoveries and connections.

Children’s potential to be active, curious, imaginative, creative and increasingly responsible learners with an expanding capability for language and communication is fostered through a responsive early childhood curriculum. By viewing children as active and competent with ideas and theories that are worthy, the way is open for the co-construction of knowledge, identity and culture. Through their broadening interactions, children refine and develop social, cultural and linguistic skills for establishing and maintaining relationships and friendships and for exploring and influencing their worlds.

This is a time of considerable change, encompassing a broad developmental range and significant learning capacity. Physical capabilities are extended as children refine and strengthen muscle tone and increase coordination. Intellectual growth is demonstrated as children’s language, curiosity, sense of wonder and enthusiasm for exploration leads them to new understandings and further questioning, reflection and discovery. They develop a growing competence in using symbolic languages such as music, dance, drama, storytelling, image making and movement to discover people’s meanings and to share their own. Children are great imitators, as can be seen in aspects of their language such as speech, accent and gesture. Humour is evident as children experiment and explore rhyme, language patterns and thoughts. Each child’s experience of things, events and happenings in their environment is multifaceted and important in their learning. Development and learning are continuous processes influenced by social and cultural contexts. These progress when children have the opportunity to respond to meaningful learning challenges that extend them beyond their current level of development and understanding.

Through children’s social and cultural interactions and relationships with adults and other children, they strengthen their awareness and understanding of personal and group identity as well as increasing their knowledge of themselves as learners in both individual and social contexts. Listening to, and participating in, the narratives of others and engaging with multimedia introduces them to different places, people, relationships and ideas. Their sense of event and occasion is developing and they enjoy ceremonies and celebrations.

Children of this age can be supported to display a strong sense of social justice and empathy, demonstrating the ability to question a range of unfair behaviours and practices and to take action to positively influence and affect their environments. By building and extending skills such as creativity, imagination and communication, children build and strengthen their capacities for transforming futures.

Play

The most powerful way young children learn is through play. Play is active and interactive, and within it children develop relationships, experiment, imagine, create, practise, problem-solve, escape, role-play and learn together in their exploration of new and familiar things around them. Through play children, alone and with others, have opportunities for rich sensory experiences. Movement is essential for children’s ongoing development. Physical play is enhanced with children consolidating, refining and demonstrating increasing physical skill, both gross and fine motor activity. In this phase there is significant growth in children’s imaginative thought, showing an increasing interest in fantasy and pretend play. The social dimension of dramatic play becomes evident with children developing props and scripts for their play and taking on diverse roles in a climate that supports flexibility and inventiveness. It is through this increased ability to engage in role and dramatic play that children have opportunities to explore roles and identities, feelings and perspectives and to express them in an increasingly considered manner. Children’s creativity and resourcefulness in their play provides challenges as they move towards self-regulation.

Partnerships with families and communities

Supporting and extending partnerships with parents, families and communities provide a basis for well-informed curriculum planning and decision-making for children’s learning. Maintaining strong home links and building on them in the curriculum strengthens children’s identity, and introduces diversity of cultures in meaningful and positive ways.

Opportunities for children to experience continuity in their learning through building on their experiences, skills and knowledge are important as they move between settings. Children will be involved in many transitions, including those throughout the day. The daily transitions from home to early childhood settings, the routines of the day, moving between settings and beginning school are examples of transitions that children are regularly called to make. With each transition they may encounter different adults, children and environments, all of which may present discontinuities. Successful transitions, and the confidence this brings, provide a foundation for managing change effectively.

Learning environments

The child’s care and education takes place in settings that may include home, childcare programs, child-parent centre/preschool. These early childhood environments contribute to how children feel, think and act. Their environments are more than the physical setting-they include all the human interactions, structuring of time and resources, aesthetics, support and high expectations for all children.

Early childhood educators establish flexible learning environments, encourage children to make choices and involve them in planning and curriculum decision-making. Children learn when they are involved in initiating and negotiating their own learning, which is enhanced and supported by positive and challenging interactions. A relevant curriculum for each child and group of children is planned as educators observe and monitor children’s interests and development, and critically reflect on these observations and their pedagogical understandings and practices over time.

By building a community of learners that includes children, families and educators, opportunities exist for developing a lifelong interest in, and enjoyment of, learning. Learning involves the co-construction of knowledge, where children and those who work with them, discover, experiment, hypothesise, observe, make connections, ask questions, predict, imitate and practise. Experiences that are based on children’s interests and initiatives provide motivation for learning which, in turn, fosters a spirit of inquiry, curiosity, wonder and self-direction. Children make sense of their world, shape their environments and seek to communicate their experiences through multiple forms of expression. Through individual and group projects and experiences that build on and extend their interests, children show considerable capacity for discovery and contribution.

Organisation of the phase

The SACSA Framework has a number of aspects, each of which provides a focus for curriculum development. The Age 3-Age 5 phase of the Framework is built around seven Learning Areas:

• self and social development
• arts and creativity
• communication and language
• design and technology
• diversity
• health and physical development
• understanding our world.
• Continuity and coherence across the Learning Areas and the Early Years Band as a whole are provided by the Essential Learnings:
• Futures
• Identity
• Interdependence
• Thinking
• Communication.
• Development in children’s learning is described through eight broad Developmental Learning Outcomes for this phase. They are:
• trust and confidence
• a positive sense of self and a confident personal and group identity
• a sense of being connected with others and their worlds
• intellectual inquisitiveness
• a range of thinking skills
• effective communication
• a sense of physical wellbeing
• a range of physical competencies.

These Developmental Learning Outcomes are deliberately broad to give educators the freedom to make local curriculum decisions in partnerships with families and communities. They allow for multiple entry points, different developmental pathways, and the wide range of development, capabilities, needs, personalities and sociocultural diversity of children.

Outcomes in this phase are not contingent on pre-determined, aged-related patterns of development. They are open-ended to encourage educators to observe all that children know, understand and can do, using multiple sources of information, including home and community information, to create a meaningful picture of each child’s development.

Acknowledgment of the holistic and integrated nature of children’s learning and development is reflected in the constructivist approach to teaching, learning and development that underpins the whole Framework. This approach recognises that experiences have a profound effect on learning and development; that learning and development occur in shared contexts; that knowledge is socially constructed; that learners construct their own understandings and educators construct programs based on children’s needs, interests and insights.