Understanding Early Childhood Development

Understanding Early Childhood Development

In our last post, we introduced you to early childhood development and gave you a basic rundown of what it means and how it applies to your child. This week we will be taking a deeper dive into what it means and how child development is measured and viewed by educators!

As we mentioned last week, each child develops at their own rate and is shaped by each child's environment, family and culture. This means that your child may learn or progress through their development at a different pace than your neighbour or cousin and it doesn't help you to compare or feel bad when you think your child should be doing something that another child does.

As teachers it is our job to promote the healthy development of all of our students and support them in reaching their full potential, this is simply a priority for us! We know that our students' health and well-being contribute greatly to their ability to learn, and that learning in turn contributes to their overall well-being. With the understanding of what early childhood development is, the 2016 Kindergarten curriculum was built around the facts and evidence that support these findings.  One of the best documents that we have read as we learned about the Kindergarten program and childhood development is the ELECT ( Early Learning for Every Child Today) document which is a ministry document that describes how young children learn and develop and provides a guide for curriculum in Ontario’s early childhood settings. This is the main document that we will be referencing today as the curriculum was built in support of these findings!

Continuum of Development

The Continuum of Development describes predictable sequences of development within broad domains of development. It helps educators observe and document children’s emerging skills, based on an understanding of children’s development. The primary purpose of the continuum is to provide educators with information to support them in planning their lessons and activities that would be meaningful for individuals and groups of children. This does not mean that these are steps locked in stone or that it is a universal pattern of skills that should be achieved by all students at the same time. Instead, it is a guide that highlights sequences of development as a foundation or building block for children. Like we said before, when we progress in our development, we learn one skill at a time and then we slowly build upon those skills in order to master it or learn something different! The continuum is truly a professional tool used by educators to be able to observe and discuss our students' growth and learning. It helps us see individual growth, strengths, and challenges and supports that may be required.

Domain

 A domain is a broad area of development and there are five domains that early childhood development explores. They are: social, emotional, language, cognitive, and physical. You might remember these from last week's post! Though each domain is separate, the five domains of children’s development are connected and no one domain is more important than another. 

Root Skills

Root skills are specific capacities, processes, abilities, and competencies that exist within a domain. When adults understand and observe emerging skills they can create individual strategies to support the practice and extension of the skill. A great example of a root skill is when we think of a gross motor skill that a child is learning. When a child is an infant, they are working on their physical gross motor skills and will learn root skills such as: rolling, sitting and crawling. While the domain that these skills are under is physical, the root skill is the skill itself!

Indicators

 Indicators are signs  of what a child knows or does which show that the skill is emerging, being practised, or being elaborated. Indicators are given in progression within each root skill. Early childhood practitioners observe children’s behaviour and can use the indicators to identify the related skill, set goals, and plan appropriate curriculum. 

An example of this is when a child is learning the skill of rolling, the indicators would be that they are rolling from side to back and from back to side.

Interactions 

Interactions are examples of communication between an adult and child and connecting during the activity that supports the child’s accomplishment of the skill.

To continue our rolling example, while the infant is lying on his back, hold his favourite toy within his line of vision. Move the toy so he tracks it and reaches for it, rolling on to his stomach. Bringing together vision and motor skills provides practice that promotes the strength and coordination required to roll over. This is the interaction between the adult and the child that help support the development of the skill.

Below we will share an example of a chart that highlights the continuum of development and all of the components of it that we just highlighted. You can also learn more by viewing the ELECT document, the resource can be found at the bottom of this post!

 Keep in mind that while these are skills that children progress through as they develop between 0-12 years of age, they are not set in stone, this is not a tool that teachers will use to assess or grade your child, this is not a comparison tool or something that parents should refer to with strict ideas on how your child should be developing. These are simply professional and educational tools and guidelines that help educators have a stronger understanding of how a child physically develops and what they are capable of. You will never read the words “root skills” or “domains” on your child report cards. While this is a lot of information to absorb and understand, it is truly just a great resource for educators and professionals to understand and access when they are creating programming and creating lessons for students. If teachers do not know how a child progresses in their development, how do they truly know how or what to teach them. We would never start teaching division in kindergarten, because it isn’t developmentally appropriate, our students are learning how to identify numbers and count, they would not be able to divide at this stage in their development and this is exactly why teachers need to understand early childhood development. 

We hope that this week's post gives you further insight into early childhood development and why it is important for teachers and parents to have a basic understanding of how children develop. Please keep in mind that today's post highlighted an educational tool that may be helpful for parents in understanding how their child develops but that it is geared towards educators and professionals in the early education field!

Resources: Best Start Expert Panel on Early Learning . (2007). Early Learning for Every Child Today: A framework for Ontario early childhood settings. Retrieved from https://lms.brocku.ca/access/content/group/f6bb4b50-0aeb-4f5d-a34e-b867e8ccbe9d/Course%20 Materials/ELECT.pdf.