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Professional Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators

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Professional Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators

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Professional Standards and Competencies for EC Educators

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Child Development and Learning in Context

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Child Development and Learning in Context

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I work with children with special needs. We base our program on the high scope approach. Within our program we have children who suffer from ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, cerebral palsy, hearing loss, vision impairment, intellectual disability, learning disabilities, behavioral disorders, epilepsy, and seizure disorder. Our curriculum is hands on child-directed with a little teacher directed activities. Our expectations are not any different than a standard Pre-K classroom. Some children need additional support, but we say, “everyone has protentional”.  We focus on fundamentals and concepts, colors, shapes, numbers, letters, propositions, as well as basic life skills. Some of our students have difficultly processing information, one-to-one correspondence, fine and gross motor skills. Some children were nonverbal when they started with us but there has been progression since. Our children can complete puzzles, and a few have a hard time completing a standard 2-3 year old puzzle. Some chidlren have a hard time tracing their first names, and trouble with hand-eye coordination. Most of our children are able to identify all the shapes, colors, and most of the alphabet.

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Child Observation, Documentation, and Assessment

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Child Observation, Documentation, and Assessment

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Tuesday March 15, 2022

In our teacher meeting over a week ago, we were discussing things we can improve in our room (Staff wise, student, and activity wise). It came about that we should start introducing their last names at morning circle. The teacher has each child’s name written on a name card, and during our morning circle, the teacher will go through each child’s name, asking the children whose name is it?, and spelling it out. The child will identify their name, and stand up to sign themselves in, by finding their handprint name and sticking it to our sign in board. Since the beginning of the year, we have been using their first names, but they are able to identify their first names, so we figured we would take a step further and introduce their last names. We wrote each child’s last name on a card and their handprint sign in.

Our first day introducing their last names, at least a quarter of our students were able to identify when their last name was said. As the week progressed our students caught on to their last names. More then half of our students were able to identify their last name when mentioned, and the first two letters when it came to finding their handprint to sign in. I was surprised how fast the children caught on. Working with the special needs children, change is not always easy for them.

Friday March 18, 2022

Our room has for daycare children and 11 program children. One quality that we thrive on is independence. We try to convince our students who are going into kindergarten the following school year to be independent. We convince children to open their snack bags, milks, straws, and how to put their garments and shoes on.  We explain to the children that once they move onto kindergarten there are not as many teachers in the room to help them. They will need to do somethings on their own.

On Friday, one of our daycare students took his shoe off for an unknown reason. I’ve noticed he is independent when he wants to be. I feel like its more of him wanting attention.

He had athletic shoes, not stiff at all, and he said he couldn’t put the shoe on. In the back of my mind, I knew he could. He just wanted one of us to do it for him. I demonstrated how to put his shoe on, then guided him through it. He gave up and said he couldn’t do it. That’s when he began to cry. I knew for sure he could have done it by himself, otherwise I would have handled the situation differently. I tried encouraging him and made it known that once he gets his shoe on, I will help him tie them. It was a good 7 minutes of him crying, showing no effort, before another teacher gave in.

I feel like he just wanted our attention, even though we show the same amount of attention to all. I know for sure he was fully capable of doing so, he just didn’t want to put forth the effort. When the teacher gave in, and she even knew for herself that he was fully capable of slipping his shoe on independently, I was bothered. Now he knows that if he refuses for a few, then the teachers will eventually give in.

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Professionalism as an Early Childhood Educator

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Professionalism as an Early Childhood Educator

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Knowledge, Application, and Integration of Academic Content in the Early Childhood Curriculum

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Knowledge, Application, and Integration of Academic Content in the Early Childhood Curriculum