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Relating Effortful Control, Executive Function, and False Belief Understanding to Emerging Math and Literacy Ability in Kindergarten

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Relating Effortful Control, Executive Function, and False Belief Understanding to Emerging Math and Literacy Ability in Kindergarten

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12. Biological processes in prevention and intervention: Thepromotion of self-regulation as a means of preventing schoolfailure

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12. Biological processes in prevention and intervention: Thepromotion of self-regulation as a means of preventing schoolfailure

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11. Developing Self-Regulation: The Vygotskian View

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11. Developing Self-Regulation: The Vygotskian View

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Abstract

This paper focuses on current definitions of self-regulation and emerging research indicating its contribution to school readiness. Traditionally relegated to the social-emotional realm, the definition of self-regulation is broadened to include the ability to regulate both emotions and thinking. We conclude with an introduction of the Vygotskian approach to self-regulation--a unique perspective, little known in the West. For Vygotskians, many aspects of self-regulation are learned during the preschool years and the approach suggests ways in which early childhood educators can influence its development.

Introduction

There is growing evidence that many children, especially those at-risk, begin school lacking the self-regulation necessary to succeed in school and life (Raver & Knitzer, 2002) and that this lack of self-regulation may have a great impact on how well children do in school and later life. Self-regulation is ranked as the most important characteristic necessary for school readiness by kindergarten teachers who indicate that over half their children lack effective self-regulatory skills (Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta & Cox 2001). There is evidence that early self-regulation levels have a stronger association with school readiness than IQ (Blair, 2002) or entry-level reading or math skills (Normandeau & Guay, 1998) and is closely associated with academic achievement (Espy, et al. 2005; Blair, 2002). In several studies, self-regulation of preschoolers was correlated with the cognitive, self-regulatory, and coping competence in adolescence (Mischel, Shoda, & Peake, 1988; Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990; Eigsti et al., 2006).

Current views of self-regulation in children

When applied to young children, the term "self-regulation" is used to refer to a variety of abilities. Self-regulated behaviors thus include delaying gratification, being able to rapidly switch between different tasks, focusing attention and controlling one's emotions. Depending on the theoretical orientation, researchers focus on only one or two for these aspects, leading to a self-regulation as discrete behaviors, separating cognitive self-regulation from social and emotional self-regulation.

Researchers that study self-regulation as a social-emotional competency often regard it as an innate characteristic that is determined by children's psycho-physiological characteristics such as temperament. For example, the child's ability to purposefully engage in or refrain from certain behaviors--physical as well as social--is linked to this child's level of effortful control--the temperament trait that emerges at the end of the first year of life and regulates the reactive aspects of temperament (Studies emphasizing social-emotional self-regulation also tend to examine how individual differences in social-emotional self-regulation are related to the quality of early child-caregiver interactions (Murray & Kochanska, 2002).

Studying of self-regulation as a cognitive competency has for a long time been done primarily in older children. The link between various manifestations of cognitive self regulation and academic achievement is well documented for middle- and high school students (Zimmerman, 2002). Classroom studies indicate that specific educational practices such as choice in activities tend to increase the self-regulatory behaviors of primary aged children as well as older children (Perry, 1998).

With the advent of new and more sophisticated methods of brain research it has become possible to establish relationships between the development of self-regulation and the maturation of particular areas of the brain. It was found, for example, that relatively low levels of self-regulation in preschool age children are associated with the children not yet utilizing the areas of the brain responsible for planning and reflection (Bronson, 2000). Recent research on the brain seems to indicate that self-regulation is tied to the development of the prefrontal cortex which is not only important for the development of control over emotions, but also that of focused attention as well as planning and monitoring of cognitive behaviors (Davidson et. al., 2006). There is evidence that positive emotionality and negative emotionality induce different patterns of activation of the prefrontal cortex (Davidson, Jackson, & Kalin, 2000) and that this can affect levels of attention (Davidson, 1999). The fact that the same area of the brain is responsible for emotional control and for the metacognitive functions further supports the idea of the interconnection between social-emotional self-regulation and cognitive self-regulation (Blair, 2002).

Research suggests that if a neural system is repeatedly exercised, it, like a muscle, will blossom (Bialystok & Martin, 2004; Bialystok, 1999; Bialystok et al., 2005; Bialystok & Shapiro, 2005). Consequently the importance of the environment in the development of self-regulation is supported by current brain research. However, existing theories of self-regulation, especially the ones that focus only on its cognitive or just emotional aspects have not yet been able to provide an framework for designing instructional environments supporting the development of all aspects of self-regulation. Lev Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory might provide just this kind of framework.

Vygotsky's view of self-regulation

Vygotsky's view on self-regulation is based on his general ideas of cultural- historical nature of human development. For Vygotsky, self-regulation is not a single trait or even a combination of traits but rather a critical development signaling emergence of uniquely human set of competencies "higher mental functions". While not using the word "'self-regulation" to describe higher mental functions, Vygotsky described them though as deliberate, intentional, or volitional behaviors, as something that humans have control of Acquiring higher mental functions allows children to make a critical transition from being "slaves to the environment" to becoming "masters of their own behavior". This process requires children to master specific cultural tools--including language and other symbolic systems--which they can use to gain control over their physical, emotional, and cognitive functioning.

As it is true for all higher mental functions, children's self-regulatory abilities originate in social interactions and only later become internalized and independently used by children (Vygotsky, 1978). This means that self-regulation is not something that emerges spontaneously as the child matures but is instead taught formally or informally within the social context. Classroom presents one of the possible contexts; family and peer group provide alternative contexts for learning self-regulation. In the case when none of the social contexts support the development of self-regulatory behaviors, children continue to operate as "slaves to the environment" being guided by ever-changing external stimulation and incapable of intentional actions.

For Vygotsky, there are three critical conditions necessary for development of self-regulatory behaviors in children. First, to develop any higher mental function on the intra-subjective (individual) plane, children first have to experience it on the inter-subjective (shared) plane (Vygotsky 1978). In regard to self-regulatory behaviors--social as well as cognitive- it means that children need to have an opportunity to engage in other-regulation. Other-regulation implies that children act both as subjects of another person's regulatory behaviors (as is the case of many of their interactions with adults) and as actors regulating other person's behaviors (as might happen in the interaction with peers or younger children). A second necessary condition for emergence of self-regulation is children's learning of specific cultural tools that would allow them to eventually use self-regulatory behaviors independently. Among first such tools children learn is self-talk or "private speech". When children engage in private speech to themselves, the same words that adults once used to regulate children's behaviors, are now used by children themselves for the purposes of self-regulation. Studies of private speech have found a direct link between children's use of private speech and their self-regulatory abilities (Berk & Landau, 1993; Berk & Spuhl, 1995; Winsler, Diaz, Atencio, McCarthy, & Chabay, 2000).

The last condition is young children's engagement in well-developed make-believe play. Vygotsky's famous quote about a child standing "a head taller than himself' when engaged in highly imaginative sociodramatic play can definitely be applied to self-regulatory behaviors--in social-emotional as well as in cognitive realm. Being the "leading activity" for preschool- and kindergarten-aged children (Vygotsky, 1967; Leont'ev, 1978), play provides opportunities for children to practice self-regulatory components of multiple mental functions--from fulfilling their desires in a symbolic form while at the same time delaying gratification to beginning to develop reflective competencies while taking multiple perspectives (Elkonin, 1978).

Implications for early childhood educators

Vygotsky's approach provides early childhood educators with several guidelines on how to scaffold the development of multiple aspects of self-regulation.

1. Need to make sure children engage in other-regulation--a well-behaved child is not necessarily a self-regulated child

2. Teaching and learning of specific cultural tools including but not limited to private speech

3. Making sure that make-believe play not only happens but reaches its well-developed form.

First, it is necessary to distinguish between true self-regulation and mere obedience. For Vygotskians, it is critical that a truly self- regulated child does not simply follow the rules imposed on him/her by an adult but is also able to generate appropriate rules when facing a new situation (Veraksa & Dyachenko, 1996). To develop this ability, the child needs to engage in other-regulation by monitoring how other children follow the rules as well as by being monitored by other children (Zuckerman, 2003). For a classroom teacher, it would mean, for example taking another view of such phenomenon as preschoolers' or kindergartners' tattle telling. It would also mean re-designing some of the existing activities so that children can take turns checking their peers' work and self-checking their own work.

Similar to the manner in which teachers help children master certain cultural tools to develop cognitive abilities (think alphabet charts and literacy or counters and mathematical reasoning), they should also introduce children to the tools that will allow them to develop self-regulation. Modeling of and encouraging the use of private speech is one example of how such tools can be taught (Berk, 1992). Other examples include re-introducing tools for other-regulating and self-regulating social behaviors that have been passed on by many generations but may be missing from the experience of today's preschoolers and kindergartners (Bodrova & Leong, 2006). These tools include rhymes and chants as well as games (think paper-scissors-rock) children use to determine whose turn is next.

Finally, the context in which self-regulation is most likely to develop is during mature make-believe play (Elkonin, 1978; Vygotsky, 1967). In early stages of play, children are primarily involved in exploring objects. When play is mature, children have defined roles and have play scenarios that are complex and that are planned in advance (Bodrova & Leong, 2006). While engaging in this kind of mature make believe play, young children make their first attempts at self-regulation by constraining their behavior to a set of self-imposed actions defined by the play role. While playing the mommy, a child will confine her behaviors to a specific set of actions that fit the mommy role and will refrain from playing with other objects no matter how enticing if they do not fit that role. The limits the child places on his/her behavior are self-imposed and consequently differ greatly from following the teacher's directions. Vygotskians argue that when early childhood teachers support mature make-believe play, they provide the environmental conditions under which self-regulation can flourish. No amount of teacher directed instruction will garner the same level of self-regulation as mature make believe play (Bodrova & Leong, 2006).

Conclusions

The purpose of the paper is to describe the current views of self-regulation and how the Vygotskian approach gives an added dimension to that discussion. The approach provides an important framework for developing interventions to help children who are lacking self-regulation and provides important insights for early childhood teachers.

References

Berk, L. E. (1992). Children's private speech: An overview of theory and status of research. In R. M. Diaz & L. E. Berk (Eds.), Private speech: From social interaction to self-regulation (pp. 17-53). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Berk, L. E. & Landau, S. (1993). Private speech of learning disabled and normally achieving children in classroom academic and laboratory contexts. Child Development, 64(2), 556-571.

Berk, L. E., & Spuhl, S. T. (1995). Maternal interaction, private speech, and task performance in preschool children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 10 (2), 145-169.

Bialystok, E. (1999). Cognitive complexity and attentional control in the bilingual mind. Child Development, 70(3), 636-644.

Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., Grady, C., Chau, W., Ishii, R., Gunji, A., & Pantev, C. (2005). Effect of bilingualism on cognitive control in the Simon task: Evidence from MEG. NeuroImage, 24, 40-49.

Bialystok, E., & Martin, M. M. (2004). Attention and inhibition in bilingual children: Evidence from the dimensional change card sort task. Developmental Science, 7(3), 325-339.

Bialystok, E., & Shapiro, D. (2005). Ambiguous benefits: The effect of bilingualism on reversing ambiguous figures. Developmental Science, 8(6), 595-604.

Blair, C. (2002). School readiness: Integrating cognition and emotion in a neurobiological conceptualization of children's functioning at school entry. American Psychologist, 57(2), 111-127.

Bodrova, E., & Leong, D. J. (2006). Tools of the mind: The Vygotskian approach to early childhood education (2nd ed.). Columbus, OH: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Bronson, M. B. (2000). Self-regulation in early childhood. New York: NY: Guilford Press.

Davidson, R. J. (1999). Perspectives on affective styles and their cognitive consequences. In T. Dalgleish & M. Power (Eds.), Handbook of Cognition and Emotion (pp.103-123). Chichester, England: Wiley.

Davidson, R. J., Jackson, D. C., & Kalin, N. H. (2000). Emotion, plasticity, context, and regulation: Perspectives from affective neuroscience. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 890-909.

Davidson, M. C., Amso, D., Anderson, L. C., & Diamond, A. (2006). Development of cognitive control and executive functions from 4-13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching. Neuropsychologia, 44(11), 2037-2078.

Eigsti, I. M., Zayas, V., Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., Ayduk, O., Dadlani, M. B., Davidson, M.C., Aber, J. L., & Casey, B. J.. (2006) Predicting Cognitive Control From Preschool to Late Adolescence and Young Adulthood. Psychological Science, 17(6), 478-484

Elkonin, D. B. (1978). Psychologija igry [The psychology of play]. Moscow: Pedagogika.

Espy, K. A., McDiarmid, M. D., Cwik, M. F., Stalets, M. M., Hamby, A., & Senn, T. E. (2004). The contributions of executive functions to emergent mathematic skills in preschool children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 26(1), 465-486.

Leont'ev, A. (1978). Activity, consciousness, and personality. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Peake, K. (1988). The nature of adolescent competencies predicted by preschool delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(4), 687-696.

Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Rodriguez, M. L. (1989). Delay of gratification in children. Science, 244(4907), 933-938.

Murray, K. T., & Kochanska, G. (2002). Effortful control: Factor structure and relation to externalizing and internalizng behaviors. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 30(5), 503-514.

Normandeau, S., & Guay, F. (1998). Preschool behavior and first-grade school achievement: The mediational role of cognitive self-control. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(1), 111-121.

Perry, N. E. (1998). Young children's self-regulated learning and contexts that support it. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(4), 715-729.

Raver, C. C., & Knitzer, J. (2002). Ready to enter: What research tells policymakers about strategies to promote social and emotional school readiness among three- and four-year-old children. New York: National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.

Rimm-Kaufman, S., Pianta, R. C., & Cox, M. (2000). Teachers' judgments of problems in the transition to school. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 15(2), 147-166.

Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Peake, P. K. (1990). Predicting adolescent cognitive and social competence from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions. Developmental Psychology, 26(6), 978-986.

Veraksa, N.E. and Dyachenko, O.M. (1996). Sposoby regulyatsii povedeniya u detey doshkol'nogo vozrasta [Behavioral regulation approaches in preschool children] Voprosy Psychologii, 3 14-26

Vygotsky, L. S. (1967). Play and its role in the mental development of the child. Soviet Psychology, 5(3), pp. 6-18. (Original work published 1966).

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Winsler, A., Diaz, R. M., Atencio, D. J., McCarthy, E. M., & Chabay, L. A. (2000). Verbal self-regulation over time in preschool children at risk for attention and behavior problems. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 41(7), 875-886.

Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Achieving academic excellence: A self-regulatory perspective. In M. Ferrari (Ed.), The Pursuit of excellence through education (pp. 85-110). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Zuckerman, G. (2003). The learning activity in the first years of schooling: The developmental path toward reflection. In A. Kozulin, B. Gindis, V. Ageyev & S. M. Miller (Eds.), Vygotsky's educational theory in cultural context (pp. 177-199). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Deborah J. Leong, Metropolitan State College of Denver

Elena Bodrova, McREL

Deborah J. Leong is a professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver. Elena Bodrova is a senior researcher at McREI.

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Developing self-regulation: the Vygotskian view.

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Abstract This paper focuses on current definitions of self-regulation and emerging research indicating its contribution to school readiness. Traditionally relegated to the social-emotional realm, the definition of self-regulation is broadened to include the ability to regulate both emotions and thinking. We conclude with an introduction of the Vygotskian approach to self-regulation--a unique perspective, little known in the West.

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10. Link's Between Behavioral Regulation and Preschoolers Literacy, Vocabulary, and Emergent Math Skills

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10. Link's Between Behavioral Regulation and Preschoolers Literacy, Vocabulary, and Emergent Math Skills

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The above study discusses the relationship between developing executive function skills such as behavior regulation and academic achievement, which is important to my study focus.  “Research supports the notion that strong behavioral regulation is associated with higher levels of academic achievement in elementary school” (McClelland, et al., 2007, p. 949).

References:

McClelland, M., McDonald Conner, C., Jewkes, A., Cameron, C., Farris, C. & Morrison, F. (2007). Links between behavioral regulation and preschoolers literacy, vocabulary, and math skills.
Developmental Psychology. v43, n4. 947-959.

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8. The Relationship Among Self Regulation, Socio-dramatic Play, and Preschoolers' Readiness for Kindergarten

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8. The Relationship Among Self Regulation, Socio-dramatic Play, and Preschoolers' Readiness for Kindergarten

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I was particularly interested in this study for the answer to the question, “Does a preschooler's capacity for self-regulation predict readiness for kindergarten?” (Matthews, 2008, p. 5), as kindergarten readiness is one of the main issues I seek to study with my own students.  I was pleased with the results of this study as “the results indicated that the self-regulatory capacity to problem-solve flexibly, shift attention, and control emotions and behaviors positively influenced preschoolers’ readiness for kindergarten” (Matthews, 2008, p. 6). While this study does focus more so on sociodramatic play, it also looks at kindergarten readiness in relation to Tools of the Mind activities.

References:

Matthews, S. B. (2008). The relationship among self-regulation, sociodramatic play, and preschoolers’ readiness for kindergarten. Northeastern University.

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7. Preschool Program Improves Cognitive Control

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7. Preschool Program Improves Cognitive Control

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The main idea of the article above is that executive functions such as cognitive control weigh more heavily on kindergarten readiness than the learning of academic skills.  The article discusses this in relation to Tools of the Mind.  In my experience, I have taught many students the academic skills needed for kindergarten readiness, yet it was always reported to me by the kindergarten teacher that although the students were ready academically, they were not prepared socially.  The teachers reported that the students knew alphabet names and sounds, numbers and could do simple math, write their names, and even read some words, however they could not sit still, pay attention, share with their friends, or handle transitions.  It is my goal to find if Tools of the Mind will rectify those issues.

References:

Diamond, A., Barnett, W.S., Thomas, J. & Monroe, S. (2007). Preschool program improves cognitive control. Science, v318, n5855, 1387-1388.

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Abstract

Cognitive control skills important for success in school and life are amenable to improvement in at-risk preschoolers without costly interventions.

Executive functions (EFs), also called cognitive control, are critical for success in school and life. Although EF skills are rarely taught, they can be. The Tools of the Mind (Tools) curriculum improves EFs in preschoolers in regular classrooms with regular teachers at minimal expense. Core EF skills are (i) inhibitory control (resisting habits, temptations, or distractions), (ii) working memory (mentally holding and using information), and (iii) cognitive flexibility (adjusting to change) ( 1, 2).

Significance

EFs are more strongly associated with school readiness than are intelligence quotient (IQ) or entry-level reading or math skills ( 3, 4). Kindergarten teachers rank skills like self-discipline and attentional control as more critical for school readiness than content knowledge ( 5). EFs are important for academic achievement throughout the school years. Working memory and inhibition independently predict math and reading scores in preschool through high school [e.g., ( 3, 6, 7)].

Many children begin school lacking in EF skills ( 5). Teachers receive little instruction in how to improve EF and have preschoolers removed from class for poor self-control at alarming rates ( 8, 9). Previous attempts to improve children's EF have often been costly and of limited success ( 10- 12). Poor EFs are associated with such problems as ADHD, teacher burnout, student dropout, drug use, and crime ( 2). Young lower-income children have disproportionately poor EFs ( 13, 14). They fall progressively farther behind in school each year ( 15).

The Study

The opportunity to evaluate Tools of the Mind (Tools) and another curriculum arose when a low-income, urban school district agreed to randomly assign teachers and children to these two curricula. Our study included 18 classrooms initially and added 3 more per condition the next year. Quality standards were set by the state. All classrooms received exactly the same resources and the same amounts of teacher training and support ( 2). Stratified random assignment of teachers and assistants minimized confounds due to teacher characteristics.

EF-training curriculum: Tools

The Tools curriculum ( 16) is based on Vygotsky's insights into EF and its development. Its core is 40 EF-promoting activities, including telling oneself out loud what one should do ("self-regulatory private speech") ( 17), dramatic play ( 18), and aids to facilitate memory and attention ( 19). Tools teachers spent ∼80% of each day promoting EF skills. Tools has been refined through 12 years of research in preschools and kindergartens. Only when EFs were challenged and supported by activities throughout the day did gains generalize to new contexts ( 2).

District's version of Balanced Literacy curriculum (dBL)

The curriculum developed by the school district was based on balanced literacy and included thematic units. Tools and dBL covered the same academic content, but dBL did not address EF development. [For teacher training and fidelity, see ( 2).]

Participants

Data are reported on 147 preschoolers (62 in dBL and 85 in Tools) in their second year of preschool (average age: 5.1 years in both) who received dBL or Tools for 1 or 2 years. Those who entered in year 2 had attended other preschools for a year. All came from the same neighborhood and were randomly assigned to Tools or dBL with no self-selection into either curriculum. All came from low-income families; 78% with yearly income <$25,000 ( 2). After year 1, so convinced were educators in one school that Tools children were doing substantially better than dBL children that they halted the experiment in their school, reducing our sample of dBL children.

Measures of EF

Outcome measures (the Dots task and a Flanker task) were quite different from what any child had done before. These measures are appropriate for ages 4 through adults, assess all three EF components, and require prefrontal cortex ( 20- 21). They were administered in May and June of year 2.

In all conditions of the Dots task ( 20), a red heart or flower appeared on the right or left. In the congruent condition, one rule applied ("press on the same side as the heart"). Dots-Incongruent also required remembering a rule ("press on the side opposite the flower") plus it required inhibition of the tendency to respond on the side where the stimulus appeared. In Dots-Mixed, incongruent and congruent trials were intermixed (taxing all three core EFs). Children were given a lot of time to respond [over five times as long as preschoolers usually take ( 20)].

The central stimulus for our Flanker task was a circle or triangle. Memory demands were minimized by a triangle atop the right-hand key and at the bottom right of the screen, with similar aids for the left-hand circle response. The image to focus on was the small shape in the center; the distractor (or flanker) to be ignored was the larger shape surrounding it. Congruent (e.g., inside ) and incongruent (e.g., Δ inside ) trials were intermixed. Next came "Reverse" Flanker, where children had to focus on the outside shape, inhibiting attention to the inside, plus flexibly switching mindsets and attentional focus. The rules were still "press right for Δ and left for ." Again, children were encouraged to take their time and not to rush.

Independently, NIEER administered academic measures to Tools children only. These are described in ( 2).

Results

We report accuracy rather than speed because, for young children, accuracy is the more sensitive measure ( 23). We conducted multiple regression analyses with age, gender, curriculum, and years in curriculum as independent variables. Interaction terms were insignificant and were dropped. On Dots-Congruent, which had minimal EF demands, children performed similarly regardless of curriculum, year in a curriculum, or gender, though older children performed better.

When an inhibition demand was added (Dots-Incongruent), Tools children significantly outperformed dBL children (see the figure, left of above). Dots-Mixed taxed all three EF skills and was too difficult for most dBL children: Almost twice as many Tools as dBL children achieved >75% correct on training trials (see the figure, right of above).

Our Flanker task, like Dots-Incongruent, taxed inhibition (with minimal memory or flexibility demands). Tools children significantly outperformed dBL children (figure above). On Reverse Flanker, dBL children performed near chance (65% correct), but Tools children averaged 84% correct (see figure, above). Thus, the most demanding Dots and Flanker conditions showed the largest effects; those effects are socially significant because they are sizeable.

Tasks that were more demanding of EFs correlated more strongly with standardized academic measures. For example, "Get Ready to Read" scores correlated 0.05, 0.32, and 0.42 with Dots-Congruent, -Incongruent, and -Mixed, respectively ( 2).

Conclusions

Some think preschool is too early to try to improve EFs. Yet it can be done. EFs can be improved in 4- to 5-year-olds in regular public school classes with regular teachers. Being in Tools accounted for more variance in EFs than did age or gender and remained significant when we controlled for those. These findings of superior scores by Tools children compared with closely matched peers on objective, neurocognitive EF measures are consistent with teachers'observations ( 24).

Although play is often thought frivolous, it may be essential. Tools uses mature, dramatic play to help improve EFs. Yet preschools are under pressure to limit play.

If, throughout the school day, EFs are supported and progressively challenged, benefits generalize and transfer to new activities. Daily EF "exercise" appears to enhance EF development much as physical exercise builds bodies ( 2).

The more EF-demanding the task, the more highly it correlated with academic measures. Superior academic performance has been found for Tools children in other schools and states, with other teachers and comparison curricula ( 24, 25). EFs [especially self-discipline (inhibition)] predict and account for unique variance in academic outcomes independent of and more robustly than does IQ ( 2, 3, 26).

Tools successfully moves children with poor EFs to a more optimal state. It is not known how much it would help children who begin with better EFs.

No study is perfect, and ours is no exception. Before and after measures of EFs, as well as academic measures in dBL children, would have strengthened it. Strengths include random assignment and use of objective measures. No authors or testers had a stake in either curriculum. Many competing explanations have been ruled out ( 2).

Most interventions for at-risk children target consequences of poor EFs rather than seeking prevention, as does Tools. We hypothesize that improving EFs early may have increasing benefits over time and may reduce needs for costly special education, societal costs from unregulated antisocial behavior, and the number of diagnoses of EF disorders [e.g., ADHD and conduct disorder ( 2)].

​

References and Notes

1. Diamond A. In: Lifespan Cognition: Mechanisms of Change. Bialystok E, Craik F, editors. Oxford Univ. Press; New York: 2006. pp. 70-95.

2. See supporting online material for more information.

4. McClelland MM, Morrison FJ, Homes DL. Early Child. Res. Q. 2000;15:307.

5. Rimm-Kaufman SE, Pianta RC, Cox MJ. Early Child. Res. Q. 2000;15:147.

8. Lewin T. Research finds a high rate of expulsions in preschool. New York Times. 2005 May 17;:A12.

9. Gilliam WS. Prekindergarteners Left Behind: Expulsion Rates in State Prekindergarten Systems. Yale Child Studies Center; New Haven, CT: 2005.

10. Kerns KA, Eso K, Thompson J. Dev. Neuropsychol. 1999;16:273.

12. Rueda MR, Rothbart MK, McCandliss BD, Saccomanno L, Posner MI. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2005;102:14931. [ PMC free article]

15. O'Shaughnessy T, et al. Remedial Spec. Educ. 2003;24:27.

16. Bodrova E, Leong DJ. Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education. ed. 2 Merrill/Prentice-Hall; New York: 2007.

17. Luria AR. In: Reading in the Psychology of Cognition. Anderson RC, Ausubel DP, editors. Holt, Rinehart and Winston; New York: 1965. pp. 350-363.

19. Vygotsky LS. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard Press; Cambridge, MA: 1978.

24. Barnett WS, et al. Educational effectiveness of the Tools of the Mind curriculum: A randomized trial. National Institute of Early Education Research, Rutgers University; New Brunswick, NJ: 2006.

25. Saifer S. paper presented at the 17th Annual Conference of the European Early Childhood Education Research Association; Prague, Czech Republic. 29 August 2007.

27. This research was made possible by funding to A.D. from HELP (the Human Early Learning Partnership) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01 DA19685)

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Preschool Program Improves Cognitive Control

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Cognitive control skills important for success in school and life are amenable to improvement in at-risk preschoolers without costly interventions. Executive functions (EFs), also called cognitive control, are critical for success in school and life. Although EF skills are rarely taught, they can be.

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Self-Regulation: The Key to Successful Students?

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Self-Regulation: The Key to Successful Students?

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4. Relations Between Preschool Children's Planning Ability, Self-Regulation and early Literacy Skills

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4. Relations Between Preschool Children's Planning Ability, Self-Regulation and early Literacy Skills

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Many parents, teachers and administrators make the mistake of focusing solely on the academic success of prekindergarten age students.  However, I have always believed that it is more important for a prekindergarten teacher to focus her teaching efforts more on developing socialization skills, self-regulation and executive function as without these skills her efforts to teach academics will be futile.  “In assessing school readiness, teachers tend to value behaviors that reflect higher order or metacognitive skills that enable self regulated learning such as attentiveness, motivation, and the ability to follow directions and not be disruptive. In fact, teachers value these capabilities more than specific academic skills, such as knowing the alphabet or being able to use a pencil (Blair, 2002). Thus, teachers appear to have expectations that competent students will be able to regulate their attention and behavior in the classroom.”  Cultivating the cognitive and behavioral development of these young students is necessary for future academic success.  “In the preschool context children’s learning experiences are setting the stage for their eventual transition to formal schooling. Children who have difficulty with metacognitive skills, like planning, may thus be at a disadvantage in this process of preparation” (Less, 2008, p. 3).
In my own district, kindergarten teachers have been complaining more and more that incoming prekindergarten students entering their kindergarten classrooms are unable to focus, pay attention, or to even sit still long enough appreciate and/or to understand a lesson.  “When preschool children transition to formal schooling, they will also be faced with increasing cognitive and behavioral demands and academic success relies in part on children’s ability to regulate their behavior to be consistent with the behavioral expectations of the classroom (Perry & Weinstein, 1998). The ease with which children are able to negotiate and adapt to these expectations during this transitional period has long-term implications for academic success (Ladd, 1996)” (Less, 2008, p. 2-3).  My district’s answer to this growing concern was the implementation of a new curriculum called “Tools of the Mind”, which infuses self-regulation with academics.
This article discusses a study which examined “individual differences or characteristics of children, such as self-regulatory ability, that may influence both children’s ability to plan and the acquisition of skills that prepare them for formal schooling” (Less, 2008, p. 3).  I would like to improve self-regulation through the use of self-regulation activities of the new curriculum “Tools of the Mind” such as play-planning and graphics practice in an effort to improve my students’ kindergarten readiness.

References:

Less, Adam. (2008).  Relations between preschool children’s planning ability, self-regulation, and early literacy skills.  The Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry at UNF Digital Commons, All Volumes (2001-2008), paper 10.

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Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that you can use to find ideas for all your projects and interests.

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Now! Now! Now!  How to teach patience to kids.

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Now! Now! Now!  How to teach patience to kids.

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Whether you're at the grocery store or the doctor's office, you know to expect a wait at many places you go. It's usually no big deal -- unless, of course, you have a toddler in tow. Your child likely gets loud, fidgety, and whiny at the slightest holdup, and a cringe-worthy meltdown may follow. "At this age, kids don't have the ability to delay gratification," says Pete Stavinoha, Ph.D., a child psychologist at Children's Medical Center in Dallas. Thus, even a short wait may seem never-ending to her. Following these tips will help her start to develop patience -- and enable you to pass the time together pleasantly.

Get Physical

Have your child work off some energy while he's waiting in line. Ask if he can march like a soldier, hop like a frog, or sway like a tree in the wind, suggests Annie Fox, author of Teaching Kids to Be Good People. "Simon says" is another diverting activity for an older toddler. Your child will be so focused on the movements that he'll likely forget about the delay -- at least for a bit.

Play Games

Toddlers love to learn and, like adults, they're proud to share what they know with others, says Maureen Dawn Healy, author of Growing Happy Kids. Let your child show off her smarts by giving her a category, such as animals or food, and having her name some examples. You can also ask her to point out body parts as she sings "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes."

Goof Around

Being silly with your toddler is a great way to distract him. Do some creative editing to his favorite song lyrics ("Row, row, row your shoe, gently down the street") or rhymes ("Humpty Dumpty sat on a cat"). Because your child knows the real words, he'll get a giggle out of your changes. Funny facial expressions work too. Take turns looking happy, sad, angry, and sleepy. You can scrunch your nose and raise your eyebrows. Sound effects work too: Barking like a puppy and buzzing like a bee can delight your little one. (Note: Ignore the funny looks from others in line!)

Be Prepared

You probably already know to pack a snack or a favorite toy for those stuck-in-a-queue situations. It's also a good idea to tote along a picture book or a mini board game that comes out only during long waits, so your child finds them special. Throw some wacky items into the mix, suggests Joni Levine, author of 365 Toddler Activities That Inspire Creativity. Squish some masking tape into a ball and let her try to unstick it, or take turns making different shapes with a piece of aluminum foil.

Give Kudos

When your child behaves well while waiting to mail a package at the post office, you should praise him, says Dr. Stavinoha. Say, "Wow. I know someone who did a really terrific job being patient just now." Your child will let out an excited "Me!" It's a win-win: He feels proud of himself, and because you reinforced his positive behavior he's more likely to repeat it the next time you're delayed.

Originally published in the January 2014 issue of Parents magazine.

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Whether you're at the grocery store or the doctor's office, you know to expect a wait at many places you go. It's usually no big deal -- unless, of course, you have a toddler in tow. Your child likely gets loud, fidgety, and whiny at the slightest holdup, and a cringe-worthy meltdown may follow.

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Patience Song (Learn Patience for Kids - Audio)

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YouTube Video: Bubbles: A Social Skill Activity

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YouTube Video: Bubbles: A Social Skill Activity

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http://www.lianalowenstein.com Bubbles is a technique to help children learn social skills. Therapists, counsellors, and parents can use this activity to teach young children how to follow rules, wait patiently for their turn, share, and say please and thank you.

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YouTube Video: Word of the day: Patience 

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YouTube Video: Word of the day: Patience 

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Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control

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Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control

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"Abby!" Henry said. "Come on!" He and Jocelyn had long ago finished writing the title of the book on their lesson plans. They already had their headphones on. The only thing standing between them and the story was the pencil clutched in their classmate's hand.

G R Y. . . .

"O.K., we're starting," Jocelyn announced. But they didn't start. For all their impatience, they knew the rule of the listening center: You don't start listening to the story until everyone is ready.

"Oh, man," Henry said. He grabbed his face and lowered his head to the desk with a clunk.

C A T E R. . . .

"Let's begin!" Jocelyn said.

"I'm almost done!" Abigail was hopping up and down now. "Don't press it!" She bounced from foot to foot, still writing: P I L. . . .

"I'm pressing it!" Henry said. His finger hovered over the play button on the CD player . . . but it did not fall, not until Abigail etched out her last few letters and put on her headphones. Only then, finally, could the three of them turn the pages together and listen to "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."

When the CD finished, each child took a piece of paper and drew three pictures to illustrate what happened at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the book. Then they captioned each one, first drawing a series of horizontal lines under the pictures, one for each word, and then writing out each word, or an approximation thereof: For "butterfly," Abigail wrote "btrfli." Their language skills were pretty impressive for kindergarten students. But for the teachers and child psychologists running the program in which they were enrolled, those skills were considered secondary - not irrelevant, but not as important as the skills the children displayed before the story started, when all three were wrestling with themselves, fighting to overcome their impulses - in Abby's case, the temptation to give up on writing out the whole title and just submit to the pleas of her friends; for Jocelyn and Henry, the urge to rip the pencil out of Abby's hand and start the CD already.

Over the last few years, a new buzz phrase has emerged among scholars and scientists who study early-childhood development, a phrase that sounds more as if it belongs in the boardroom than the classroom: executive function. Originally a neuroscience term, it refers to the ability to think straight: to order your thoughts, to process information in a coherent way, to hold relevant details in your short-term memory, to avoid distractions and mental traps and focus on the task in front of you. And recently, cognitive psychologists have come to believe that executive function, and specifically the skill of self-regulation, might hold the answers to some of the most vexing questions in education today.

The ability of young children to control their emotional and cognitive impulses, it turns out, is a remarkably strong indicator of both short-term and long-term success, academic and otherwise. In some studies, self-regulation skills have been shown to predict academic achievement more reliably than I.Q. tests. The problem is that just as we're coming to understand the importance of self-regulation skills, those skills appear to be in short supply among young American children. In one recent national survey, 46 percent of kindergarten teachers said that at least half the kids in their classes had problems following directions. In another study, Head Start teachers reported that more than a quarter of their students exhibited serious self-control-related negative behaviors, like kicking or threatening other students, at least once a week. Walter Gilliam, a professor at Yale's child-study center, estimates that each year, across the country, more than 5,000 children are expelled from pre-K programs because teachers feel unable to control them.

There is a popular belief that executive-function skills are fixed early on, a function of genes and parenting, and that other than medication, there's not much that teachers and professionals can do to affect children's impulsive behavior. In fact, though, there is growing evidence that the opposite is true, that executive-function skills are relatively malleable - quite possibly more malleable than I.Q., which is notoriously hard to increase over a sustained period. In laboratory studies, research psychologists have found that with executive function, practice helps; when children or adults repeatedly perform basic exercises in cognitive self-regulation, they get better at it. But when researchers try to take those experiments out of the lab and into the classroom, their success rate is much lower. Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, has spent the last seven years trying to find reliable, repeatable methods to improve self-control in children. When I spoke to her recently, she told me about a six-week-long experiment that she and some colleagues conducted in 2003 with 40 fifth-grade students at a school in Philadelphia.

"We did everything right," she told me: led the kids through self-control exercises, helped them reorganize their lockers, gave them rewards for completing their homework. And at the end of the experiment, the students dutifully reported that they now had more self-control than when they started the program. But in fact, they did not: the children who had been through the intervention did no better on a variety of measures than a control group at the same school. "We looked at teacher ratings of self-control, we looked at homework completion, we looked at standardized achievement tests, we looked at G.P.A., we looked at whether they were late to class more," Duckworth explained. "We got zero effect on everything." Despite that failure, Duckworth says she is convinced that it is possible to boost executive function among children - she just thinks it will require a more complex and thoroughgoing program than the one that she and her colleagues employed. "It's not impossible," she concludes, "but it's damn hard."

Which is why Abigail, Henry and Jocelyn are potentially so important. They and their classmates are enrolled in Tools of the Mind, a relatively new program dedicated to improving the self-regulation abilities of young children, starting as early as age 3. Tools of the Mind is based on the teachings of Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist who died of tuberculosis in 1934, at age 38, and whose educational theories and methods were, until recently, little known in the United States. Over the past 15 years, Deborah Leong and Elena Bodrova, scholars of child development based in Denver, have turned Vygotsky's philosophy into a full-time curriculum for prekindergarten and kindergarten students, complete with training manuals and coaches and professional-development classes for teachers. Tools of the Mind has grown steadily - though its expansion has sped up in the past few years - and it now is being used to teach 18,000 prekindergarten and kindergarten students in 12 states around the country. Leong and Bodrova say they believe they have found the answer to the problem that has bedeviled Duckworth and other psychologists for so long. Their program, they say, can reliably teach self-regulation skills to pretty much any child - poor or rich; typical achievers as well as many of those who are considered to have special needs. (They make the claim that many kids given diagnoses of A.D.H.D. would not need Ritalin if they were enrolled in Tools of the Mind.) And if Leong and Bodrova are right, those improved self-regulation skills will lead not only to fewer classroom meltdowns and expulsions in prekindergarten and kindergarten; they will also lead to better reading and math scores later on.

At the heart of the Tools of the Mind methodology is a simple but surprising idea: that the key to developing self-regulation is play, and lots of it. But not just any play. The necessary ingredient is what Leong and Bodrova call "mature dramatic play": complex, extended make-believe scenarios, involving multiple children and lasting for hours, even days. If you want to succeed in school and in life, they say, you first need to do what Abigail and Jocelyn and Henry have done every school day for the past two years: spend hour after hour dressing up in firefighter hats and wedding gowns, cooking make-believe hamburgers and pouring nonexistent tea, doing the hard, serious work of playing pretend.

Over the last decade or so, the central debate in the field of early-childhood education has been between one group that favors what you might call a preacademic approach to prekindergarten and kindergarten and another group that contends that the point of school in those early years is not to prepare for academic study; it is to allow children to explore the world, learn social skills and have free, unconstrained fun. The preacademic camp began to dominate the debate in the late 1990s, drawing on some emerging research that showed that children's abilities at the beginning of kindergarten were powerful predictors of later success. If a child reached his 5th birthday well behind his peers in measures of cognitive ability, this research showed, he would most likely never catch up. The good news in the research was that if you exposed struggling children to certain intensive reading and math interventions in prekindergarten and kindergarten, when their minds were still at their most pliable, you could significantly reduce or even eliminate that lag. And so the answer, to many scholars and policy makers, was clear: there was no time to waste in those early years on Play-Doh and fingerpainting, not when kids, and especially disadvantaged kids, could be making such rapid advances in the critical cognitive skills they needed.

More recently, though, a backlash has been growing against the preacademic approach among educators and child psychologists who argue that it misses the whole point of early-childhood education. "Kindergarten has ceased to be a garden of delight and has become a place of stress and distress," warned a report released in March by a research group called the Alliance for Childhood, which is advised by some of the country's most esteemed progressive-education scholars. There is now too much testing and too little free time, the report argues, and kids are being forced to try to read before they are ready. The solution, according to the report's authors, is a return to ample doses of "unstructured play" in kindergarten. If kids are allowed to develop at their own paces, they will be happier and healthier and less stressed out. And there will still be plenty of time later on to learn how to read.

On the surface, Bodrova and Leong would seem to belong to the second camp. They say, after all, that play should have a central place in early-childhood classrooms. And they do find fault with the academic approach, arguing that in practice, many of the early-childhood academic initiatives that have been introduced in the No Child Left Behind era have failed to produce any significant improvement in academic skills. At the same time, they don't agree that the solution is unstructured free play. The romantic idea that children are born with flowering imaginations and a natural instinct for make-believe is simply wrong, they say. Especially these days, they contend, when children spend more time in front of screens and less time in unsupervised play, kids need careful adult guidance and instruction before they are able to play in a productive way.

Bodrova and Leong began working together with early-childhood teachers in 1992, soon after Bodrova immigrated from Russia to be a visiting professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver, where Leong was a professor of child development. When they visited local classrooms, they were struck by how out of control things often seemed. It was a period when preschool and kindergarten teachers were taught to "follow the child's lead," to let children guide the learning process with their own interests and unfettered imaginations. In practice, Bodrova and Leong observed, classrooms were often chaotic free-for-alls.

Bodrova and Leong had both studied Vygotsky, and they discussed whether some of his methods might help improve the climate of these classrooms. For Vygotsky, the real purpose of early-childhood education was not to learn content, like the letters of the alphabet or the names of shapes and colors and animals. The point was to learn how to think. When children enter preschool, Vygotsky wrote, they are "slaves to their environment," unable to control their reactions or direct their interests, responding to whatever shiny objects are put in front of them. Accordingly, the most important goal of prekindergarten is to teach children how to master their thoughts. And the best way for children to do that, Vygotsky believed, especially at this early age, is to employ various tools, tricks and habits that train the mind to work at a higher level. So Tools of the Mind students learn to use "private speech" - to talk to themselves as they do a difficult task (like, say, forming the letter W), to help themselves remember what step comes next ( down, up, down, up). They use "mediators": physical objects that remind them how to do a particular task, like CD-size cards, one with a pair of lips and one with an ear, that signify whose turn it is to read aloud in Buddy Reading and whose turn it is to listen. But more than anything, they use play.

Most of Vygotsky's counterparts in the field of child psychology, including influential figures like Jean Piaget and Maria Montessori, held that imaginary play was an immature form of expression, a preliminary stage of development. But Vygotsky maintained that at 4 or 5, a child's ability to play creatively with other children was in fact a better gauge of her future academic success than any other indicator, including her vocabulary, her counting skills or her knowledge of the alphabet. Dramatic play, he said, was the training ground where children learned to regulate themselves, to conquer their own unruly minds. In the United States, we often associate play with freedom, but to Vygotsky, dramatic play was actually the arena where children's actions were most tightly restricted. When a young boy is acting out the role of a daddy making breakfast, he is limited by all the rules of daddy-ness. Some of those limitations come from his playmates: if he starts acting like a baby (or a policeman or a dinosaur) in the middle of making breakfast, the other children will be sure to steer him back to the eggs and bacon. But even beyond that explicit peer pressure, Vygotsky would say, the child is guided by the basic principles of play. Make-believe isn't as stimulating and satisfying - it simply isn't as much fun - if you don't stick to your role. And when children follow the rules of make-believe and push one another to follow those rules, he said, they develop important habits of self-control.

Bodrova and Leong drew on research conducted by some of Vygotsky's followers that showed that children acting out a dramatic scene can control their impulses much better than they can in nonplay situations. In one experiment, 4-year-old children were first asked to stand still for as long as they could. They typically did not make it past a minute. But when the kids played a make-believe game in which they were guards at a factory, they were able to stand at attention for more than four minutes. In another experiment, prekindergarten-age children were asked to memorize a list of unrelated words. Then they played "grocery store" and were asked to memorize a similar list of words - this time, though, as a shopping list. In the play situation, on average, the children were able to remember twice as many words. Bodrova and Leong say they see the same effect in Tools of the Mind classrooms: when their students spend more time on dramatic play, not only does their level of self-control improve, but so do their language skills.

In the past, when psychologists (or parents or teachers or priests) tried to improve children's self-control, they used the principles of behaviorism, reinforcing good and bad behaviors with rewards and punishments. The message to kids was that terrible things would happen if they didn't control their impulses, and the role of adults, whether parents or preschool teachers, was to train children by praising them for their positive self-control ("Look at how well Cindy is sitting!") and criticizing them for their lapses. And in most American prekindergartens and kindergartens, behaviorism, in some form, is still the dominant method. But Bodrova and Leong say that those "external reinforcement systems" create "other-directed regulation" - good behavior done not from some internal sense of control but for the approval of others, to avoid punishment and win praise and treats. And that, they say, is a kind of regulation that is not particularly valuable or lasting. Children learn only how to be obedient, how to follow orders, not how to understand and regulate their own impulses. The ultimate goal of Tools of the Mind is not emotional or physical self-regulation; it is cognitive self-regulation - not the ability to avoid grabbing a toy from the kid next to you (though that's an important first step), but the much more subtle ability to avoid falling for a deceptively attractive wrong answer on a test or to concentrate on an arduous mental task. And those abilities are more difficult to affect by other-directed regulation. Because the abilities are more abstract, they are less likely to be elicited by rewards. Kids are rarely able to organize their thoughts better in order to get an ice-cream cone.

As a result, many practices that most prekindergarten teachers consider essential are more or less banned from Tools of the Mind classrooms. There are no gold stars, no telling the class that they are all going to have to wait until Jimmy is quiet; even timeouts are discouraged. When there is a conflict - when, say, Billy grabs a toy from Jamal - the Tools of the Mind teacher's first questions are supposed to be: What was it in the classroom that made it hard for Billy to control himself? And what mediators could help him do better next time? The teacher does remind Billy that there is a rule and he broke it, but she doesn't make a big deal out of the incident. "We pretty much try not to use this whole concept of misbehavior," Bodrova told me. "These kids are not born criminals. Even if they do something that is completely out of bounds, they do it because they can't stop themselves."

There are not yet firm experimental data that prove that Tools of the Mind works. But two early studies that began in the late 1990s in Denver showed some promising results: After a year in the program, students did significantly better than a similar group on basic measures of literacy ability. And more recent studies, including one overseen by Adele Diamond, a professor at the University of British Columbia who is one of the most prominent researchers in the field of cognitive self-control, have shown that Tools students consistently score higher on tests requiring executive function. Angela Duckworth told me that when she read Diamond's report, which was published in Science in 2007, "I got very excited." Her failed 2003 study had persuaded her that the usual approach to self-control in early-childhood education, a brief intervention here or there, wouldn't work. But Tools of the Mind was clearly a different strategy. "It's an immersion approach," she said. "It's not that these kids are pulled out and they do self-control for half an hour a day. Everything is about self-regulation, every single moment. Everything about the culture that the classroom creates reinforces that."

It's one of the reasons that visiting a Tools of the Mind classroom can cause moments of cognitive dissonance. While there's a lot of dressing up and playing with blocks, plenty of messing around with sand tables and Legos and jigsaw puzzles, there are also a few activities that seem not just grown-up but protocorporate, borrowed directly from the modern office. Every morning, before embarking on the day's make-believe play, each child takes a colored marker and a printed form called a play plan and draws or writes his declaration of intent for that day's play: "I am going to drive the choo-choo train"; "I am going to make a sand castle"; "I am going to take the dollies to the beach." At the beginning of prekindergarten, children are coached on dramatic play - called Make-Believe Play Practice - with the teacher leading the children, step by step, through the mechanics of pretending. (The training manual describes how a teacher might coach a child to feed a baby doll: "I'm pretending my baby is crying. Is yours? What should we say?") In kindergarten, every student carries around a clipboard with the day's activities on it - that's what Abigail was writing on at the listening center - and each Friday, every child has a 5- or 10-minute "learning conference" with his teacher, a mini-performance review in which the children discuss what they accomplished in the last week, where they fell short and what skills they want to work on in the week to come. All of these practices, along with plenty of others that fill the day, are designed to reinforce habits of self-control.

This comprehensiveness creates an extra level of complication for researchers examining Tools of the Mind. There are now four separate large-scale long-term experimental studies under way across the country. But even if the researchers do find, in a few years, that the program has long-term effects on executive function and school performance, they still won't know exactly which techniques in the Tools of the Mind package are the most useful, or whether they all need to be employed in concert in order to have an effect. Stephanie M. Carlson, a professor of child psychology at the University of Minnesota who studies executive function, told me she is impressed with what she has seen so far of Tools of the Mind. But, she pointed out, "it's a really heavy-hitting approach, and there are a lot of different techniques used during the course of the day. What we don't know is what the secret ingredient is." It might be all the dramatic play, but it also might be the literacy practice, or the learning conferences, or something else entirely.

In the end, the most lasting effect of the Tools of the Mind studies may be to challenge some of our basic ideas about the boundary between work and play. Today, play is seen by most teachers and education scholars as a break from hard work or a reward for positive behaviors, not a place to work on cognitive skills. But in Tools of the Mind classrooms, that distinction disappears: work looks a lot like play, and play is treated more like work. When I asked Duckworth about this, she said it went to the heart of what was new and potentially important about the program. "We often think about play as relaxing and doing what you want to do," she explained. "Maybe it's an American thing: We work really hard, and then we go on vacation and have fun. But in fact, very few truly pleasurable moments come from complete hedonism. What Tools does - and maybe what we all need to do - is to blur the line a bit between what is work and what is play. Just because something is effortful and difficult and involves some amount of constraint doesn't mean it can't be fun."

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Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?

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"Abby!" Henry said. "Come on!" He and Jocelyn had long ago finished writing the title of the book on their lesson plans. They already had their headphones on. The only thing standing between them and the story was the pencil clutched in their classmate's hand. G R Y. . .

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Strategies for Teaching Important Social Skills to Young Children

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Strategies for Teaching Important Social Skills to Young Children

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Can We Keep All the Crickets in the Basket

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Can We Keep All the Crickets in the Basket

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Self-Regulation as a Predictor of Academic Abilities

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Self-Regulation as a Predictor of Academic Abilities

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Self-Regulation: A Foundation for Early Learning

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Self-Regulation: A Foundation for Early Learning

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9. Schooling Effects on Preschoolers' Self-Regulation, Early Literacy and Language Growth

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9. Schooling Effects on Preschoolers' Self-Regulation, Early Literacy and Language Growth

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The majority of my students I usually have for two years, however, I do receive some students who are with me only one year.  I have always wondered if it made a difference whether students who had 2 years of prekindergarten leaned more towards academic achievement with regard to emergent literacy than students who only had one year of prekindergarten.  This study examines just that.  The study also takes into account the age of the students as well as how many years of prekindergarten they had.  The results show that “two years predicted greater gains overall than did one year of preschool” (Skibbe, et al., 2011, p. 42).  This study also discusses the importance of developing self-regulation along with academics on the prekindergarten level.
References:
Skibbe, L., McDonald Conner, C., Morrison, F. & Jewkes, A. (2010). Schooling effects on preschoolers’ self-regulation, early literacy, and language growth. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 26 (2011) 42 - 49.

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Tools of the Mind: Play Planning and Self-Regulation

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Tools of the Mind: Play Planning and Self-Regulation

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Many of the programs we're working with now were interested before they had access to funding-so don't give up!

Some programs write grants to cover the training and materials costs, so this is an option. Other programs do a tiered rollout of Tools, beginning with Tools in a few classrooms with teachers who are invested and interested, building in more classrooms over the course of several years. This can be a good way to launch Tools in a program.

We also have an annual scholarship, the Carolyn Boyles Scholarship, awarded to one classroom each year, covering the cost of training, and encourage you to apply! We're working on other options too--virtual training models, to reduce the cost of training and make it accessible to remote sites unable to access our Regional Training Workshops.

In the meantime, you can still get started! We encourage you to start a Tools of the Mind Study group with your teachers, and read our book, Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education. Come see us and introduce yourself at one of our presentations at state and national conferences and reach out and contact us if you want to hear more about how other administrators put together funding to launch Tools in their program.

Which of these resources would be most helpful to you at this time?

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Preschool Program Improves Cognitive Control - Tools of the Mind

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Many of the programs we're working with now were interested before they had access to funding-so don't give up! Some programs write grants to cover the training and materials costs, so this is an option.

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2. Tools of the Mind: A case Study of Implementing the Vygotskian Approach In American Early Childhood and Primary Classrooms

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2. Tools of the Mind: A case Study of Implementing the Vygotskian Approach In American Early Childhood and Primary Classrooms

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This study focuses on the implementation of Vygotsky’s approach to education preschool children with regard to self-regulation and emergent literacy.  I find this article to be very informational for me because it gives suggestions that are useful in my classroom. For example, Tools stresses scaffolding, private speech, and use of external mediators to name a few.  I especially appreciate the play-planning samples.

References:

Bodrova, E. & Leong, D. J. (2001). Tools of the mind: a case study of implementing the vygotskian approach in american early childhood and primary classrooms. International Bureau of Education,UNESCO, Geneva, Switzerland.

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3. Effectiveness of the Tools Curriculum: A Randomized Trial  

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3. Effectiveness of the Tools Curriculum: A Randomized Trial  

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Presently one of the biggest issues prekindergarten in my district is facing are the numerous complaints of the “ineffectiveness” of Tools of the Mind from kindergarten teachers in district.  In our defense, Tools is new to us as we just received the curriculum and initial trainings just last school year.  This curriculum was new to us as well as our students and we were still trying to find our way as trainings were usually rushed and or cut short due to trainings being half-day as opposed to full day trainings.  Even our trainers were complaining that they were not given enough time to properly and adequately train the teachers.  I found this article interesting because it focused on the effectiveness of the curriculum with regard to literacy, which was one of the main concerns kindergarten teachers have.

References:

Barnett, W. S., Jung, K., Yarosz, D., Thomas, J., & Hornbeck, A. (2008). Educational effects of the tools of the mind curriculum: a randomized study. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 23 (3), 299-313.

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5. Experimental Evaluation of the Tools of the Mind Pre-K Curriculum

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5. Experimental Evaluation of the Tools of the Mind Pre-K Curriculum

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As increasing complaints of entering kindergarteners lack of self-regulation skills began to pour in, my district’s response was to change the prekindergarten curriculum from Success for All’s “Curiosity Corner” which is heavily focused on emergent literacy to “Tools of the Mind” which focuses heavily on self-regulation and incorporates academics as well.  This study evaluates the effectiveness of the Tools of the Mind curriculum from 2010-2012 in Tennessee and North Carolina.  I found this study interesting because this year it was brought to my attention, as the prekindergarten lead, that kindergarten teachers were complaining that Tools of the Mind had not been effective because they felt their entering kindergarteners still lacked self-regulation and emergent literacy and math skills.  However, many of our graduating Pre-K students transferred out or relocated to other schools in district.  Our 4 kindergarten classrooms only have about 8 to 10 of our Tools students. There are approximately 90 kindergarten students.  Also, the majority of their new students never attended prekindergarten programs where Tools of the Mind was used.  I found it interesting that the results of the study showed, “There were no differences between children in Tools classrooms and comparison classrooms on any measure of achievement, self-regulation or teacher ratings in Pre-K and kindergarten.”
References:
Farran, D., & Lipsey, M. (2012). Experimental evaluation of the tools of the mind pre-k curriculum.

Peabody Research Institute, Nashville, Tennessee.

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6. Teacher Observations on the Implementation of the Tools of the Mind Curriculum  of the Classroom

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6. Teacher Observations on the Implementation of the Tools of the Mind Curriculum  of the Classroom

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Since Tools of the Mind was introduced to our district I have always wondered what other teachers’ experiences were with the curriculum and how they felt about it.  In this particular study teachers were interviewed around the implementation of Tools of the mind in preschool as well as kindergarten classrooms.  The article discusses challenges with program implementation and/or trainings, as well as curriculum effectiveness.  In my own district Tools was not received well.  I attributed that to people’s natural aversion to change.  Our district had used Success For All’s "Curiosity Corner" and "Kindercorner" since 2000.  In 2012 we changed the curriculum to Tools and many teachers complained about it before even knowing and understanding what it actually was.  I find this article interesting because it contains valuable information or program feedback that I could bring back to my colleagues in prekindergarten. My feeling is if they did not receive Tools with an open mind it is very possible that the curriculum may not have been implemented properly, thus making it seem as if the curriculum was ineffective for the students who moved on to kindergarten this year.

References:

Imholz, S., Petrosino, A. (2012). Beyond Comprehension. Creative Education, v3, n2, 185-192.

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Tools of the Mind: Curriculum Philosophy

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Tools of the Mind: Curriculum Philosophy

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Lev Vygotsky

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1. Self-Regulation and Academic Achievement in the Transition to School

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1. Self-Regulation and Academic Achievement in the Transition to School

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In this article Morrison, McClelland, and Ponitz (2012) “examine self-regulation and its role in academic development, focusing on the transition to formal schooling” (p. 2).  It focuses on the links between behavioral and emotional self-regulation skills in relation to academic achievement noting the growing concerns and complaints of kindergarten teachers, “Kindergarten teachers agree that similar skills – like following directions, paying attention, and working independently – while critical for school success, are deficient in many children (McClelland, Morrison, & Holmes, 2000; Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, & Cox, 2000)” (Morrison, McClelland, & Ponitz, 2012, p. 5).  This study also examines the terms behavior regulation and executive function.  I agree with this findings in this article that students with strong emotional and behavioral regulation skills, and executive functions tend to be more successful academically than those who lack these crucial skills.  “Considerable evidence links children’s effective management of their emotions to positive behavioral and academic outcomes (Eisenberg, Smith, Sadovsky, & Spinrad, 2004; Graziano, Reavis, Keane, & Calkins, 2006; Howse et al., 2003). In contrast, children who cannot control their emotions are more likely to act out, behave aggressively, and oppose the perspectives and requests of others (Graziano et al., 2006; Raver, 2004) (Morrison, et al., 2012, p. 7-8).

References:

Morrison, F., Ponitz, C., & McClelland, M. (2012). Self-regulation and academic achievement in the transition to school.
Amercian Psychological Association, 1-4.