NAEYC Standard 1. Promoting child development and learning
1a. Knowing and understanding young children’s characteristics and needs
1b. Knowing and understanding the multiple influences on development and learning
1c. Using developmental knowledge to create healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging learning environments
As a teacher, I understand that to promote child development and learning, early childhood educators must understand young children’s characteristics and needs. This knowledge makes me understand how children grow and develop across all areas, to include cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, physical, language and other areas like play and motivation to learn.
After taking the Infant and Toddler program course (CHD166), I learned all about infant and toddler development. I used my knowledge from what I had learned to create a children’s book that promotes child learning and development through sensory play. The book I created was called, “Who Am I?” This book contains a series of animal masks that the adult can put over their face book that helps children learn about different animals to include how they look and the sounds they make. This is a short, simple, easy to use, and safe book for young children. This interactive book advances the game of peek-a-boo.
Children at this age will incorporate other’s actions into their own play. When they see adults do it they will start doing the same thing too. This book gives children an opportunity to talk and make sounds in order to promote language development. This is also an interactive toy book that promotes social development for children because they will want to interact with adults or other children to ask them what animal they are. I’ve learned that children at this age become more interested in interacting with adults and peers, and they are eager to learn and investigate objects with their hands, mouth, eyes, and ears. For toddlers they will get to turn the page of the book with the help of its thick pages. This supports their fine motor skills too. I feel that my book was successful but is only stimulating for young children ages 2 and under. I say this because I tried this book with a three year old and it got her attention at first then when we finished she didn’t want to do it again. The concept is too simple for older children. This made me realize that when creating activities for older children I need to create activities that allow them to more creative and open so they don’t get bored.
I have learned about child development in all of the various development areas. Knowing and understanding children’s development within all of the different developmental areas is fundamental for me and my career choice of being an early childhood educator. I believe each child has the ability to learn and they do so in their own way and at their own speed, so I will use this knowledge when teaching and developing my curriculum. I have learned that there are many different environmental influences on children’s learning and development, and in knowing this I will creative a positive and welcoming learning environment for children in my classroom while supporting and challenging my students. After learning about children’s characteristics and needs, I realize that it is very important to have knowledge about the theories and research about child learning and development to include what children in different age groups are capable of, and what material and activities will best promote their learning and development. From this knowledge I will able to plan and create appropriate materials and activities that will best support their learning based on their knowledge level and interests. I have learned to teach my students not only as a group, but also to adapt and adjust material for individual needs that will help each individual and promote their learning and development. Finally, I have also learned to be creative while using my own knowledge to develop and think about the benefits and goals from creating my own
learning material.