NAEYC Standard 4. Using Developmentally Effective Approaches to Connect with Children and Families
4a Understanding positive relationships and supportive interactions as the foundation of their work with children
4b. Knowing and understanding effective strategies and tools for early education
4c. Using a broad repertoire of developmentally appropriate teaching/learning approaches
4d. Reflecting on their own practice to promote positive outcomes for each child
As a teacher of young children, I’ll use effective, researched and proven strategies to promote children’s learning and development by teaching through warm social interactions and addressing children’s challenging behavior. Since children are so young they lack life experience so they need to be guided in appropriate ways and have someone to look up to. I will build a rich environment for the children; one that is healthy, promotes respect and support, and also can challenge the children. I’ll also maintain warm and nurturing interactions with each child so they can trust in me and build confidence in themselves. A positive relationship between children and teacher can benefit children many ways in their learning.
Through the course, Guiding the Behavior of Children (CHD 205), I learned to help children handle their challenging behavior from the article response assignment, “Practical Strategies for Teachers.” In this assignment I learned about different strategies and tools that can be used to encourage young children’s social and emotional development. I chose to write about three tools: 1) scripted stories for social situations - which are short PowerPoint presentations that contain a mixture of words and pictures that provide specific information to a child about social situations, 2) book nook; These guides were created especially for teachers to provide hands on ways to embed social emotional skill building activities into everyday routines, and 3) teaching social skills which are tools that include a variety of activities and materials to help children promote self-regulation and problem solving. All of these strategies will help children reduce mistaken behavior and solve their own problems and help them to develop life skills.
I found this article to be very useful and informative. I’ll use the tools discussed in my classroom in the future to help promote children’s social-emotional development. I like the idea of using children’s stories in a format such as a book or power point. These stories will get children’s attention since the stories are similar to their situations. I also found it to be beneficial to base the techniques on the children’s interests. I hope this will help children learn effective strategies.
In my profession, I have learned to select and use developmentally effective approaches to create high quality learning environments for children, which challenge them and get them excited about learning. At the same time, they are learning concepts that are appropriate for their age and development level. I have learned about the importance of building positive, trusting, and nurturing relationships with children when working with them. I understand that children need someone they can trust in, talk openly to, and believe in them and what they can do. I have also learned about the different tools and strategies that can be used to build positive relationships with children while teaching them new concepts in class. It is very important to understand children’s characteristics and use that knowledge when creating the curriculum. This can be such things as teaching them through social interaction, and addressing children’s challenging behaviors. As a professional early childhood educator, all of these different elements are very important to connect with children and their families.