This post will continue the discussion of early literacy. We will look at the components of Visual Discrimination and Visual Whole-Part-Whole Relationships with their learning expectations and performance indicators. Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).
We will start with the component, Visual Discrimination, with the learning expectation: Discriminates likenesses/differences in real objects. The performance indicator is: Identifies which objects are the same or different in color, shape, size, texture. This one will depend on how much exposure the child has had with these types of concepts. Some 3 year olds are so immature that they are still dealing with social/emotional issues and do not even pay enough attention to their environment to notice sameness and differentness. Some 3 year olds conquer this early in their 3rd year because they have had a lot of exposure as 2 year olds to these types of concepts. As I have stated before, starting around children's second birthday the span of ability begins to widen greatly among even typically developing children. When you add in children with developmental delays, that span can be enormous. Children need to have adults discuss these concepts with them on a regular basis for them to develop these skills on a typical timetable. Unfortunately, many children will not get this exposure or enough of that type of exposure to meet the typical timetable.
The next learning expectation is: Discriminates likenesses/differences in pictured objects. The performance indicator is: Can discriminate which pictured objects are alike or different based on color, shape, size, number. This one is harder than the previous one. Many children have to see things in the real world first to discriminate these likenesses and differences. Most of these children are right-brain dominant. Left-brain dominate children find it much easier to process the abstract nature of pictures as opposed to real objects. Right-brain dominant children must first learn this concept using real tangible objects before they can transfer to the same concept in pictures. Keep this in mind when exposing children to the concept of same and different. Start with real objects before you do pictures of objects unless you know for certain you are dealing with a left-brain dominant child.
Now we will move on to the component: Visual Whole-Part-Whole Relationships. The learning expectation for this one is: Develops awareness of parts and wholes and how the parts relate to the whole. The first performance indicator is: Completes puzzles of 4 to 10 pieces; notices and identifies missing parts and common objects; constructs a simple block design, using a model. The performance indicator hits a lot of skills that have fallen by the wayside with many children. How many of you have children that take all the pieces out of the puzzles and just leave them that way? These children do not even try to put them back together. How many of you have children that use blocks to fill containers and dump them out and do not even attempt to build anything? That seems to be the norm these days, and children that actually do puzzles and build with blocks are the exception. I have four year olds that could not identify missing parts and common objects. This particular skill absolutely requires adult instruction and lots of it. For the last 3 or 4 years I have had to teach children how to do puzzles and how to build with blocks. For those experts that think children will naturally gravitate to these types of activities, I would like for them to work on the front lines of childcare nowadays. They just might change their tune.
The last performance indicator for that learning component is: Finds hidden figure pictures. I almost laughed out loud over this one. Want to completely frustrate a child nowadays? Hand them a hidden picture book and start timing. The whining will start in less than a minute. Persistence is one of those traits that children do not have these days. If you have a child that loves hidden picture books, that child is probably in the top 10% of his/her age group if not less than 10%. Those children are rare indeed. I have to make the children in my childcare stay after it when we do hidden picture activities. It took all of them months and months of exposure to actually start to become proficient at that activity. It takes persistence and patience and attention to detail to do well on that type of activity. I should not have to say much about the lack of all of the above in the majority of today's children. This activity will take lots of persistence on your part, but teaching persistence, patience, and attention to detail will be worth all the whining, complaining, and hissy fits that might ensue when you introduce this one.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!!
Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
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