We are still in the component: Listens with understanding and interest to conversations, directions, music, and a variety of reading materials. The first performance indicator for this post is: Understands simple, then more complex, sequences of events. It has been my experience that children will little exposure to the concept of sequencing struggle with this concept. Children that have had good exposure pick up on this concept and run with it. Therefore, if you have a group of 4 year olds that have had little exposure with sequencing, you will need to start with simple sequencing and slowly build to more complex sequencing activities. Building sequencing activities in your schedule helps this process immensely. If you do certain activities in the same order every day or week, then it will be easier for children to pick up on the concept. However, this does not guarantee that all children will pick it up easily. It will be necessary to discuss with them on a consistent basis the order of events to give them constant practice. Sequencing does not come naturally to many children.
The last performance indicator for this learning expectation is: Understands concept of more/less, full/empty, which lays a foundation for math concepts. Most 4 year olds do conquer this particular performance indicator. However, I have learned to never assume anything when it comes to what a child does/does not know. Make sure to ask the child to demonstrate understanding of this concept. If a problem occurs, it usually occurs in the more/less category when actual counting of objects is required. When a situation is obvious visually, the majority of children know when a group has more/less objects. If a child has no understanding of full/empty, that usually denotes lack of experience with the concept. It completely blows my mind how so many concepts seem to be falling through the cracks from lack of experiences.
Now we will move on to the component - Expressive Language. The first learning expectation is: Uses language for a variety of purposes. The first performance indicator is: Likes telling and retelling stories, poems, and songs. Most 4 year old children like to tell and retell stories. However, many times you can tell a great deal about that child's language development by the coherence of those stories. I can also tell how much a child has been read to in his/her life by the coherence of the stories they tell. A child that has had good experiences with books and having stories read to him/her will be able to tell stories that have a definite beginning, middle, and end. Children that have not had good experiences with books and having stories read to him/her will tell stories that ramble without point or plot. As far as retelling poems, only those children in high quality programs or that have academically devoted stay-at-home moms will even be familiar with the concept of a poem. Nursery rhymes no longer have the same place in childhood that they once held. As far as songs are concerned, most children will sing the songs in which they have the most experience. Sometimes this can be a problem in a childcare setting if that involves certain popular music on the radio. Some of those songs are vulgar and completely inappropriate for preschool age children. Therefore, make sure you provide many opportunities for age appropriate music in your setting to give these children something decent to sing.
The last performance indicator for this post is: Tells the sequence of a story without pictures. To be truthful, I do not know very many 4 year olds that can accurately tell a story with the pictures. Only the very top 5% of children today can tell a story without picture prompts. It is a sad reality of today's culture. Children are not read to often enough to conquer this particular performance indicator. In all honesty, American children have struggled with this one for decades. Even though children 10, 20, or 30 years ago had adults read to them more than children today, most of them did not get enough experience to handle this particular performance indicator at 4 years old. Reading to children is so important. If every single American parent would make a commitment to read aloud to his/her child(ren) every day, we would have such a surge in academic performance it would be astounding. Alas, most parents do not make the time to read to their children. That leaves it to the childcare providers to fill in the gap, but group readings will never have the same impact as that one-on-one contact between a parent, child, and a good book.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! https://linktr.ee/natawade
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