The Long Island Pre-K Initiative is proud to be part of Long Island's Regional Technical Assistance Center for Pre-K and Early Education. Visit its web page for links to all partner organizations. Many have important COVID-19-related resources to offer: www.nassauboces.org/rtac
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How can you make ideas more memorable for children? Use gestures. |
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Most teachers will explain to young students the definition of an equal sign by instinctively moving his or her hands in predictable ways, pointing to the symbol, sweeping a hand toward the left and right side of the equation on the board. Maybe the teacher would even hold both palms up in a balancing gesture to demonstrate equivalency.
An article in Mind/Shift asks you to imagine this teacher giving the same lesson with the same words, but with her hands on the desk or flat at her sides. If that were the case, students would be much less likely to understand the concept of an equal sign.
Susan Wagner Cook, an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Iowa, says that with all lessons in any subject area, children learn better with gestures. “Gesture seems to build understanding across really abstract things and really concrete things - numbers, words, a whole bunch of stuff,” she says.
According to the article, research suggests that “when we see and use gestures, we recruit more parts of the brain than when we use language alone, and we may activate more memory systems, such as procedural memory (the type that stores automatic processes such as how to type and/or ride a bike) in addition to our memory for events and experiences.”
Many researchers are studying “embodied cognition,” which is the theory that our thoughts are shaped by the experiences of our body. For example, when we hear verbs such as lick, pick and kick, they activate the parts of the brain responsible for the tongue, hands and legs.
Arthur Glenberg, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University, is attempting to utilize these studies to help struggling readers succeed. He and his colleagues have invented a version of an iPad-based system called EMBRACE, that allows children to move characters and props around on a touch screen, essentially bringing them to life. Glenberg has also tested an early version of the system called Moved by Reading, with his subjects being struggling readers, including children with learning disabilities. He found a large increase in comprehension.
Cook’s advice to teachers is to use their hands as much as possible. “Make sure you don’t always have your smartboard controller in your hand. And if the students have their backs to you, it’s not as good." As so much of education is now depending on technology and virtual instruction, it is especially important that instructors utilize “under-appreciated aspects of human interaction that engage both the body and mind.”
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Let’s bicker! How dramatic play and bickering teach children collaboration |
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Young children need time and space to figure out how best to collaborate. According to an article by Tom Hobson in Edutopia, a key tool in doing this is bickering. Hobson recalls overhearing an argument between two children in which they each insisted on being a polar bear baby and a tiger baby in their pretend play scenario.
“Dramatic play, like all fiction, is about the imagination, a place where truth is, at best, subjective,” he writes, reflecting on the game in which both children were asserting something that simply wasn’t true - neither were animal babies. He notes that adults often get involved when these types of arguments ensue, but “games like this are crucial for children seeking to understand their world.” Hobson says that, “counterfactual thinking is always the first step in changing the world from what it is to what it could be.”
Why is dramatic play crucial? Children learn a variety of skills through counterfactual play. “It gives them the opportunity to work on understanding what goes on in other people’s minds,” says Hobson. He also posits that it lays the foundation for literacy, and reinforces negotiation, compromise and agreement.
We often feel that dramatic play is silly, and that it simply keeps children busy. It certainly has a bad reputation for creating arguments, especially over “truth,” but what children are actually doing is exercising their imagination and creativity.
Adults want to control or guide bickering amongst children. After all, it can lead to yelling or, sometimes, violence. Hobson believes that when left to their own devices, children use bickering as a tool that allows them to create agreement. They must compromise to keep their game going. If children are given time and space, they will “invariably make a suggestion, beginning with the most perfect word of invitation in the English language: ‘Let’s…’ Let’s pretend we’re pirates! Let’s build our castle here! Let’s be baby tigers!’" If adults stay out of the disagreement, they will “bring a collaborative world of truth and bickering into existence, one that makes tomorrow.”
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Have you registered for this year's conference yet? Don't miss "Best Practices for Teaching Pre-K & K!" |
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November 2, 2021
8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Online via Zoom
A virtual conference for Pre-K and Kindergarten educators - teachers, teacher assistants, administrators, directors and early educational practitioners.
Registration: $75 per person
Keynote Speakers:
- Bari Koral: Mindfulness, Toe-ga, Kids Yoga for
Social Distancing
- Todd Parr: Love and Tacos
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Meet keynote speaker and bestselling author and illustrator Todd Parr!
Have you ever wondered what it takes to become a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator? Meet
Todd Parr, who has written and illustrated more than sixty-five books for children. At the “Best Practices for Teaching Pre-K & K” conference he’ll be sharing a motivational and uplifting presentation about his journey from flight attendant to critically acclaimed artist, and his first-hand knowledge of the importance of literacy. He inspires children around the world with hopeful messages such as "be kind," "love yourself" and "be who you are." Amidst sharing recipes for tacos and photos of his three adopted pitbulls, Parr enjoys reminding teachers that their words can shape someone's life.
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Books for the last days of summer that splash into math |
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Summer is almost over, but that doesn’t mean reading has to end! An article from the Erickson Institute suggests some fun books about water and ocean adventures that provoke mathematical thinking:
Splash by Ann Jonas: Dogs, cats, frogs and other animals hop and fall in and out of a pond, and readers are left to figure out how many are still in the water. Authors Cody Meirick and Jeanine Brownell suggest having children act the story out by draping a blue blanket or tablecloth on the floor to be the pond. Children can take turns jumping in and out of the water, or they can demonstrate the same action with stuffed animals.
Ten Little Fish by Audrey Wood: A book that helps children learn counting sequences, Fish centers on a fish that loses the school of friends around him. The book counts up and down when the fish finds a mate and they start a family.
Blue Sea, Robert Kalan: A book of patterns, “big” and “small” fish chase each other or race to get away. The book explores questions about number operations, as well as size and measurements.
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The Long Island Pre-K Initiative is a collaborating partner in the state-funded Long Island Regional Technical Assistance Center for Pre-K and Early Childhood Education. |
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71 Clinton Rd. Garden City, NY 11530-9195
Phone: 516-396-2220
www.nassauboces.org/pre-k
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