Developmentally Appropriate Practice for young children
A developmentally appropriate practice is an essential procedure that should be undertaken to ensure that the young children excel in the early childhood education. Through developing an appropriate practice for the young children, a proper framework is established that will ensure the children perform better in the examinations. Young children unlike the adults, require some time to be capable of learning a new concept (Gronlund, 2007). For this reason, the young children cannot be taught as adults since there understanding level is still developing. This implies that the children will require more time to be capable to grasp a given concept. Therefore, this paper will focus on the factors that ought to be considered when designing a developmentally appropriate activity for young children.
Another technique that the teacher can use to ensure that the children are capable of giving proper performance in the classroom involves playing games in-between the lessons. Children tend to understand a given concept better when playing to games rather than reading books and copying notes. The teacher should involve games and other activities such as singing during the classes. This will ensure that the children remain focused during the lesson and understand the required concepts. Since the children like playing, they will be able to learn from the other children during playing of games (Gronlund, 2007).
Conversations during the games will ensure that the children learn new vocabulary and new ideas from the other children. The characteristics of the young children are also different from that of the adults hence implying that the developmentally appropriate program should be implemented. Young children are more active and move from one place to another. Teachers should be capable to include moving activities in the learning activity to promote the learning activity (Hobart & Frankel, 2005).
In teaching the young children, the teacher should use practical examples that will require movement. This will ensure that all the young children remain focused and participate during the classes. Throughout the lessons, the teacher should permit the children to play games. However, active and lesson learning games should be used to avoid fighting and hatred among the children. The games usually encourage dialogues between the children hence promoting the language in which the children speak. Children rarely get shy and should be asked to repeat a given concept to understand it better.
Children have limited attention span that can only allow the children to concentrate for an exceptionally short period. Long lessons will make the young children to become less active in the lessons or even dizzy. For this reason, the teachers should involve the children in other active programs to reduce boredom in the children. Boredom in the young children will automatically destruct the young children hence affecting their grasping power (Gronlund, 2007). Therefore, the teacher should create a developmentally program that keeps the children awake. In a single lesson, the teacher should ask the young children to play games, sing a song and practice to handwrite. The diverse lessons should be well distributed to ensure that the children remain active in the entire lesson.
References
Gronlund, G. (2007). Make Early Learning Standards Come Alive: Connecting Your Practice
and Curriculum to State Guidelines, New York: Redleaf Press
Hobart, C., & Frankel, J. (2005). A practical guide to activities for young children. Cheltenham:
Nelson Thornes
