The Intentional Teacher

1 IThe Intentional TeacherChoosing the Best Strategies for Young Children s LearningAnn S. EpsteinNational Association for the Education of Young ChildrenWashington, , 12:01 PM1iiThe Intentional TeacherNational Association for the Education of Young Children1313 L Street NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20005-4101202-232-8777 or Intentional Teacher : Choosing the Best Strategies for Young Children s LearningCopyright 2007 by the National Association for the Education of Young rights reserved. Printed in the United States of its publications program the National Association for the Education of YoungChildren (NAEYC) provides a forum for discussion of major issues and ideas in theearly childhood field, with the hope of provoking thought and promoting professionalgrowth. The views expressed or implied in this book are not necessarily those of Copple, publications director; Bry Pollack, managing editor; Malini Dominey, designand production; Lisa Bowles, editorial associate; Natalie Klein Cavanagh, photo editor;Susan A.

2 Liddicoat, consultant editor; Laura Power, of Congress Control Number: 2006939553 ISBN: 978-1-928896-41-8 NAEYC Item #165 Photographs copyright by: Nancy Alexander 107; Susan Klein 1; Jean-Claude Lejeune i;Lois Main front cover (top left); Elisabeth Nichols front cover (top right), front cover (bottomleft); Ellen B. Senisi front cover (bottom right), back cover, 41; Michael Siluk 23;Renaud Thomas 9, 67, 87; Francis Wardle , 12:01 PM2ivThe Intentional TeacherContentsAcknowledgmentsviPreface Why The Intentional Teacher ?vii* * *1. Introducing Intentional teaching 1 Intentional teaching Terms22. Best Practices for Intentional teaching 9An Overview of Best Practice 10 Using Best Practices to Support IntentionalTeaching 213. Language and Literacy 23 Young Children s Development in Languageand Literacy24 teaching and Learning in Languageand Literacy25 Fitting the Learning Experience to the LearningObjective 26 Language26 Child-guided experience26 Adult-guided experience 28 Reading32 Child-guided experience32 Adult-guided experience 35 Writing37 Child-guided experience37 Adult-guided experience 384.

3 Mathematics and Scientific Inquiry 41 Scientific Inquiry and Its Relationship toMathematics 42 Young Children s Development in Mathematics andScientific Inquiry43 teaching and Learning in Mathematics andScientific Inquiry45 Computer Technology46 Fitting the Learning Experience to the LearningObjective 49 Number and Operations49 Child-guided experience50 Adult-guided experience 52 Geometry and Spatial Sense54 Child-guided experience55 Adult-guided experience 56 Measurement 58 Child-guided experience58 Adult-guided experience 59 Patterns, Functions, and Algebra60 Child-guided experience60 Adult-guided experience 62 Data Analysis63 Child-guided experience63 Adult-guided experience , 12:01 PM4v5. Social Skills and Understandings 67 How Social Studies Fits In68 Young Children s Development in Social Skills andUnderstandings69 teaching and Learning in Social Skills andUnderstandings69 Fitting the Learning Experience to the LearningObjective 71 Emotional Learning 71 Child-guided experience71 Adult-guided experience 73 Social Learning 76 Child-guided experience76 Adult-guided experience 806.

4 Physical Movement 87 Young Children s Development in PhysicalMovement89 teaching and Learning in Physical Movement90 Fitting the Learning Experience to the LearningObjective 94 Movement Skills 94 Child-guided experience95 Adult-guided experience 97 Movement Concepts99 Child-guided experience100 Adult-guided experience 1027. The Visual Arts 107 Young Children s Development in theVisual Arts 108 teaching and Learning in the Visual Arts110 Fitting the Learning Experience to the LearningObjective 111 Creating Visual Art 111 Child-guided experience111 Adult-guided experience 114 Appreciating Visual Art118 Child-guided experience118 Adult-guided experience 1208. Reflections on Intentional teaching 127 Guiding Principles of Intentional Teaching128 Final Thoughts129* * *Resources131 References 136 Index , 12:01 PM51 Introducing Intentional TeachingIntroducingIntentional TeachingT1 Preschoolers Tony and Salima are sitting on the floor,playing with the acorns Salima collected at outsidetime.

5 Salima divides the acorns evenly between Teacher sits on the floor next to them. Tony pileshis acorns together, while Salima forms a large circlewith hers. Tony says, Hey, you got more than me! Salima responds, No, I don t. We each got the same. The Teacher wonders aloud how they could find outwhether they have the same number, and the childrensuggest counting the : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. (Helines up his acorns in a row as he counts.)Salima: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.(She also lines up her acorns in a row.) Teacher : You each have : Yeah. We got the : (Spreads Tony s acorns across the floor andputs Salima s in a pile.) Now who has more?Tony: (Smiles.) I do!Salima: No, you don t. We each got the same. See?(She counts her acorns and puts them in a row, thencounts Tony s acorns and puts them in a row as well.) Teacher : (This time she puts Tony s in a pile andspreads Salima s out across the floor.)

6 Now who hasmore?Tony: (Thinks for a moment.) Nobody s got more. Wegot the same!Salima: (Smiles.) That s what I said!his book is about how the Intentional Teacher ,like the Teacher in this opening vignette,acts with knowledge and purpose to ensurethat young children acquire the knowledge andskills (content) they need to succeed in school andin life. Intentional teaching does not happen bychance; it is planful, thoughtful, and teachers use their knowledge, judgment,and expertise to organize learning experiences forchildren; when an unexpected situation arises (as italways does), they can recognize a teaching oppor-tunity and are able to take advantage of it, teaching means teachers act withspecific outcomes or goals in mind for children sdevelopment and learning. Academic domains(literacy, mathematics, and science) as well as tra-ditional early learning domains (social and emo-tional, cognitive, physical, and creative develop-ment) all have important knowledge and skills thatyoung children want and need to master.

7 Inten-tional teachers therefore integrate and promotemeaningful learning in all teaching requires wide-rangingknowledge about how children typically developand learn. Teachers must have a repertoire of in-structional strategies and know when to use a givenstrategy to accommodate the different ways thatindividual children learn and the specific contentthey are learning. At some times or for some , 1:35 PM12 The Intentional Teachertent, children seem to learn best from child-guidedexperience that is, they acquire knowledge andskills through their own exploration and experi-ence, including through interactions with peers. Atother times and for other content, children seem tolearn best from adult-guided experience that is, inset-up situations in which their teachers introduceinformation, model skills, and the like. (See the boxopposite.)The division between what is child-guided andwhat is adult-guided experience is not a rigid does learning come about entirely through achild s efforts or only from adult instruction.

8 In anygiven subject, how a child learns will vary overtime. For example, young children begin to buildtheir speaking and listening skills through sponta-neous and natural conversations (child-guidedexperience). However, they also learn syntax andvocabulary from the adults around them, andteachers often make a point of introducing newwords and structures (adult-guided). Children alsodiffer individually in how they like to learn. Somedo a lot of exploring and thinking through prob-lems on their own, while others very readily askadults for information or help. But every childlearns in both , the division of content into theknowledge and skills that seem to be best acquiredprimarily through child-guided experience versusthose through adult-guided experience is not anexact process. For example, in typically developingchildren, basic language abilities clearly are ac-quired largely through child-guided learning expe-rience (albeit, with linguistic input from the adultsaround them); children are born with the capacityto hear and reproduce the sounds of speech and areinherently motivated, as social beings, to communi-cate with others.

9 By contrast, identifying the lettersof the alphabet is something that children cannot dointuitively; as arbitrary creations of a culture, letterforms and their names clearly are learned in adult-guided experience. In other content areas, the divi-sion is not so clear. But even in cases where assign-ment to primarily child-guided versus primarilyadult-guided is more difficult, knowledgeableeducators can make a determination that most willagree on. I found this consensus in consulting withmy expert informants for this divisions are imprecise. But it is stilluseful for teachers to consider when and how tosupport children s own discovery and constructionof knowledge, and when and how to convey con-tent in Teacher -guided activities and consideration is a major focus of this book. TheIntentional Teacher asks which type of learning expe-rience is likely to be most effective in which contentareas, and what teachers can do to optimize learn-ing in that mode.

10 It also emphasizes that regardlessof whether children engage in child- or adult-guided experience, teachers always play a vitaleducational role by creating supportive environ-ments and using instructional strategies to advancechildren s thinking to the next other words, both child-guided and adult-guided experience have a place in the early child-hood setting. It is not the case that one is good andthe other bad, or that one is developmentally appro-priate and the other not. Intentional teachers under-stand this and are prepared to make use of either orboth in combination, choosing what works best forany given subject, situation, or teaching termsAt the top of the daily message board, the teacherswrite the sentence: Who is here today? Underneaththey draw a column of stick figures, and next to eachfigure they write the name of a child or adult in theclass. Each day the teachers indicate who is absentthat day by making an erasable X in front of that day they also draw stick figure(s) and write thename(s) of any guest(s) who will be visiting the class-room.