Child-Initiated Learning Activities for Young Children Living in Poverty

Child-Initiated Learning Activities for Young Children Living in Poverty. This is an essay with some good ideas for helping elementary school students from poor families learn better in school.



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Should Head Start and other preschool programs for young children living in poverty center on teacher-directed, large-group academic lessons or on teacher-supported, child-initiated learning activities? The concerns reflected in this long-standing debate are that an exclusively teacher-directed approach fails to encourage children's social and emotional development and creativity, while an approach based exclusively on child-initiated activities may not sufficiently stimulate poor children's academic development. These concerns are echoed today in the struggle of early childhood educators to cope with academic-learning mandates that conflict with their own child-centered dispositions, particularly in school districts that have been less successful in helping children achieve academic success. This Digest discusses the findings of empirical studies on teacher-directed and child-initiated preschool programs.



LONG-TERM PRESCHOOL CURRICULUM COMPARISON STUDIES



Three long-term preschool curriculum comparison studies began in the 1970s--the High/Scope Preschool Curriculum Comparison Study (Schweinhart & Weikart, 1997), the Louisville Head Start Study (Miller & Bizzell, 1983), and the University of Illinois Study (Karnes, Schwedel, & Williams, 1983). All three included the Direct Instruction model--which offered scripted, teacher-directed academic instruction--and a Nursery School model, in which children initiated their own learning activities with minimal teacher support. The High/Scope study included the High/Scope model, in which children initiated learning activities with substantial teacher support. The Louisville and Illinois studies included several additional teacher-directed models and the Montessori model, which encouraged child-initiated activities with didactic materials.



These three studies found that children in Direct Instruction programs intellectually outperformed children in child-initiated-activities programs during and up to a year after the preschool program, but not thereafter. In the Louisville study, the Nursery School children showed higher verbal-social participation and increased more in ambition and aggressiveness than did the Direct Instruction children, but both groups scored lower than their peers on inventiveness. In the Illinois study, 78% of the Nursery School group, but only 48% of the Direct Instruction group and 47% of the no-program group graduated from high school.

Elementary and Secondary Education

Elementary and Secondary Education Want to write an article on elementary school for a journal? Do you have a good paper you wrote from when you got your M.Ed.? This may be the place.



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Focus:

Significant challenges face educators as we enter the first decade of the 21st century. High-stakes testing and the standards movement present challenges to teachers, administrators, students, and parents as each group seeks ways to successfully navigate through the consequences of policy decisions in education. Curriculum issues capture our attention as we struggle with questions of authenticity, standards, interdisciplinary and integrated approaches to teaching and learning, and content specific curriculum. Policy decisions including the connection to teaching and learning to assessment and high-stakes testing and professional development present opportunities for active exploration for teachers and researchers. Literacy issues focusing on reading and writing across the curriculum and reading and writing workshop environments provide important K-12 opportunities to contribute to a vital professional conversation. To be most helpful, empirical studies should be clear in both methodology and style providing opportunities for study replication. Qualitative studies must be grounded in theoretical and methodological studies. All papers should be clearly presented.



Who May Submit:

Submissions are welcome from researchers, teacher action researchers, administrators and graduate students as well as others engaged directly in teaching at the elementary, middle, or secondary levels.



Please identify your submission with keyword: ELEMENTARY or SECONDARY.



Full details at http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/ontsec.htm.

Children's Writing in ESL

Children's Writing in ESL. This is a nice paper on the role of writing in the acquisition of second language skills in elementary school.



From the site:



This "Digest" is based on the ERIC/CLL "Language in Education" series monograph entitled "WRITE ON: Children Writing in ESL," written by Sarah Hudelson. The monograph describes how children develop as writers in English as a second language. It will be available in early 1989 from Prentice Hall Regents, Mail Order Processing, 200 Old Tappan Road, Old Tappan, NJ 07675, or by calling 1-201-767-5937.



Children whose native language is not English are present in ever increasing numbers in elementary schools in the United States. Educators, therefore, must provide opportunities for these learners to develop English-as-a-second-language (ESL) skills and to learn school content-area material. In elementary schools, particular emphasis has recently been placed on helping ESL learners become more proficient writers of English to ensure their academic success in English language classrooms (Allen, 1986; Rigg and Enright, 1986; Urzua, 1987).