Childcare and Literacy

One of the most lamentable gaps in early childhood education is the education gap between the toddler age and first grade.

Nearly everyone knows how to care for an infant. When the child becomes a toddler, he kind of forces the growing up issue as he climbs out of his parents’ arms and runs off. By three, he’s ready to stop running and listen to learn.

At six or seven, a child goes to school. What happens between the time a child has that desire to listen to learn and going to school? It’s about three or four years. Is that wasted time?

Study after study report that childcare nation wide is atrocious, and children have learned little in this three to four year period, and they are not ready to go to school at all much less are they ready to sit in a desk for seven hours and learn what should have been taught three years earlier.

In an outline of a presentation entitled Preschool and No Child Left Behind, Opportunities and Challenges by Dorothy S. Strickland of Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, Strickland mentions four things often lacking in the curriculum of early childhood programs which make grammar school that much harder for the child:

Language and literacy rich environment
Early language and literacy activities and instructional materials
Early language and literacy screening assessments
Professional development and opportunities

Providing a language and literacy rich environment means a kind of emotional and intellectual work most people will probably never understand. It means a special kind of love for the language that goes beyond cheap novels and best sellers and calling magazines books.

Literacy means knowing the difference between a badly written fairy tale that bores a child to tears, and one that is written that offers a wonderful and exciting tale, a whole other world to children. An understanding of language and literacy means knowing how to read poetry and short fiction with enough “voice” that children are riveted on what happens next. It means not being afraid to show some heart and make the children laugh.

How is this learned? By doing, by listening to others and by thinking about the story and what it means. Meaning is a key word in literacy and language. What we say often misses what we mean. Do we know that? Can we appreciate our own shortcomings and our lack of vocabulary? Are we willing to find the right words and use them the next time? Do we care?

The significance of a story is often lost with a poor reading, and a poor reading comes from misunderstanding what the words really mean, what the nuances are saying and what the story is about. When was the last time the question “What does that mean?” surfaced in ordinary conversation?

Primarily, studies show that early childhood educators are not educated. Most do not have more than a high school education. But education is more than a piece of paper earned. It’s an attitude toward life and a willingness to enter the world and continue learning. Anyone with a college degree knows that college teaches a person how to think and how to learn. A person with no formal education who reads for real and thinks is often better educated than someone who never picks up a book after graduation.

In the classroom, the early childhood library is one of the most important parts of a playroom. Books need to be readily available to children to touch, to hold, to look at. Story books, science books, picture and art books should be out where children can look at them and become familiar with them. Books will be a child’s companion for the rest of his life. If not at home, the early childhood classroom should teach a child about the importance of reading and language which is really human expression and art. It's as good as it gets.

Children are ready and eager to learn to listen, learn to identify letters, make sounds and begin the enormous task of reading at three. It is always child led. There is an independence about reading that children identify early. Knowing where a child is in his reading development is an important part of early childhood education.

And finally, teaching teachers is a never ending process. Teachers are tired after a long day in a noisy childcare environment. Most teachers leave a building shell shocked. It takes a few minutes of quiet to return to a non child environment. The last thing most teachers want after a long day in school is more busyness and more noise. Racing out to a classroom for three hours is about as endearing as cleaning the grease trap.

Teaching is often a matter of sharing expertise. That’s why older teachers mix so beautifully with younger models. Youth offers enthusiasm while years offers short cuts. Learning is a process for both the child and the adult. Learning to learn is the child’s part, continuing to learn is the adult’s.