IV. Seeing the Big Picture in Head Start

     Even with the emphasis on the Child Outcomes Framework and the National Reporting System (NRS), the basics of Head Start's education program remain the same. Young children need to talk, create, pretend, sing, move around, hear stories, quarrel, and learn to resolve their conflicts. The tried-and-true methods that good early childhood teachers use are as important as ever. The organization and rhythm of the preschool day remain much the same.

      The traditional emphasis on developmentally appropriate practices also continues. Developmentally appropriate practices are ways of teaching children that are based on what is known about children's learning and development, about individual children, and about the social and cultural context in which children live (Bredekamp & Copple 1997). Because knowledge about all three dimensions is always changing, the understanding of developmentally appropriate practices also changes. Developmentally appropriate teaching practices vary with the age, experience, interests, and abilities of individual children. So teachers must regularly observe and assess individual children to know how to provide developmentally appropriate teaching experiences.

     Teachers should continue to use a variety of teaching strategies. Appropriate teaching practices may be seen as varying along a continuum from least directive to most directive (Bredekamp & Rosegrant 1992, see chart). Less directive strategies include include acknowledging, modeling, and facilitating. More directive strategies include scaffolding and instructing. Research demonstrates that many different teaching strategies are effective. Based on extensive review of existing research, the Committee on Early Childhood Pedagogy concludes:

Good teachers acknowledge and encourage children's efforts, model and demonstrate, create challenges and support children in extending their capabilities, and provide specific directions or instruction. All of these teaching strategies can be used in the context of play and structured activities. Effective teachers also organize the classroom environment and plan ways to pursue educational goals for each child as opportunities arise in child-initiated activities and in activities planned and initiated by the teacher (Bowman, Donovan, & Burns 2001, 10-11).

     While much remains unchanged in Head Start, there also are exciting visions of what Head Start can become. Research over the last two decades offers insight about the skills and knowledge children need for future success. As a result, much more is known about how to ensure that all children in Head Start get the right foundation to succeed in school and life.

CONTINUUM OF TEACHING BEHAVIORS (Based on Bredekamp and Rosegrant, 1992)

Nondirective
Acknowledge
Give attention and positive encouragement to keep a child engaged in an activity.

Model
display for children a skill or desirable way of behaving in the classroom, through actions only or with cues, prompts, or other forms of coaching.

Mediating
Facilitate
offer short-term assistance to help a child practice in developing a skill (as an adult does in holding the back of a bicycle while a child pedals).

Support
provide a fixed form of assistance, such as displaying the alphabet near a writing center for children to refer to.

Scaffold
set up challenges or assist children to work "on the edge" of their current competence.

Directive
Co-construct
learn or work collaboratively with children on a problem or task, such as building a model or block structure.

Demonstrate
actively display a behavior or engage in an activity while children observe the outcome.

Direct
provide specific directions or instructions for children's behavior within narrowly defined dimensions of error.

     Based on such knowledge, here are five guidelines for teaching teams in Head Start programs. Although none of these guidelines is entirely new, each receives greater attention as Head Start moves into this new era of accountability.

1. Use the Child Outcomes Framework and a Well-Designed Curriculum to Plan and Individualize in all Domains.
     What should children leaving Head Start know and be able to do? The Child Outcomes Framework answers that question in terms of the big ideas, the important achievements in each area of school readiness.
     All early childhood programs should have goals that guide curriculum planning, teaching, and assessment of children’s learning. The Child Outcomes Framework in Head Start provides a comprehensive set of research-based learning and development goals. Accordingly, Head Start administrators, education leaders, Early Literacy Mentor Coaches (ELMCs), teachers, assistant teachers, home visitors, family child care teachers, and parents plan learning experiences that increase in complexity with those goals in mind. They also assess children's progress toward the outcomes and adapt teaching and learning experiences when children are not making progress. The Child Outcomes Framework provides structure for aligning curriculum, assessment, and teaching.

     Too often in the early childhood setting, learning experiences are not planned within a comprehensive curriculum. Without curriculum-based planning, even interesting and appropriate experiences are unlikely to add up to a meaningful whole. More than they have in the past, Head Start education managers must convey to teachers the importance of content and sequence in the education program. Research has shown that children typically need to focus on a new idea or skill in some depth to understand it and to put it to use (Bowman, Donovan, & Burns 2001). Familiarizing staff with the key content and processes in each Domain and how these build on one another is a big job and a vital one.

      Thus, teachers must do careful planning, assessment, and follow-through, shaping the curriculum to allow children to learn effectively. Education managers must actively support teaching teams' work by providing leadership and ensuring that they get high quality professional development. Mentor-Coaches contribute to child outcomes by modeling and coaching teaching staff behaviors, as well as challenging them to grow intellectually by introducing new readings and ideas. Teaching staff also need curriculum resources and training on how to use them to the best advantage.

2. Be Planful and Intentional in Interacting with Children and Creating Learning Experiences to Achieve desired Child Outcomes.
     In everything teachers plan and do in the Head Start education program, they need to be highly intentional. That is, they need to work with the outcomes for children in mind and consciously seek out every opportunity to help children achieve these outcomes—through the learning experiences they plan, the ways they interact with children, and the ways they create and regularly modify the environment.

     Group time, active involvement in learning centers and play, meals and snacks, outdoor play, and story reading are still important. But now, even more than in the past, teachers need to plan carefully for learning opportunities in all of these times and places, using the child outcomes to guide their planning and teaching across the curriculum. For example, early childhood educators have always known the value of reading and singing with children and the benefits of dramatic play. Now more is known about specific strategies to make these experiences even richer and more productive for achieving particular goals for children.

      To promote language and literacy, for example, teachers need to make intentional use of proven strategies in familiar activities such as story reading, singing together, and dramatic play (such as those as described under Domains 1 and 2 of this Guide). They supply literacy-related props to play areas. They choose songs and games that extend children's phonological awareness. They ask questions and make comments to focus children's attention on the things they want them to learn. They also work with small groups of children so each one can be actively involved and participate in the learning experience. In these ways, Head Start teachers further children's progress in all Domains.

3. Pay Attention to What Children need to know and be able to do to Succeed in School.
     Recognizing that early experiences shape children's prospects in school and beyond has always been fundamental to Head Start. Now the growing research base spells out more fully the kinds of experiences needed to achieve these important outcomes. As vital as ever are children's health, social competence, and sense of their capacity to learn and achieve. Among the areas to receive greater emphasis are vocabulary and language proficiency, literacy knowledge and skills, and key mathematics and science concepts.

4. Regularly Engage Children in Focused, Small-Group Experiences To Promote Thinking Processes and Concept Learning.
     Day by day and week by week, teaching teams should be thinking about the key ideas to introduce and explore with children. Because small groups are such an appropriate way to focus children's attention on a particular idea, they should be used more often in Head Start classrooms. The logistics can seem daunting with only two adults in the classroom, but there are a variety of strategies to make small-group work practical (see Small-Group Learning Experiences in the Real World).

     Working with children in small groups expands the teaching team’s opportunities to observe and involve each child actively. With a small group, a teacher is better able to provide support and challenges tailored to the children's individual levels. She can give clues, ask follow-up questions, and notice what every child is able to do and where each has difficulty. Small groups make it possible for each child to participate often, thus eliminating long waits for a turn. An added plus of small groups is the high amount of verbal exchange, so critical for children in Head Start.

5.Reflect on the Teacher's Role.
     In order to help children achieve positive outcomes and get ready for school, the Head Start teaching team needs to think about what they do well and what they can do even better. The following tables highlight what needs to be emphasized as teachers A) create the environment, B) use routines, C) plan focused activities, D) support and extend play, and E) integrate all Domains throughout the curriculum. By re-examining aspects of their teaching practices, the teaching team will be promoting their own professional growth as well as the development and learning of the Head Start children.

Small-Group Learning Experiences in the Real World?
Four Ideas that Work

The teaching team in the Head Start classroom-teacher and assistant teacher-have 16 to 18 children to think about. So how do they manage to carry on focused learning experiences with small groups or work with individual children? Here are four ways to go about it, and creative Head Start teaching teams can think of others.

1. Plan a focused learning experience that children come to in groups during choice/free play time.
   Fairly common in early childhood classrooms is for teachers to plan a particular learning experience for the children to visit during their choice time. To increase the value of these experiences, teachers need to give careful thought to the focus of each activity and to the sequence of experiences over time. Children can come to the small group as space permits (for instance, no more than three at a time), or the teacher may invite the group of children by name.
2. Divide the group to make small-group learning experiences more feasible.
   One adult takes half the children—eight, let’s say—to the music room or on the playground, and the other adult is with the other children in the classroom. While four of the latter build in the block area or draw in the art area, the teacher works with the other four children in a focused experience for about 15 minutes. The two groups switch, and the teacher works with the other four children. Then the children in the classroom go out and the others come in, and the cycle repeats itself.
3. Get double value from having classroom volunteers.
   An extra adult in the classroom makes a big difference. One teacher can do focused work with small groups while the other adult is available to the other children. In some Head Start programs, parents, grandparents, college students, or older children come in regularly to read with the preschoolers. During these times one or both of the teachers can do small-group learning experiences.
4. Use various times in the children’s day for small groups and other learning experiences.
   During breakfast or lunch, perhaps several times a week, put place cards for four children at a special table with the teacher—sitting at the "Teacher's Table" becomes an eagerly anticipated privilege. Besides talking pleasantly with the children, the teacher may incorporate a learning experience in the area she is focusing on—perhaps an idea relating to pattern or one-to-one correspondence, or observation and discussion of what happens when the juice is poured from a tall, thin pitcher to a short, fat one.
        Even the bus ride to and from Head Start can be a learning experience. One Head Start bus driver stopped the bus at intervals to allow the children, with the guidance of the bus aide, to take pictures with a camera they had learned to use in the classroom. The next day the children from the bus told their classmates about what they had seen on their route, passing around photographs to show what various things looked like. Then they worked together to make a book called "Our Ride to School."

A. Create the Environment
so that children are comfortable, engaged, and continually learning in all Domains. Within a carefully planned curriculum and learning environment—set up with areas and materials much like those found in Head Start settings now—the teaching team will make some important additions.

Consistently....
Carefully plan the environment, typically arranging and provisioning a number of centers with materials for block building, dramatic play, reading, and other activities. Children find the setting interesting and comfortable; it reflects their varying developmental levels and cultural, linguistic, and family backgrounds. Teachers regularly change materials to support children's optimal development and learning.

Do More....
Enriching all areas with materials to promote learning and development in Domains such as literacy, science, and mathematics, for example, offering literacy-related props in the block and dramatic play areas.

Making thoughtful changes to the materials over the days and weeks to add interest and to support topics and skills in the curriculum.

B. Use Everyday Routines
such as snack and mealtimes, cleanup and other transitions, circle times (with regular activities such as story reading, singing, talking about shared experiences) to further outcomes in all Domains. Routines will remain an important part of the Head Start day.

Consistently...
Plan effective and supportive routines that are consistent enough for children to feel comfortable because they know what to expect, and flexible enough to be adapted to day-by-day teaching goals and unexpected learning opportunities.

Do More...
Incorporating into routines all areas of the curriculum from physical and social development to mathematics and literacy.

Adapting routines to acknowledge and build on children's individual differences in experiences and development.

C. Plan Focused Activities
that engage children, often in small groups, in teacher-led learning experiences that challenge the children to build skills and understanding.
Many Head Start programs have not encouraged teacher-directed, small-group activities in which the adult works with the children and focuses on a particular concept. Such teaching, along with ample opportunity for self-directed play and investigation, enhances children's learning.

Consistently...
Interact with children informally to foster their thinking and learning. They engage small groups of children in activities such as games in which the participants learn and practice certain concepts and skills.

Do More...
Small-group learning experiences that focus on key knowledge and understandings in depth (these may be created or chosen and adapted from the program's curriculum and other teaching resources).

Using the full range of teaching strategies from direct instruction to open-ended questions to enhance each child's thinking and learning, choosing the most appropriate strategies for each goal and for individualizing.

D. Support and Extend Play
as a powerful vehicle for young children's learning and development in all Domains. During children's play, teachers will take active roles—observing, supporting, modeling, interacting—to enhance children's play skills and to optimize the benefits they get from it.

Consistently...
Schedule uninterrupted periods of time to enable children to get deeply involved in play. Arrange and equip the room to provide spaces and materials suited to various kinds of play. Provide materials that reflect a range of cultures, including all those of the children in the group.

Do More...
Strategic teacher and assistant teacher involvement to introduce fresh possibilities and enable children to take the play a little farther.

Modeling and scaffolding dramatic- or block-play skills for children with limited play competence ("Let's pretend this is a hammer and we're fixing the fence").

Enhancing all play areas with props to promote learning in literacy, mathematics, science, and other Domains (signs with logos and other print in the block area).

E. Integrate All Domains Throughout the Curriculum
The Child Outcomes Framework provides clear guidance as to the knowledge and skills in each Domain that are most important to integrate. Now education leaders and teachers have a clear outline of the big ideas and foundational knowledge and skills to weave through the curriculum. They will choose, adapt, and develop curriculum and teaching strategies to help children attain these outcomes.

Consistently...
Curriculum is integrated across learning Domains. Children learn through active engagement in projects, learning centers, play, and other activities that interest them. For example, when they build and operate a store or set up and care for an aquarium, children develop and represent their plans; discuss what they are doing; negotiate and cooperate with each other; classify, compare, measure, count; and solve problems.

Do More...
Enriching the learning throughout the day by intentionally extending children’s ideas, engaging them in conversation, and challenging their thinking.

Small-group learning experiences focused on key outcomes together with intentional teaching—throughout the environment and the day—for children to build and practice these ideas and skills.