How the Field of Early Childhood has Changed Over the Years
Sue Bredekamp is presenting a Hatch Super-Power Webinar on March 15th titled: Effective Practices in Early Childhood Education. Participants can expect to learn about effective practices in curriculum and intentional teaching strategies that prepare children for success in school and life. They will find out how to use research-based practices every day to make a difference in the lives of young children. Register today!
Guest blogger and Hatch Super Power Webinar speaker, Sue Bredekamp, took a moment to share with us her thoughts on how early childhood has changed in recent years. Be sure to register for her upcoming webinar, Effective Practices in Early Childhood Education on March 15, 2012. Participants can expect to learn about effective practices in both curriculum and intentional teaching strategies that prepare children for success in school and life.
I have been in early childhood education for 40 years and the field has changed dramatically in that time, but an incredible amount of change has occurred in the last 10 years. Here are some of the current trends that have had the greatest impact:
- Universal Pre-K movement & increased public school presence
- Calls for alignment of PreK to grade 3
- Emphasis on learning standards – Head Start outcomes, common core & state Early Learning Standards
- Accountability culture – assessment of teacher effectiveness & child outcomes (CLASS in Head Start); state data systems (QRIS)
- Demand for evidence-based curriculum with literacy & mathematics focus
- Increasing linguistic and cultural diversity (need to more effectively serve Dual Language learners)
- Home visiting and Early Head Start expansion
- Inclusion/Response to Intervention
- Structured activity in children’s lives (obesity crisis)
- Threats to child-guided play
- Increasing role of digital media at home & in schools, and in professional development
- Higher teacher qualifications in Head Start, PreK (we don’t have the workforce we need)
- Achievement gap present at preschool and growing over time
- Political & economic landscape (Early Learning Challenge Grant, ESEA, increase in childhood poverty, etc.)
The following table appears in my textbook and I think it captures some of the ways the field has changed in response to these trends.
Continuity and Change in Early Childhood Education
| In the Past, Early Childhood Education Tended to Emphasize: | Today Early Childhood Education Emphasizes: |
| Processes of how children develop and learn | Both the processes of how children develop and learn and the content—what they are learning |
| Inputs—standards (such as licensing or accreditation) that mandate what programs should do | Both program standards (inputs) and outcomes (early learning standards for what children should know and be able to do) |
| Quality | Both quality and accountability |
| Activities | Both coherent curriculum plans links to learning goals |
| Free play | Both child-initiated, developmentally valuable play and playful, teacher-guided learning |
| Developmental appropriateness | Both effectiveness and developmental appropriateness (Are children making learning and developmental progress from the experiences we deem appropriate?) |
| Observation of children | Both observation for many purposes and assessment of children’s outcomes |
| Facilitating learning | Both intentional teaching and positive, supportive relationships |
| Development, not academics (viewing early childhood education as separate and distinct from what follows in the primary grades) | Both viewing learning and development as a continuum from birth to age 8, and working toward alignment from pre-K to grade 3 |
| Typical, normative development | Both adapting for the individual variation of every child and intervention and adaptation for children with disabilities and special needs, as well as children who are advanced |
Sue Bredekamp is presenting a Hatch Super-Power Webinar on March 15th titled: Effective Practices in Early Childhood Education. Participants can expect to learn about effective practices in curriculum and intentional teaching strategies that prepare children for success in school and life. They will find out how to use research-based practices every day to make a difference in the lives of young children. Register today!
Dr. Dale McManis
Lilla Dale McManis, Ph.D. is the Research Director for Hatch, where she researches technology products for early childhood. Dale holds a B.S. in Child Development and a M.Ed. in Special Education from the University of Georgia. She earned her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Florida focusing on learning and cognition in poverty children. She then worked for the Massachusetts Departments of Education and Public Health as Evaluator, then Co-Director of the Office of Statistics and Evaluation. Dale joined the University of Texas faculty in 2001, working on research projects in the State Center for Early Childhood Development in the Children’s Learning Institute. She oversaw projects for school readiness, such as the state School Readiness Certification System. Since 2008, Dr. McManis works with Hatch Product Development in the design and evaluation of educational technology for early learners.
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