Guided Play- research based

For a grad school assignment I had to review an article on a subject of my choice.
I reviewed:

Guralnick, M. J., Connor, R. T., Neville, B., & Hammond, M. A., (2006). Promoting the peer-related social development of young children with mild developmental delays: Effectiveness of a comprehensive intervention. American Journal of Mental Retardation, 336-356

Which was a 2 year longitudinal study examining the effects of intense, individualized social skills interventions on children with mild developmental delays. The 90 participants in the study all had a full scale IQ on the Wechsler of between 50 and 90. They were all between 48 and 78 months of age, all had a current IEP, their primary caretaker was a female, and they were all experiencing difficulties in peer-related social competence.

The study was based off of previous research which found that children with mild developmental delays:

•have difficulty with peer social interactions
• engage in more solitary play
•Do not exhibit developmentally appropriate problem-solving patterns
•More difficulty forming in-depth peer relationships
•Less accepted by peers
•More likely to have social isolation later in life

A possible cause of this is that children with mild developmental delays show difficulty with information-processing and working memory, which gives them difficulty tracking complex and rapidly changing social stimuli.

The study gave each participant a pretest. Based on the results of the pretest the study formed a team of the primary caretaker, the teacher, and a consultant to create clearly stated goals and objectives to meet each students' needs. The consultants then gave the caregivers highly structured scripts individualized to the child. These scripts used across social settings in three different social tasks. The scripts prompted caretakers to assist the child with organizing the salient events in each task.

The strategies the caretakers and the teachers used were:
•Pair students with compatible peers
•Select toys and activities of high interest
•Create circumstances to minimize conflicts
•Provide needed support and guidance from teachers and mothers

The study found that:
•Students with an IQ below 70 benefited the most from intervention plans
•Negative interactions with peers did not increase as compared to the control group
•Parallel-dramatic play remained stable, while it increased in the control group.
•Interventions prevented declines in social development

The implication to my research study, I believe, is that it is possible to use free choice time in kindergarten and preschool classrooms to guide play in order to promote social goals. By using the strategies sited by the article it is possible to positively impact a child's development of social skills. During a free choice time the child is selecting an activity for himself, which is already an activity of high interest. If the teacher can consider the children at the activity with the child, and alter the circumstances to minimize conflict, the teacher should be able to provide support and guidance for the student that will help him respond to the changing stimuli in a social situation by helping him organize the salient events of a social task.

Literacy Development milestones: research

Child development milestones:
Early Writing-
36-48 months:
Children use scribbles and unconventional shapes to convey messages.
Children represent ideas and stories through pictures, dictation, and play
Children experiment with a growing variety of writing tools and materials, such as pencils, crayons, and computers.

48 months:
Children are using letter-like shapes, symbols, and letters to convey meaning.
Understand purposes for writing.
Begin to use familiar words in writing and drawing.

Print Awareness and Concepts:
36-48 months:
Children are showing a growing awarness of hte different functions of forms of print such as signs, letters, newspapers, lists, messages, and menus
Children are showing a growing interest in reading-related activities
48 months:
Children are showing an increased awareness of print concepts
Children recognize a word as a unit of print that is formed by individual letters.
Children are reading environmental print

Phonological Awareness and Alphabetic Knowledge
36-48 months:
Being to identify words that rhyme.
Show growing ability to discriminate and identify sounds.
48 months:
Identify matching sounds and produce original rhymes.
Show growing ability to hear and discriminate separate syllables in words
Show growing awareness of beginning and ending sounds of words.
Develop beginning awareness of alphabet letters.
REcognize that sounds are associated with letters of the alphabet and that they form words.
Understand that letters of the alphabet are a special category of visual graphics that can e individually named.
Laugh at and create willy words while exploring phonology.

From Milestones of Child Development, Virginia's Early Childhood Development Alignment Project

the housekeeping project

i decided that i don't want to put all my thoughts about my housekeeping project in my other blog, so instead i'll use this space to reflect on my readings about guided play, my observations and interactions in the classroom on my teacher research project. it will be a place where i can make lists, ask questions, and just reflect.
we'll see how it goes...