portfolio segona part

...and what about children development?

Mar Soler Gabasa Developmental Psychology Universitat de Vic 29.05.2014

PROLOGUE

In this article, I’m going to present the second part of the portfolio. It’s an individual part, and because of this, is different than the first one that was in group.

At the beginning, I review all the contents, comparing ones with others, and thinking about which are the most important things I learned, I liked and it will be useful for me as a teacher.

After this, I choose the most interesting point for me and I amplify this point with different contents that I think that are important and will help to understand it.

Doing this part individually, on the one hand is going to be a very interesting way of work, like the other one, but in this case maybe will be less efficient because in the first part, we could argued with our classmates about what we thought each one of us.

But, on the other hand, I could work more accurate the contents and thinking very carefully about what it means being a teacher and what it means helping the others to improve in different ways and different aspects.

In conclusion, maybe this way of working, I mean, the individual work, it is less efficient, but as I said in the first portfolio, I valuate very positively because I could review the different contents, and , furthermore, know new things about one of the concept that I think that was the most interesting.

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CONTENT TABLE

1

DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOMOTOR SKILLS .............................................................. 4

2

PSYCHOMOTOR DEVELOPMENT .............................................................................. 5

3

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT ...................................................................................... 6

4

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT: READING AND MULTIPLE LITERACIES ........................ 7

5

PRESENTATION OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT....................................................... 8

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5.1

OBJECTIVES ....................................................................................................... 8

5.2

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT .............................................................................. 8

5.3

ACTIVITIES ....................................................................................................... 10

5.4

ACTIVITIES DONE BY SELF-INITIATIVE............................................................. 12

REFERENCES LIST .................................................................................................... 14

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1 DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOMOTOR SKILLS In this first block, there are a lot of things that I think that are important for me, and will be useful to know it if I want to work with children.

First, the previous thing that it is going to help me to work on psychomotor skills, is to know the progress that children do to develop since they are born, and the different stages. If I know that, this would help me to understand different behaviours too and I could help them in their progress.

Furthermore, there are some principal changes that children do in early childhood and there are very useful to know it because maybe I can help them to improve this changes. Also, If I want to help children to develop psychomotor skills, I would have to know which kind of activities I can do to help them. So, this kind of activities I think that will help me to work psychomotor skills with children.

This first point, I think that is the base of the development of psychomotor skills, and this things that I have learned and now I mentioned, are going to help me a lot when I will work with children. But, I think that there is another important phase which I would have to know how children develop and the progress they do, this is the school age.

In the school age, there is another progress of psychomotor skills, and is very important to know it because If I know that there is a progress, I can work with them some aspects to improve this progress, but also, is important to know that not all children develop at the same time, there are different factors that conditioned them, and obviously, there won’t work the same activities with all the children.

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2 PSYCHOMOTOR DEVELOPMENT In this block, I find a very important concept that I would have to take it into account when I became a teacher: the drawing.

To know if a children is developing his/her psychomotor process, we have a concept that is the drawing, that can help us to know If a children is improving or not, or what kind of things are happening in her mind. There are some teachers that ask to the children to draw something, but then this draw does not have any meaning, the teacher hang it in the wall and that’s all.

Nowadays, I can say that I know that with a draw I can see the progress of a children, and know a lot of things of them from

the

draw,

it’s

a

source

of

communicative, expressive and creative values, and with them we can understand also some behaviours.

In this concept, the most important thing that I have learned, is the kind of behaviour I have to use in front of a draw, to explain children that all the drawings are good, that the imperfections are not mistakes.

Finally, I want to conclude this block with two points that I think that would help me when I became a teacher.

On the one hand, knowing that are different stages in the developmental aspects, is very important because If I see that one child is in one stage, maybe I can help him/her to improve and pass from this stage to another.

On the other hand, and to conclude, to pass from one stage to another, there must be different activities or tasks to do that could help them. So, to make drawing a useful activity, I find very important the different tasks that we saw in class that might help to the children and we might do in a future, as a teachers.

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3 COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT As a teacher, I must know that there are bases of the cognitive process. This bases are related with the stimulus that we perceive.

When we are in class, we perceive a lot of stimulus, and as a teachers, we have to be conscious that we give a lot of stimulus and we have to be patient because surely, not all the children perceive it at the same time, and maybe, in some occasions we have to give time to them to retried.

In some occasions, as a teachers, taking into account that this bases are intentioned, we can help children to improve with different activities or strategies, for example, giving the information in a more visual way, because as I’ve learned, the visual memory is the one that we retried more. But always, taking into account that we are different, and this process is an individual process.

As I have said before, all of us is different, each one of us have a method to study, to retried information, and also, to solve different problems, activities, or tasks.

As a teacher, is useful to know that there are different tasks, and not all the children solve it in a same way. Maybe ones give a more experienced answer, others a more academic answer, and others a more intuitive answer, and because of this, we know that children learn things in different ways also.

This is a very important topic, because I’ve listen a lot of teachers saying that children learn in different ways, that all the children are different, but at the moment that they are teaching, they don’t take it this into account, and as a teachers, if we want to see how the children improve, we have to be conscious of this.

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4 LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT: READING AND MULTIPLE LITERACIES In this block, to understand it, first I wanted to understand how we acquire the ability to talk.

Once I have understood it, I consider that this is a very important process in our lives, for a children’s life, but more important for a teacher’s life.

Children acquire the ability to talk by imitation, so, as a teachers, we have to be conscious that we are one of the first references that children have in their lives, and we have to be conscious of what we say and also what we do.

One of the most useful things I have learned in this block, is how children develop the linguistic competences, and how we can improve it through education.

At the same time, it was interesting to know that thinking and language are related, and by this way the teachers can understand why children say some things or have some behaviours, taking into account the different factors that conditioned them.

During the life, this language development is changing, children acquire new words and new knowledge, but to acquire, it is not enough the imitation, they also have to read, and this is another complicated point in a children life: the reading.

There are lot of activities to improve the reading, but the main concept to improve it, is the behaviour. Some children don’t have a good behaviour in front of reading, most of them find it boring.

As a teachers, is very important to find different funny activities to improve the reading, and in the same occasion we will be improving the language.

For me, this is the most interesting point that I have learned and that I think that it is going to be more useful for me as a teacher.

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5 PRESENTATION OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT As I say it before, for me, this block it was the most interesting one.

In every moment of our lives, we are surrounded of babies, children of each age and adolescents, and each one of them speaks in different ways, so I find very interesting to know more things about this topic, and more activities to do to improve this concept.

Because of that, I decide to amplify this block.

5.1 OBJECTIVES 

To know more about Language Development



Extend my knowledge



See more activities to improve Language Development

5.2 LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT Humans beings are born to speak, they have an innate gift for figuring out the rules of the language used in their environment.

Children learn the specific variety of language that the important people around them speak. Learning to talk requires time for development and practice in everyday situations.

Children, before they use words, they use cries and gestures to communicate with others.

In conclusion, language occurs through an interaction among genes, environment, and the child’s own thinking abilities.

It is a little bit relative when children develop abilities, in general, they say the first words between 12 and 18 months of age.

There are some oral language components on the complex system that relates sounds to meanings: 

Phonological component that involves the rules for combining sounds.



Semantic component is made up of morphemes, the smallest units of meaning that may be combined with each other to make up word and sentences.

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

Syntactic component consists of the rules that enable us to combine morphemes into sentences.

Speakers constantly use these three components of language together, usually in social context, but some language experts would add a fourth component: 

Pragmatics which deals with rules of language use. The rules of this part, are part of a communicative competence, our ability to speak appropriately in different situations.

How should act parents, caregivers or teachers?

Parents and caregivers have to remember that language in the great majority of individuals develops very efficiently.

However, if a child appears not to hear what others say to her, if family members and those closest to her find her difficult to understand, or if she is noticeably different in her communicative abilities from those in her age range, adults may want to seek advice from specialist in children’s speech, language and hearing.

Teachers can help by providing environments full of language development opportunities.

There are some general things for them to act: 

Every child’s language is worthy of respect as a valid system for communication.



Treat children as if they are conversationalists, even if they are not yet talking.



Encourage interaction among children.



Children learn much from each other, but adults are the main conversationalists, questioners, listeners, responders and sustainers of language development.



Continue to encourage interaction as children come to understand written language.

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5.3 ACTIVITIES ORIENTED ACTIVITIES FOR PARENTS

There are different things that the parents have to take into account to encourage speech and language development. This things depend on the age.

Here, I am going to talk about some points that parents have to take into account when they do some activities to improve the language. 

Birth to 2 years: o Reinforce attempts by maintaining eye contact, responding with speech, and imitating vocalization using different patterns and emphasis. o Identify colours. o Count items. o Use gestures such as waving goodbye to help convey meaning.



2 to 4 years: o Use good speech that is clear and simple for the child to model. o Repeat what the child says indicating that you understand. o Use baby talk only if needed to convey the message and when accompanied by the adult word. o Make a scrapbook of favourite or familiar things by cutting out pictures.

Group them into categories, such as things to ride on, to eat, for dessert. Create silly pictures by mixing and matching pictures. Glue a picture of a dog behind the wheel of a car. Talk about what is wrong with the picture and ways to “fix” it.



4 to 6 years: o Give the full attention when a child starts a conversation. o Make sure that the child is paying attention to you when you speak. o Acknowledge, encourage, and praise all attempts to speak. o Pause after speaking. This gives your child a chance to continue the conversation.

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I only write some of this activities or important points, you will be able to consult the rest of the activities in the web page that I am going to make reference in the reference list.

Furthermore, here I give you a link where you will find some activities to develop language and literacy at home: Develop Language and Literacy at Home

ORIENTED ACTIVITIES FOR TEACHERS

When a teacher develops a positive classroom environment, where students culture and diversity is respected, the teachers make the students more able and secure to speak.

We can see in the following video, a classroom with different activities that help children to develop language.

Activities about language development at school

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5.4 ACTIVITIES DONE BY SELF-INITIATIVE I have told about activities oriented to the parents, activities oriented to the teachers, but I think that there are other activities that we can do to improve language development and others that people do and they are unconscious that this activities help children to develop language and to interact.

Thinking about this unconscious activities that I have mentioned, I realize that there some photos about people that are closest to me doing different activities that help to develop language. Here I show it and I am going to explain why I think that develop language:

1. When children are in contact with another people that are older than them, they learn different vocabulary, and if the older people ask things to them, they can explain different things and amplify their vocabulary. For example, playing to the famous game “ParchĂ­sâ€?.

2. When children are in group, they interact ones with others, and this improve their language and they vocabulary.

For example, like in the picture, if they look a map, they can discuss different things and interact.

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3. When children do the homework, review different contents and different vocabulary and sentences, helps them to retried all the learning language from school, and also, answering different questions or exercises helps them to create large sentences.

This are only three examples, but there are a lot of activities that we do and unconsciously we are learning different vocabulary, helping others to improve their vocabulary, but the most important thing for me, helping children to improve.

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6 REFERENCES LIST 

Articles: o FREEMAN, Donald (1989). Teacher Training, development, and Decision Making: A Model of Teaching and Related Strategies for Language Teacher Education. [online]. USA: School for International Training. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2307/3587506/abstract [Consult: 22.05.2014].

o GENISHI, C. (1998). Young Children's Oral Language Development. ERIC Digest. ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education. [online]. US: Department of Education, Office of Special Education

Programs.

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/383

[Consult: 23.05.2014]. 

Articles about different activities: o (1997). Activities to Encourage Speech and Language Development. [online].

USA:

American

Speech-Language-Hearing

Association.

http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/parent-stimactivities.htm [Consult: 24.05.2014] 

Videos: o (2011). Successful Language Development Strategies in the Early Childhood

Classroom.

[online].

US:

Educational

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDQMnUqGQTM

Activities.

[Consult:

24.05.2014] o (2012). Helping Parents Develop Language and Literacy at Home. [online].

US:

Educational

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CleB0AEEq_A

Activities.

[Consult:

24.05.2014]

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THE END

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