Preschool

1
Preschool Chapter 8

• What is a preschool?
• Programs for three to five-year-old children,
  before they enter kindergarten.
• 41 states currently invest in preschool programs.

2
Growing Popularity

• Helps to balance family and work
• Intervention
• Behavioral and social problems
• Quality of American workforce
• Responsible and trustworthy
• Foundation for learning brain research
• Change in purpose
• Old socialization and kindergarten readiness!
• New support and develop innate capacity for
  learning, centralized agency to deliver health,
  social, economic, and academic services, and
  solve and find solutions for pressing social
  problems ex. Dropouts, childrens health, and
  preventing substance abuse and violence.

3
What are preschoolers like?

• Text page 235.

4

• The Preschool Years Physical and Cognitive
  Development

5
Physical Growth The Growing Body

• Preschool age childrens physical abilities
  advance significantly (compared to infancy stage)
• Children grow steadily during the preschool
  period

6
Changes in body shape and structure occur during
the preschool years

1. Boys and girls become less chubby and roundish
   and more slender (slimming down).
2. Arms and legs lengthen.
3. Children grow stronger as muscle size increases
   and bones become sturdier.
4. Body proportions are more similar to those of
   adults (relationship between head and body more
   adultlike).

7
Nutritional needs change during the preschool
years ( effect development!).

• The growth rate slows during this age, thus
  preschoolers need less food to maintain their
  growth.
• Encouraging children to eat more than they want
  to, may lead to increased food intake.

8
(Nutrition during the preschool years, continued)

• ? Increased food intake may lead to OBESITY,
  (defined as a body weight more than 20 higher
  than the average weight for a person of a given
  age and height
• Obesity is more common among older preschoolers
  than it was 20 years ago
• Obesity is brought about by both biological
  (genetics, responsiveness to sweets) and social
  factors (parental encouragement).

9
Health Illness during the preschool years

• The majority of children in the United States are
  reasonably healthy.
• For the average American child, the common cold
  is the most frequent, and most severe, illness.
• The proportion of children immunized in the U.S.
  has fallen during some portions of the last two
  decades.

10
Although physical illness is typically a minor
problem during the preschool years, more children
are being treated for emotional disorders
11
Brain Growth

• ? Brain connections increase in strength at a
  faster rate than any other part of the body!
• By age 3, children's brains weigh 90 of average
  adult brain weight.
• Brain growth is so rapid because of the increase
  in the number of interconnections among cells,
  and the increase in myelin (the protective
  insulation that surrounds parts of neurons).

12
The 2 halves of the brain begin to become more
differentiated and specialized

• The left hemisphere focuses on verbal competence
  (speaking, thinking), and considers information
  sequentially (focus
• on parts).
• The right hemisphere concentrates on nonverbal
  areas (spatial relations, music, emotional
  expression), and considers information more
  globally (focus on wholes).

13
Cognitive Development

• Give them materials to see and experience
  concepts. Ex. Apple
• Hands-on activities for active involvement in
  their learning. Ex. Water play measurement,
  volume, sink/float, evaporation, etc.
• Many and varied experiences. Ex. Indoor/Outdoor
  play
• Modeling appropriate tasks and behaviors.
• Print-rich environment. Label everything!!
• Allowed periods of uninterrupted time to engage
  in self-chosen tasks.

14
Language Development

• Infants and toddlers holophrases, ex. Milk!
• One Year two or more words
• Second Year about 275 words!
• Telegraphic speech Amy go
• Third Year Add helping verbs and negatives, ex.
  No Touch! or I dont want milk!
• Fourth and Fifth Year Complete their sentences
  using laws of grammar.

15
Motor Development in the Preschool Years
(ages 35)

• Both gross and fine motor skills become
  increasingly fine-tuned during this age.
• Preschoolers' level of activity is
  extraordinarily high.
• According to research, the activity level at age
  3 is higher than at any other point in the
  lifespan!

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(Motor Development in the Preschool Years
continued)

• ?Girls and boys differ in certain aspects of
  motor development.
• Boys, because of increased muscle strength, tend
  to be somewhat stronger.
• Girls tend to surpass boys in tasks of dexterity
  or those involving the coordination of limbs.

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Some major gross motor skills in early childhood

• Hopping
• Skipping
• Running
• Throwing

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Fine Motor Skills are also developing during
this period

• Using utensils to eat
• Cutting things with scissors
• Tying shoelaces
• Drawing shapes
• Puzzles
• Require much more practice than gross motor
  skills!

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A final component of motor development Handedness

• Preference begins in infancy, but more finalized
  in the preschool years
• Most preschool children show a clear preference
  for the use of one hand over another - the
  development of HANDEDNESS.

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(Handedness Continued)

• 90 of preschoolers are right-handed
• more boys than girls are left-handed (so there
  IS a gender difference)
• There is no scientific basis for myths that
  suggest there is something wrong with being
  left-handed.