Curriculum model

A curriculum model is a designed format of a curriculum developed by curriculum developers/experts to meet the unique needs, contexts, and or purposes. Curriculum developers design reconfigure, or rearrange one or more curriculum components to achieve the desired goals. According to the Department for Education and Employment(2000) The Reggio Emilia approach to early child hood education (preschool) education employs a technique that emphasizes on the children’s symbolic languages in the context of project-oriented curriculum.

Reggio Emilia program of preschool education has been recognizes internationally as the best in helping children below the age of six years to learn literacy, numeracy and science. The program is based upon the following principles to be able to deliver the intended purpose.

How the environment supports literacy, math and science: evidence from Early Learning for Every Child Today a framework for Ontario early childhood settings

Numeracy skills

Numerical thinking in children begins earlier in life and the informal mathematical knowledge of young children is broad and complex.

Department of Education, Tasmania (2004) Provides that young children begin to understand numerals when they recognize the difference in quantities, the role of special numbers such as 5 and 10 and the relationship between little and big, large and small, tall and short and more and less.

Numerical thinking is enhanced by the following factors;

The social environment,

Rich pretend play opportunities

adult coaching.

The above factors provide counting of words, mathematical relationships, including one-one correspondence and many contexts where ordinality and cardinality are used.

Play environment enables children to begin understanding about numbers when and can begin using number line that is prerequisite for summation, subtraction, multiplication and division (case, griffin&Kelly,1999; national research council, 2011).

According to National research council (2011), Children master and integrate the understanding of numbers when allowed to play games, which involve the use of number line, one-one correspondence, and counting (for instance, basic variations of snakes and ladders).

Scientific learning

Gopnik, Geltzoff & Kuhl (1999) provides that scientific reasoning and learning begins at infancy.

Babies often observe how thing move around, gather information and make general conclusions about the surrounding world.

They experiment with tools and learn to manipulate objects. Children of preschool use inquiry methods of data collection, prediction, recording and talking about results.Carnegie Corporation of New York. (2003) states that during pretend play, problems to be solved emerge.

Finally, preschool teachers may introduce situations in the environment that provoke the children to think and provide the m with opportunities to reinforce their problem solving skills.

Literacy learning

Department for Education and Employment (2001) denoted that the environment in which preschool children are subjected to promote pretend play leading to literacy acquisition.

Play involving symbols requires the child to determine goals and tasks, do them, and use complex language to express them. The aim of pretend play is to enable then to develop narrative recall of events, which enhances language development.

Pretend play makes children storytellers, creators of new versions of stories and composers of new stories. The development of narrative ability is linked with fluency and reading comprehension later in life.

By early childhood practitioners creating environmental print in pretend play, children start to understand how print works and how reading is. Children benefit from pretend play by developing schemas and scripts like mental structures are organized in understanding print.

Conclusion

In summary, children learn better, when they are allowed to interact with their peer, play freely and explore the world. Flexibility and inventiveness is needed in their exploration. The environment of play forms the platform of preschool children inquiry and exploration. Practitioners of early childhood ensure that there is balance of opportunities for the child to think and develop maths, literacy and scientific reasoning.

References

Association for Childhood Education International. (2000-2002). Global guidelines for earlychildhood. http://www.udel.edu/bateman/acei/wguides.htm

Bennett, John. (2004). Curriculum issues in national policy-making. Keynote address. Paris,OECD//Malta, EECERA

Carnegie Corporation of New York. (2003). PreK standards. McGraw-Hill Education.

Department for Education and Employment. (2000). Curriculum guidelines for the foundations stage.London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

Department for Education and Employment. (2001). Planning for learning in the foundation stage.London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

Department of Education, Tasmania. (2004). Essential connections: A guide to young children’s learning.Hobart, Tasmania: Department of Education.