Work Of Young Children Research Articles

Marie and Mr. Bee by M. Welwood

Welwood, Margaret. Marie and Mr. Bee. Illustrated by Coralie Rycroft. Bomars Ventures, 2016.Very few children in Canada’s towns and smaller cities can buy a “locally” published picture book of reasonable quality. Happily for them, young children living in tiny Beaverlodge, Alberta (population, 2,327 as of 2016) can do just that.Marie and Mr. Bee is locally produced. Its author, Margaret Welwood, has teamed with Beaverlodge artist, Coralie Rycroft, to produce an enjoyable work for young children. Its publisher, Bomars Ventures, (also known as “Grandma’s Bookshelf”) appears to operate from Welwood’s address. The book is printed in Canada. It is a paperback, its sturdy, glossy pages stapled to its soft cover along the central fold (technically, “saddle bound”).Because this appears to be a self-published book, Welwood’s professional credentials should be noted. She holds a BA in Psychology and a Diploma in Adult Education, both from the University of Alberta. She is a member of the Writer’s Guild of Alberta, and the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. For twenty years she has taught English as a second language at Grande Prairie Regional College. She edited Northwest Business Magazine; has contributed nonfiction articles to a variety of journals, e.g., The Alberta Report, New Trail, Christian Woman; and has reviewed books ranging from children’s picture books to Bible study materials. This experience culminates in a writing style well suited to engaging, entertaining, and instructing her intended audience.Her book is admittedly didactic in intent, but not in style. A “Note to Parents” [Inside front cover] identifies one of its themes, “…get your work done first, and then it’s time to play.” While this theme evokes the Protestant work ethic (and, indeed, the back cover of the book features an endorsement by the Christian Fellowship Assembly) Albertans of every faith would embrace it.Welwood’s storyline is simple but charming. Marie, like her small forest friends—the Squirrels, Little Bear, and Fox—is a model of industry until Mr. Bee corrupts her with his own carefree attitude to life: “I don’t have to make honey. The workers make the honey and I eat it!” [p.6] Ultimately, however, indolence proves painful for Mr. Bee, and tedious to Marie.A secondary theme is much more subtly explored. Marie is wheelchair-bound. No words allude to her situation; it is simply conveyed by the exquisite artwork of Coralie Rycroft. With ink and colour, Rycroft depicts Marie’s lifestyle in an idyllic log cabin surrounded by beautiful woodlands. Marie is independent, self-sustaining, and fully functioning; the concept is powerfully communicated.Beyond its intended messages, the book conveys a third by its very existence. Given a few individuals with gifts and initiative, a small community can develop its own “literary oeuvre”, enrich the lives of its citizens, and communicate its cultural norms in ways that the wider world can appreciate.Reviewer: Leslie AitkenRecommended: 3 stars out of 4Leslie Aitken’s long career in librarianship involved selection of children’s literature for school, public, special, and university collections. She is a former Curriculum Librarian at the University of Alberta.

Accountability Comes to Preschool: Can We Make it Work for Young Children?

Early childhood educators are justifiably concerned that demands for academic standards in preschool will result in developmentally inappropriate instruction that focuses on a narrow set of isolated skills. But Ms. Stipek believes that teaching preschoolers basic skills can give them a good foundation for their school careers, and she shows that it is possible to do this in ways that are both effective and enjoyable. PRESSURES to raise academic achievement and to close the achievement gap have taken a firm hold on elementary and secondary schools. Now, preschools are beginning to feel the heat. Testing for No Child Left Behind isn't required until third grade. But as elementary schools ratchet up demands on children in the early grades and as kindergarten becomes more academic, children entering school without basic literacy and math skills are at an increasingly significant disadvantage. Accountability is also beginning to enter the preschool arena. Both the House and Senate versions of the Head Start reauthorization bill require the development of educational performance standards based on recommendations of a National Academy of Sciences panel. Head Start programs would then be held accountable for making progress toward meeting these goals, and their funding would be withdrawn after some period of time if they failed. States and districts are likely to follow with initiatives designed to ensure that children in publicly funded early childhood education programs are being prepared academically to succeed in school. There are good reasons for the increased attention to academic skills in preschool, especially in programs serving economically disadvantaged children. Children from low-income families enter kindergarten on average a year to a year and a half behind their middle-class peers in terms of school readiness. And the relatively poor cognitive skills of low-income children at school entry predict poor achievement in the long term. Meredith Phillips, James Crouse, and John Ralph estimated in a meta-analysis that about half of the total black/white gap in math and reading achievement at the end of high school is explained by the gap between blacks and whites at school entry. (1) Preschool education can give children from economically disadvantaged homes a better chance of succeeding in school by contributing to their cognitive skills. Moreover, all young children are capable of learning far more than is typically believed, and they enjoy the process. This new focus on academic preparation will undoubtedly have significant implications for the nature of preschool programs, and it could have negative consequences. Until recently, kindergarten was a time for children to prepare for school. Today, it is school--in most places as focused on academic skill as first grade used to be. Will the same thing happen to preschool? We need to think hard about how we will balance the pressure to prepare young children academically with their social/emotional needs. How will we increase young children's academic skills without undermining their enthusiasm for learning or reducing the attention we give to the many other domains of development that are important for their success? The early childhood education community has resisted a focus on academic skills primarily because experts are worried that it will come in the form of whole-group instruction, rigid pacing, and repetitive, decontextualized tasks --the kind of drill and kill that is becoming commonplace in the early elementary grades and that is well known to suffocate young children's natural enthusiasm for learning. My own recent observations in preschools suggest that these concerns are well founded. I am seeing children in preschool classrooms counting by rote to 10 or 20 in a chorus. When I interview the children, many have no idea what an 8 or a 10 is. They can't tell me, for example, how many cookies they would have if they started with 7 and I gave them one more, or whether 8 is more or less than 9. …

Writing Lines: an Exploratory Study

Abstract This article describes some preliminary investigations into the effects of lined and unlined paper on the organisation of the written work of young children. Illustrations are provided to show the marked effects of lines. The handwriting policy of the schools concerned changed as a result of the investigation.

Written Composition in the Primary Grades

Throughout my experience in teaching and supervising I have been greatly interested in both the oral and the written composition work of young children. Oral composition receives considerable attention in all of the primary rooms, but I find many teachers omitting written composition because they believe that the children are too young for pencil work. We all know how children under school age scribble notes to their fathers, mothers, or absent friends of whom they are very fond. These precious expressions of experiences or desires cannot be read by others, but the writer will tell you quickly and exactly what he or she wished to communicate. Later the child may become dissatisfied with his scribble and prefer to dictate his message to his mother or any person who will write it for him in good form. It seems right to take this interest in written expression which the child brings with him to the first grade and keep it alive by writing on the board his dictated contributions while we build up sufficient word power to make individual written composition work possible. The following compositions illustrate the attainments of different first-grade children throughout the year's work when such a plan is followed. These compositions were gained either in my own teaching experience or in that of Mrs. Floy Sherman, of Springfield, Illinois. They are reproduced here in the exact spelling, lining, punctuation, and form used by the children. The words in parentheses are inserted to assist the reader in deciphering the thought. I. This is Junior. This is migie. Junior is drinki ng sme (some) milk. [Child had been in first grade ten weeks. Junior is the child's little brother.] 586