Infant And Toddler Learning And Development Handbook
Infant And Toddler Learning And Development Handbook
Thesis
Educators should support the learning and development of infants and toddlers to equip them with the necessary skills. Educators can support infant and toddler learning and development by selecting suitable learning activities and teaching strategies. However, many educators do not have sufficient knowledge on how to select learning activities and teaching strategies and hence do not promote development and learning. The handbook provides information on infant and toddler development including teaching strategies and learning activities. The handbook includes activities that promote language, motor skills and cognitive development in young children.
Purpose
Infants and toddlers go through various stages of cognitive, language, motor and emotional development. They acquire a wide range of skills needed later in life and learning. Teaching infants and toddlers is a significant challenge for many teachers as they are unable to select proper activities for children and also teaching strategies. Infant and toddlers are curious from a tender age and have the desire to learn from people around them and the environment. Therefore, it is the responsibility of educators to provide infants and toddlers with a positive learning experience. They can provide an appropriate learning experience by selecting suitable activities and teaching strategies. This enables infants and toddlers to develop appropriate skills needed in learning.
Theories of development
Theorists have developed several theories to describe emotional and cognitive development. The emotional development theory explains how human beings develop a sense of self and relationship with other people. The theories explain how toddlers and infants discover and develop self via a primary relationship with adults. Erik Erickson developed the theory of psychological development. He identified various stages of development from birth to adulthood. The stages explain how children develop self and relationship with other people. Infant and Toddlers go through the eight stages identified by Erickson as they develop their personality and establish relationships with other people. Infants and toddlers experience various biological, cognitive and social needs. The children determine whether the family, culture and society can meet their needs through development crisis. For instance, a child develops a sense of trust if an adult responds to his or her needs quickly. Trust gives the child the confidence to start exploring the world independently. Crisis in every stage shows a sense of struggle and all options in each stage should be represented. Crisis enables infants learn that all people cannot be trusted to satisfy their needs. Infants and toddlers should understand their actions have consequences. The infant-toddler educator should be responsive and understand their potential for growth in tolerable stages of struggle (Wittmer & Petersen, 2010).
Moreover, the attachment theory explains how children develop a sense of safety. Children have different experiences when it comes to safety as adults satisfy the safety needs of children differently. Children depict a wide range of behaviors such as crying; smiling and eye contact so as to keep their parents close and ensure they are safe. Ensuring infants and toddlers are safe enables them to explore the world. Children who have warm and responsive mothers feel free to explore the world at infancy. Overly independent children have non responsive mothers. The mothers do not meet their safety. They do not satisfy the assurance and comfort needs of the child. The attachment theory is applicable when teaching infants and toddlers. Educators should be responsive to the needs of toddlers and infants so as to enable them feel safe. They should help infants manage their feelings and reaction to hard conditions. They should help infants and toddlers feel free to explore by ensuring they are safe (Wittmer & Petersen, 2010).
The cognitive development theories describe the process of development and divide it into various stages. Adults shield support learning. The constructive theory of learning explains how children construct their world via play. Infants and toddlers actively construct their comprehension p of the worlds by exploration and play. Children develop schemas of the present understanding of the world. The schemas can be reflexes and then motor actions. Children experiment internally as they grow and they think through possibilities. They also learn new things via mental processes. Teachers should provide opportunities for infants and toddlers to discover crucial principles about themselves. Educators should structure the information n a manner that permits children to understand it. They should provide different interesting materials for infants and toddlers to manipulate and explore. This will enable students understand how objects in the world work (Wittmer & Petersen, 2010).
Stages of development
Educators should understand cognitive development in toddlers and infants to help them acquire essential skills and learning strategies. Piaget has identified four stages of cognitive development and children go through the stages. In sensorimotor, infants and toddlers discover relationships between the environment and their bodies. They have well developed sensory capabilities. Infants and toddlers depend on seeing, touching and feeling to learn about the environment. They also use their senses to learn more about them sands the environment. In pre operation phase, infants and toddlers react to objects similar as they are similar. The infant and toddler though are transductive.
The children make inference from one thing to another. In concrete operation phase, children start to reason logically and organize their thoughts coherently. They only think about actual physical object and not abstract objects. The last phase is formal operational stage and start at around 11 years to 12 years. The children learn how to formulate a hypothesis and test them. Moreover, children pass through various stages of language development as they develop language skills. The first stage is new born. New born babies react to sounds and voices by cooing, smiling and crying. The second stage is 3-8 months. In this stage, infants and toddlers play with sounds. They also babble to other people and also themselves. Also, the children wave and kick to depict feelings. The third stage is 8-12. During this stage children can understands and respond to less complicated words and gestures. They also recognize caregivers and parents together with their voices. The fourth stage is 12-16 months. In this case, children start to say words and follow direction. The infants recognize their names and pronounce syllables. The last stage is 18-24 months. During this stage, children can make sentences with two words. They imitate words and gestures used by adults. They also ask questions (Wittmer & Petersen, 2010).
Children also go through different motor skills development stages and depict different characteristics in each stage. Children aged 0-3 months lie on their belly and raise their head. They also move every arm and leg equally and lie on the back. They also hold their head high when caregivers hold them in a sitting position. During 4-6 months, the children lie on their belly and lift their head up almost 90 degrees. They are also able to hold their head steadily when upright in their caregivers’ arms. They sit with support and back straight. In 7-9 months, children can stand when caregivers hold them and sit independently. They also work to get toys stored far. In 10-12 months, child stands supporting themselves on to caregivers and other things. The infants and toddlers crawl on knees and hands. Between 12 and 18 months, children can walk upstairs with the caregiver’s help. They also throw balls and try to kick (Wittmer & Petersen, 2010).
Teaching strategies
Emotional and cognitive development helps in developing teaching strategies and guide interaction between educators and children. The cognitive development theories explain how children acquire cognitive skills and how children develop relationships with adults. The attachment theory and psychological development theory help in strategy development and interaction of children and teachers. Teachers should be responsive to the needs of infants and toddlers. Responding to the toddlers and infants needs leads to trust and enables them to explore the world. Also, educators should promote safety so as to encourage toddlers and infant’s to learn.
Children explore the world if they feel safe. Therefore, educators should maintain a close relationship with the children to enable them acquire appropriate cognitive and emotional skills. Emotional and cognitive theories guide teaching strategies as educators should use strategies that encourage cognitive development. Teachers are supposed to structure information presented to children in a manner that allows them to understand it. They should offer interesting materials to enable them explore the environment. In addition, the teaching strategies and interactions between the teacher and student should promote language development and motor skills development. Understanding the various stages of language and motor development equips educators with adequate knowledge about characteristics that children display during each stage. This in turn, enables them to select the right teaching strategies and interact in a manner that promotes language and motor skill development. Teachers should use activities that promote language development by enhancing the skills children have. Caregivers should help children develop vocabulary by speaking in complete sentences. This will enable children who imitate caregiver’s words increase their vocabulary (Wittmer & Petersen, 2010).
Planning Guidelines
Educators should use learning activities to promote cognitive, motor skills and language development. Selecting the activities is not easy as educators do not have sufficient knowledge on cognitive, motor skills and language development stages. Planning is essential when selecting learning activities for infants and toddlers. Activity plans provide a road map for promoting infant and toddler development. Educators should determine the age of the child and strengths and weaknesses. Then select the appropriate activities for each age group. Children depict different characteristics on each stage of language, motor skills and cognitive development. Thus, they need different activities to support them in every stage. Educators should select activities based on goals such as language, cognitive and motor skills development. They should also plan the activities according to the interest of the child. Educators should be flexible when dealing with toddlers and infants and change to incorporate time for the child’s interest. When planning for mixed ages, educators should select open ended activities that permit children of various ages to respond in their own ways. They should also be implemented based on the goals and age (Swim & Herr, 2001).
Activity plans
Age: 3 months
Activity: here is my finger
Developmental goal: Promotes cognitive development
Procedure: The care giver should hold the infant on the lap and put his index finger on the baby hand. Then grasp the
Age: 6 months
Activity: tapping the baby’s hand
Developmental goal: promotes fine motor skills development
Procedure: the care giver should tap the hand of the baby with a toy to promote reaching. She should swipe a dangling toy to show the baby how the toy will dance utilizing mobile and crib gyms.
Age: 12-24 months
Activity: music
Developmental goal: promotes development of music skills development
Procedure: The teacher or caregiver should encourage the child to play and learn as a team by arranging a music parade. Each child should play an instrument. The teacher can develop a “petting zoo” where each child explores the instrument.
Age: 16-36 months
Activity: Blocks
Developmental goal: promotes development of sensory motor skills.
Materials: big cardboard blocks.
Procedure: The teacher/ caregiver should sit with the child and start stacking blocks. He should give the child a block and encourage him or her to join him. Then the child should knock the blocks stacked. Then ask the child to stack the blocks. The teacher should encourage the child to try several times even if he is successful or not.
Age: 2-3 months
Activity: shape -up
Developmental goal: The activity promotes the development of math skills.
Materials: Shape sorters
Procedure: The teacher/ caregiver should discuss each shape with the child. The educator and the child should count the sides of each shape and describe the colors. Then make shapes by cutting big shapes out of colored construction papers. Then ask the child to jump on the red shape or the circle.
Age: 12-18 months
Activity: push toys
Developmental goal: The activity promotes the development of large motor skills.
Materials: push toys
Procedure: The teacher/ caregiver should encourage the child to push toys. Pushing toys enables infants and toddlers to develop balance. They also learn how to control their legs as they walk and crawl.
Age: 12-18 months
Activity: song
Developmental goal: The activity promotes the development of literacy skills.
Materials: song.
Procedure: The teacher/ caregiver should use songs to expand vocabulary. He should sing a song to help the toddler learn to create sentences and arrange words in a sentence. The teacher should pause and let the child complete the remaining part.
Age: Young children of any age
Activity: Touch and feel texts
Developmental goal: The activity promotes the development of science skills.
Materials: Touch and feel books such as Touch and Feel: Puppyand Touch and Feel: Kitten.
Procedure: The teacher/ caregiver should encourage the child to read the touch and feel text. He should allow the child to explore the touch sense so as to learn different textures like rough. The books use colorful examples, interesting textures and simple text that encourage children to explore touch. Infants and Toddlers are eager to explore science through touch and this activity gives them an opportunity (US department of health and human services, 2010).
Family engagement
Family members play a crucial role in the development of infants and toddlers and should be involved in the development. They can promote language, cognitive ad motor skill development.Promoting a positive communication about child development between caregivers and parents and other family members promote child development. Parents and caregivers should work as a team to facilitate the development of the child by identifying weaknesses and strengths. Maintaining a positive relationship between the family members and child promotes development. Children develop a self and emotional security through positive relationships. Parents should provide appropriate environments for emotional development. They should be responsive and caring to promote emotional development. Motor development happens when children have a positive relationship with others and get a chance to move and manipulate objects (Miller, 1999).
Conclusion
In conclusion, infants and toddlers go through various development stages. The stags include cognitive, motor skills and language development stages. Children show different behaviors in each stage and educators should understand them. Educators have a responsibility of promoting learning and development among infant. They can do so through learning activities and interaction. Infants and toddlers are active and ready to learn from the environment. Therefore, adults and educators should provide a suitable environment for learning.
Resources
Educators can learn more about planning by visiting the following sites.
1.http://www.starstab.com/Infant%20workbook%20part%202.pdf
2.http://www.betterkidcare.psu.edu/AngelUnits/TwoHour/Caring/CaringWkBk.pdf
Reference
Miller, K. (1999).Simple Steps: Developmental Activities for Infants, Toddlers, and Two-Year-Olds. Consortium nook sales and Dist
Swim, T., & Herr, J.(2001). Creative Resources for Infants and Toddlers. Cengage learning
US department of health and human services.(2010). Infant and toddler development. Retrieved from http://www.zerotothree.org/public-policy/state-community-policy/nitcci/multidisciplinary-consultant-module-2.pdf on 4/12/2012
Watson, L.D., & Swim, T. (2010). Infants & Toddlers: Curriculum and Teaching. Cengage learning
Wittmer, D.S. & Petersen, S.H (2010). Infant and toddler development and responsive program planning: A relationship-based approach (2nd ed.).Upper Saddle River: Pearson.
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