The Mother Goose on the Loose Blog

Random Acts of Kindness

| Positive Reinforcement, , ,
Share

 

Last week, while all of Baltimore was battling a tremendous snow storm, I was in Florida presenting a “Transforming Preschool Storytime” workshop to an enthusiastic and receptive group of children’s librarians. I left feeling  invigorated and delighted that our children have such a skillful group of educators devoted to helping them get the best start possible . While formal education may be cutting arts education and replacing it with academic work (even for the youngest children), children’s librarians are filling in gaps by introducing books and literature with songs, games, art projects, and drama. Examples were given of the creative programming that these librarians present on a regular basis to their preschoolers and school-aged children.  Seeing the talent, the dedication and the true joy that these Florida librarians have in planning and presenting  high-quality programs to their preschoolers was exhilarating.

Due to the snow in Baltimore, my flight was rescheduled a number of times, and I ended up spending an extra three days in Florida. I did not mind at all – those days included time with friends and a day visiting Harry Potter World at Universal Studios.

I’ve been back in Baltimore for a week, and today I received an unexpected card in the mail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a wonderful surprise! 

During the workshops, when discussing developmental tips, I mention the story told to me by a librarian who went shopping in a supermarket in an unfamiliar town she was visiting. Behind her was a father with his daughter, estimated to be around age 3. The daughter took a kid-sized shopping cart at the supermarket entrance and went racing into the store. The father calmly stood there and called out, “And the drum says STOP” (a phrase connected to one of the Mother Goose on the Loose activities). The girl immediately froze. The father strolled to join her with his cart and the two happily continued shopping together in the store.

The phrase “the drum says STOP” is a clear give-away that they had been attending Mother Goose on the Loose programs. But the fact that the father used it to get his daughter to stop indicates that their children’s librarian probably cited one of the standard MGOL developmental tips: “All children need to learn the word STOP. If you wait until they are doing something dangerous and call out STOP in a panicked tone of voice, your child will probably giggle and continue doing whatever it was. But, if you play freeze games at home, using a pot as a drum or anything else, then your child will become accustomed to stopping automatically when you request it. So, try playing freeze games with your child at home.”

We don’t know who the librarian was in that town, but there is little doubt that a developmental tip gave this father the idea to play freeze games with his child, using the exact expression “and the drum says STOP” to let his daughter know that it is time to STOP NOW.  I suspect, however, that their librarian has no idea that this dad listened to her tip and took the suggestion to play freeze games at home.

I use this example to show the power of developmental tips. Children’s librarians can be important influences for good, not only with children but with their parents and caregivers as well. A friendly face, a welcoming voice, a font of information, and a true partner in the nurturing of children makes children’s librarians heroes is so many ways. But, they don’t often to get feedback that lets them know about the impact they’ve had on so many families. For instance, the librarian of this particular dad and daughter might never know that her tip made a difference in their lives.  But it did!

We also talk about positive feedback and how clapping for a child who pulls Humpty off his wall, or using positive words when children tap “STOP” on the drum gives them the incentive to continue paying attention, waiting for their turn, and following directions. 

It is not often that people are told they have had a positive impact on the lives of other. Children’s librarians have positive impacts every day, but rarely get the feedback enabling them to know that they have made a difference to in people’s lives.  In addition to a wonderful workshop and a fun week in Florida, I am grateful to have received this lovely piece of positive reinforcement.  Thank you, Jodi!

kindness

Radical Change

| ALISE, children's literature, early literacy, Eliza T. Dresang, Inclusive programming, Positive Reinforcement, radical change, , ,
Share

I am currently at the ALISE conference in Boston. This yearly event is for library school professors and doctoral students to share research and network with colleagues.  The theme of this year’s conference is Radical Change, a theory coined by Dr. Eliza Dresang.  Eliza was an active member of ALISE and a beloved mentor to many members of the Youth Services Special Interest Group. Most recently, Eliza was the Beverly Clearly  Professor in Children and Youth Services at the University of Washington Information School, but she passed away on April 21, 2014.

The three components of radical change are interactivity, connectivity, and access. According to Dr. Annette Goldsmith, “The theory as elucidated in Eliza’s book, Radical Change, applies to books and other materials for children. It has been extended to also encompass digital media and information media.”

Interactivity, connectivity, and access are the digital age principles that Eliza drew upon.  Library and Information Science is a field that tends to borrow theories, but this theory was created from within the field. Eliza was an incredible scholar,  a warm and loving human being, a tremendous mentor and teacher, and a person who knew how to connect in meaningful ways with others.

While Eliza’s presence at ALISE is sorely missed, it is clear that in addition to recognizing the impact of her work, her work also continues to inspire others.

Click here to read an interview with Kyungwon Koh, who extended the theory of radical change to youth information behavior. 

What does MGOL have in common with the Declaration of Independence?

| early literacy, ECRR, lapsits, MGOL, Mother Goose on the Loose, The importance of conversation with children, , , ,
Share

While she was a student, my mother was required to memorize the part of the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence. She recited it to me when I was a child:

 “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all citizens are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Thus, I was brought up with the belief that the United States was a place where anyone could become successful if they were willing to work hard and follow the rules.

I was the only Jewish kid in my class at our small neighborhood school; my best friend was the only African American girl in our grade. My classmates’ parents or grandparents had come to the United States from Poland, Puerto Rico, Italy, Russia, Greece, Brazil, Norway, and a variety of other countries.  We were a mixture of lower middle-class children whose parents wanted us to succeed. In our neighborhood where people came from different backgrounds, we all got along.

I did not learn what prejudice was until I attended Girl Scout camp in sixth grade and learned that some people don’t like other people because they look differently or pray in different places.  This was a rude awakening for me then, and it still feels wrong to me today.

 I believe that the intent behind our great county is to be a place where everyone should be able to earn a living by working hard, families can live in neighborhoods without fearing for their lives, children are all given the same opportunities for success, each person is treated like a valuable human being, and everyone is encouraged to be a contributing member of society.

Unfortunately, this is not the case today. Murders and crime reports are daily features in the news. Many US families live in poverty; even while working at minimum wage jobs, they cannot afford to house, feed, and provide necessary medications for their family members. How can people think about contributing to their country when they are worrying where their next meal is coming from?

 In many communities, families with extremely high incomes do not interact with low income families. Lack of contact with children from different backgrounds can lead to skewed judgment and misunderstandings.

 Although all healthy children may be born with the ability to be successful US citizens, research has shown that certain factors are essential building blocks. A sense of security, joyful play experiences, a large vocabulary, and a positive sense of self are important factors in the formation of the architecture of the brain in the earliest years of life. Loving interaction with the significant adult in a child’s life is another meaningful element in the foundation for future success.

 There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but there are five simple practices, identified by the American Library Association, the Public Library Association, and the Association of Library Services for Children that can be done by parents with their children in order to level the playing field for their children: talk, sing, read, write, and play together.[www.ala.org/everychild/]

Although this does not require a large income, there are still obstacles. Some parents believe that they need academic skills in order to help their children “become smart.” Instead of realizing that they are their children’s first and best teacher, they put misplaced faith in “educational games” and “educational television.” Sometimes, they don’t even try to spend time talking, singing, and playing with their children because they are mistakenly convinced that they “don’t have what it takes.” How can we empower these parents to let them know that one of the best things they can do for their child is to talk together, play together, and sing together?

In order to keep children busy, parents sometimes hand them a smart phone or iPad loaded with apps. No matter how educational the app might be, if it does not involve one-on-one contact with a significant adult, the neurons in the brain do not make the same type of quality connections. Children learn best via a “conversational duet,” a give-and-take verbal sharing with the important adults in their lives. Studies have shown that “co-viewing” or “joint media engagement” (when parents sit with their children and play with the electronic device together), is much more beneficial than the most “educational” of apps, if the child is left to play with it alone.

The proliferation of electronic communication devices means that parents spend less time with their children. It is not unusual for parent-child conversations to be interrupted by phone calls. Work is no longer done mostly at the workplace; parents now view and respond to work-related emails on home computers and on smart phones, cutting into time that they might be otherwise spending with their children. Yet an important research study just showed that when parents interrupt conversations with their children to answer a phone call, the children learn less. (Reed, J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (Under review: “Learning on hold: Cell phones sidetrack parent-child interactions.”)

Important social and emotional skills that children learn through joyful, play-based experiences are lost when children are deprived of opportunities to interact with peers, explore the properties of objects, interact with books in fun ways, feel good about themselves for paying attention and following directions. The sense of competency that grows when children accomplish what they set out to do, helping them to develop problem solving and critical thinking skills, is lost when children are not given the opportunity to use making mistakes as a learning tool.

The ability to learn how to read at grade level is hampered when children enter kindergarten without prior exposure to books, a sizable vocabulary, and enthusiasm for learning.

 In recognition that early learning is “a national priority essential to our economic and civil future,”[1]  The Institute for Museum and Library Services produced a report, “Growing Young Minds” that lists ten ways to support strong starts for young children’s learning. These include:

  • Creating pathways into knowledge- and skill-building through community “touch points”;
  • Having “safe places where families can learn together,” where parents and caregivers can “learn how to engage in age-appropriate interactions with their children,”;
  • Building brains by “offering learning environments that address the important social, emotional, and cognitive aspects of learning and foster persistence [and] self-direction..”;
  • Coordinating “learning experiences and effective transition practices that..scaffold increasingly advancing skills and knowledge, [promoting] a smooth transition into kindergarten”; and
  • Offering “rich collections of books and objects…and programs that foster…interest-driven learning.” ( IMLS, Growing Young Minds, p.1)

I believe Mother  Goose on the Loose programs help to grow young minds in all the ways stated above. I know it is not a panacea to all ills, but I do know from  getting feedback from huge numbers of parents and librarians throughout the years that it does change lives. And, as we know, helping the youngest children get a good start in life and make an incredible difference later on.

So, back to the Declaration of Independence…

MGOL is built on the belief that all children are created equal. By empowering parents with knowledge and using nursery rhymes to help children develop literacy, social, and emotional skills, we are giving the children a strong foundation upon which to build. Starting off life with with these readiness skills will place children from all backgrounds on a path for success in school, success in social relationships, and success in future jobs.

Whether or not a parent is literate, whether or not a family speaks English, whether or not a family uses electronic devices, when parents and children talk, sing, share books, and play together, a sturdy foundation is built.

Because of this, I am now on a quest to expand Mother Goose on the Loose, and to make it available to as many people as possible.  I will keep you posted!

Research Review: How Guided Play Can Build Math Skills

| Research Review, ,
Share

Read the following Research Review by Erica Zippert and use the bolded sentences as developmental tips for parents! If you’d like to react to this article, feel free to leave a comment or respond to the questions below.

“Taking Shape: Supporting Preschoolers’ Acquisition of Geometric Knowledge Through Guided Play” by Kelly R. Fisher, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Nora Newcombe, and Roberta M. Golinkoff compares the effects of different learning experiences, all of which have previously recognized as beneficial for children’s learning, on children’s shape knowledge.

It is more important than ever that we promote preschool children’s school readiness skills before they enter kindergarten to ensure that they have a smooth transition into school, and a successful educational career ahead of them.  Mathematics (which includes skills such as number knowledge as well as geometry) may be an especially important academic area for development. In fact, early math readiness skills have been shown to be especially strongly linked to children’s academic success later in school (e.g., Duncan et al., 2007). This means that the math skills children bring with them to kindergarten may help them throughout their schooling in a range of  subjects. This is of course not to suggest that literacy skills are less valuable for children, but brings to mind the importance of examining the academic development of the child more broadly!

It has been long debated how best to support the development of these skills, both mathematics and otherwise (Fisher, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff, 2012). Some researchers suggest that the most effective way is through didactic instruction, in which the child is considered merely a passive recipient of information delivered by a more knowledgeable other, such as a teacher (Stockard & Engelmann, 2008). Other theorists, including the founding fathers of the field of child development research (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978 and Piaget, 1962), argued that children can play active roles in their learning.   These theorists support the notion that children’s learning occurs during their free play, or “self-directed activities that are fun, engaging, voluntary, and flexible, have no extrinsic goals, and often contain an element of make-believe (Sutton-Smith, 2001).” They also suggest that children may benefit from scaffolding or assistance from a more knowledgeable other, which has been more recently recognized as guided play (Golbeck, 2001).  In guided play, more knowledgeable others (e.g., teachers) act as “collaborative partners who create flexible, interest-driven experiences that encourage children’ s natural curiosity, active engagement, and “sense-making” processes (e.g., Fisher et al., 2012)”. The difference between guided play, free play, and didactic instruction ultimately lies in the role of the child.  While the child plays no role in didactic instruction, and is the sole actor in free play, teachers and children work together in didactic play to further children’s learning.

These approaches have never been directly compared, so it is unclear whether one is more effective than the other.  Early learning programs with playful components, which are becoming increasingly more popular with young children, have shown better outcomes for children’s academic development than traditional instructional approaches that focus solely on didactic instruction (e.g., Diamond, Barnett, Thomas, & Munro, 2007; Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006; Marcon, 2002).  Yet , the comparisons between guided play, free play, and didactic instruction are slightly misleading.  No two play-based early childhood programs are the same, and many likely include varying degrees of both free play and guided play approaches (Chein et al., 2010; Wood, 2009).

It is especially unclear which learning experiences are best for children’s math development. Classroom observations of preschoolers from a range of financial and ethnic backgrounds provide evidence that children explore math on their own during free play  (Seo & Ginsburg, 2004).  Some researchers are skeptical, however, about the extent to which free play might lead to math learning (Sarama & Clements, 2009), suggesting that children may not be able to grasp math concepts without the help of an adult.

To date, there is not much  research examining math learning from play. In two published studies, the math skills of preschool children playing a number-related board game with peers with guidance from an adult improved significantly as a result of only an hour’s worth of this playful experience (Ramani & Siegler, 2008; Ramani, Siegler, & Hitti, 2011). However,  it is unclear if children would have improved their understanding of numbers without help from an adult.

To answer the question of which instructional approach would best lead to children’s math learning, the researchers conducted a study of 70 4- and 5-year-old children from a suburban region of Philadelphia (note that 10 children could not be included in the study for various reasons, and most children were Caucasian and from middle- to upper-income backgrounds). The researchers randomly assigned children to receive one type of learning experience, either didactic instruction, free play, or guided play to learn to classify a range of shapes (i.e., triangles, rectangles, pentagons, and hexagons) in typical or familiar forms (e.g., equilateral triangle), atypical yet still classifiable forms (e.g., isosceles or scalene triangles), and non-valid forms (e.g., shapes with incomplete sides). For examples of shapes, see the figure image below of triangles and non-triangles.

 Shape examples image 

In the guided play condition, each child and the experimenter engaged in exploration of pictures of shapes on cards in an exploratory and playful way, acting as detectives, wearing detective hats discovering “the secret of the shapes,” or what makes a shape a shape (i.e., the number of complete sides). The experimenter guided the children to explore and compare both typical and atypical forms of the same shapes, citing that “all the shapes were real shapes although they looked different” with questions and encouragement to touch and trace the shapes. Children then used construction sticks to create atypical shapes and explain why they were similar to typical shapes.

In the didactic instruction condition, the experimenter used the same language as in the guided play condition, but did not involve the child. Instead, children were passive observers, or simply watched the experimenter explain differences between familiar and non-familiar shapes.

In the free play condition, children were shown pictures of shapes on cards grouped together by shapes. They were allowed to play with the cards for 7 minutes and the construction sticks for 6 minutes in any way they wished.

Immediate test of learning: To test children’s learning of shapes, children were asked to classify cards in terms of whether they showed pictures of real shapes or non-real shapes in the form of a game. Leelu the Ladybug, “a very picky bug who loves shapes, but only real shapes” wanted the child to place all real shapes in a box and all fake shapes in a trashcan. Children were shown new pictures of shapes or non-shapes one card at a time, asked to identify it as a real shape or a fake shape, explain their answers, and place the cards in the correct place (box or trashcan).

Delayed test of learning: A sample of the original children (85%) were assessed a week later on the same shape classification test to see if their shape knowledge sustained over a longer period of time.

Results.  Findings showed that children in the guided play condition were better able to correctly classify typical and atypical shapes than children in the didactic instruction and free play conditions, though most children regardless of condition were able to correctly classify non-shapes. Children in the didactic condition were better able to recognize atypical shapes as shapes than children in the free play condition, but children in both of these conditions did not differ in their abilities to categorize familiar shapes as real shapes. Further, children did not differ in their performance on the shape classification test 1 week later.

Discussion. This study shows the benefits of guided play above simply demonstrating things for children, and simply letting them explore on their own, at least for especially challenging concepts. Most children in the guided play condition were able to correctly classify shapes with which they may have already been familiar, and learned to correctly classify shapes that perhaps looked different from what they were originally used to. Children in the didactic condition were more limited in their learning. They knew to reject non-shapes as shapes, but often were unable to recognize atypical yet classifiable shapes correctly. The children in the free play condition did explore the shape properties with which they were familiar. They often told stories about the shapes, likely putting their prior shape knowledge to use, but did not move beyond that to classify the shapes in more advanced ways. Lastly, those who did receive instruction in shape knowledge learned a great deal, as their knowledge persisted several days afterwards.

Take away message. These results are important in thinking about how we guide children to learn, and how to guide families to support their children’s learning. It is imperative that we give children opportunities to apply what they know to solve new problems during free play, but to help them gain new understandings of more challenging concepts, they benefit from guidance from a more knowledgeable other, like a parent or teacher. Most importantly, children learn best from guidance when the experience is fun, motivating, hands-on, centered around the child, and involves collaborative back-and-forth question-and-answering with the adult, rather than a mere demonstration of new information. Note that this study only helps us understand children’s learning of one particular math concept (i.e., shapes). More research is needed to demonstrate how these approaches promote learning other math concepts and acquiring skills in other domains.

 Tell us what you think!

Did these results surprise you?

Share your experiences with direct instruction, guided play and free play!  

What has worked best for you as a learner, a teacher, a parent, or a caregiver?  Why?

What would the results look like for other domains such as literacy, social skills, science, social studies?

What if the children studied had been from a different neighborhood/state/country?  Would you still expect to see the same results?

Click on the following links to access the article directly and to see a bibliography of all resources cited in this research review.

link to the article

References