Month: April 2024

Kindergarten helps children get used to working and playing in a structured environment. It also allows them to make friends and settle disputes with peers in a controlled setting.

Kids will learn basic two-dimensional shapes and the importance of recognizing each side of a shape. They’ll also start learning the sounds of letters and begin identifying printed lower and upper case letters as well as correctly saying them.

Academics

Many parents and educators are concerned that kindergarten classrooms are geared too much toward academic instruction and not enough toward play and social-emotional development. These concerns are exacerbated by the emphasis on academic achievement that has occurred as a result of No Child Left Behind, which tied federal funding to test scores. Fortunately, recent studies examining the effect of classroom quality on student achievement suggest that academic content does not have to be at odds with children’s healthy growth and development.

During kindergarten, children will be expected to learn basic math concepts and how to read using a common core curriculum. They will also begin to learn the names of the letters in the alphabet and how to blend them together to form words, which is a foundation for writing.

Because of the increased emphasis on academic achievement, many schools have pushed back the age of entry for kindergarten. However, the modal cutoff date remains the child’s fifth birthday. Whether or not to start a child in kindergarten early is a decision that should be made based on the child’s developmental needs and the ability of the school to meet those needs.

Socialization

Children begin their socialization in kindergarten, where they learn to interact with other children and share experiences with them. They also have the opportunity to learn about different cultures and beliefs through these interactions.

Your child can learn to play creatively with others, develop new facets of their imagination, and figure out the best ways to express themselves through socialization. They can also learn to recognize and respect the feelings of those around them.

Kindergarten is an important step in your child’s educational journey, and while it may be hard for them to separate from their parents, it can help them to become better communicators and more confident in themselves. They can also work on learning the basics, such as letters and numbers.

Kindergartens vary widely across the globe, but they generally follow similar methods. In poorer countries such as India, China, and Africa, however, kindergartens face more difficulty in remaining open due to a lack of proper facilities.

Physical Activity

Physical activity is important for the physical development of a child. It helps children develop strong muscles and bones, which are needed for healthy growth and learning. It also improves the functioning of their heart, lungs and digestive system. Physical activity can help prevent obesity and other health problems.

Regular exercise can also help children manage their emotions. For example, children who participated in a cycling program for 30-40 minutes two times a week showed improved self-regulation and less need for disciplinary time-outs.

The study surveyed 4,600 kindergarten-age children in Chongqing. The sample was selected using a stratified random sampling method. Data were collected through questionnaires and a physiological test of the students’ healthy physical fitness. The analysis included multiple regression models. The results of the model indicate that the kindergarten environment has a significant impact on children’s healthy physical fitness. It is more influential than the family environment. However, the effect of physical activity on children’s healthy physical fitness is mediated by both the kindergarten environment and the family environment.

Creative Expression

Children need to express their creativity through art, dance, music and movement. Creative experiences foster the development of a child’s imagination, which is necessary for learning and understanding new concepts. Children also develop a sense of self-confidence and communication skills through creative expression.

Providing opportunities for children to create with different materials encourages the growth of their fine motor skills, helps them learn about science and math and allows them to explore ideas. For example, when children work with paints and crayons they become engaged in problem-solving.

Creativity can be used to help traumatized children access memories they have trouble verbalizing or visualizing. According to the nonprofit organization Art with a Heart, activities that involve touch and movement (creative expression) help connect areas of the brain that have been impacted by trauma. The resulting art projects serve as a healing tool for children and offer a way to document their progress.

Reading intervention is intensive or targeted instruction to accelerate the reading skills of students who are below grade level. It is typically part of Tier 2 or 3 of the RTI model.

Teachers decide who needs to participate in reading intervention based on a variety of assessment results, including standardized tests, district local assessments and classroom performance.

Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and work with the individual sounds in words. It is an essential precursor to reading and spelling. Students who don’t have well developed phonological awareness skills are at risk for poor reading development and even dyslexia.

Children who are able to recognize syllables and individual sounds are ready to move on to the next level of phonological awareness, which is blending, segmenting, and substitution. By the age of six, a child’s phonological awareness is a strong predictor of their future reading skills (Good, Simmons and Kame’enui, 2001; Torgesen, 1998).

A great way to assess a student’s phonological awareness is to have them say a word like “burrito” and hop for each syllable. This is a quick and easy small group activity that can be used in conjunction with other reading intervention strategies. For more phonological awareness activities check out my phonemic awareness intervention binder. It has tons of visuals that can be done in centers or with your students individually.

Vocabulary

Many students with language impairment (LI) have less extensive vocabulary knowledge than their typical peers. This can lead to difficulties when reading and may also exacerbate existing differences in comprehension skills. Explicit instruction in word meanings can help students to acquire and retain knowledge of words for use in a range of contexts.

To be effective, vocabulary instruction should target words that are unfamiliar to students, critical to understanding a text and likely to appear in multiple contexts. Incorporating these ‘Tier 2’ academic vocabulary words into interventions provides more contextual opportunities than teaching basic or domain-specific vocabulary words (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2004).

Research has shown that it is most effective to teach word meanings through associating them with related words. For example, using visuals to identify the common features of words like summit, crevasse and glacier can facilitate learning. It is also helpful to teach students to recognize word parts (prefixes and suffixes) in the context of a sentence, as well as to consider a variety of synonyms and antonyms of new vocabulary words.

Comprehension

Reading comprehension is the ability to understand and interpret written text. Children who comprehend can visualize a story, anticipate what will happen next, laugh at a joke, and make inferences from the text. To comprehend, children must use background knowledge and schema (information based on previous experiences) to construct meaning from the text.

Comprehension is different from word identification, which yields a fairly exact outcome (the student either read the word “automobile” or did not). Students who struggle with comprehension can identify words accurately but have difficulty suppressing irrelevant information while deriving answers to questions about the text.

Intensive reading intervention takes place in small groups and is designed to target and teach specific strategies that increase students’ comprehension abilities. These strategies are generally taught through a combination of instructional activities (e.g., a silent sustained reading activity followed by a comprehension worksheet, comprehension strategy instruction using a particular example of connected text, and interactive teacher read alouds during which the teacher models various comprehension strategies). A key component of any group reading intervention program is ongoing monitoring and progress reporting.

Fluency

Fluency is an important factor in reading comprehension. Students who lack reading fluency struggle to comprehend complex topics and may feel that reading is a difficult task, resulting in low motivation. This often leads to the student falling behind in academic environments and society.

Developing fluency is a dynamic process and requires consistent practice and immersion in the reading community. Explicit instructional strategies like echo and choral reading with a fluent adult model, phrase drill EC and using a story map for text analysis are effective ways to improve rates of familiar passages.

Many studies show that Repeated Reading (RR) is an effective intervention for improving oral reading fluency for students with learning difficulties and disabilities. RR is most effective when combined with reading aloud and comprehension instruction. Other interventions, such as paired-student RR and listening passage previews, also improved oral reading fluency rates; however, they were less effective than RR.

Children education is a critical part of the child development process. It helps kids learn how to think for themselves and become more independent. It also teaches them how to interact with others.

Early childhood development teaches kids to understand and accept differences in people’s beliefs, culture, and ethnicity. This knowledge will help them become well-rounded members of society.

Learning at a young age

Children begin learning as soon as they are born. Their early thinking is insightful and complex, laying the foundations for more sophisticated forms of learning. However, they can become discouraged from attempting challenging tasks when their self-regulatory abilities are undermined. For example, when young children receive messages that intelligence is fixed, they are less likely to persevere through difficult academic tasks (Heyman and Dweck, 1992).

In recent years, research has documented how babies and young children develop incipient theories about people, other living things, objects, and numbers. Although these implicit theories are not taught, they play a central role in their daily lives and in their education.

Understanding how these implicit theories can support learning in different subject areas is important for early care and education professionals. It is also important to understand how subject-matter knowledge is acquired, as the process of acquisition differs between subjects. This chapter focuses on learning in two core subject areas: language and literacy, and mathematics.

Learning how to think for themselves

Children learn how to think for themselves through experience and exploration. They need to have a flexible mind that can flex between different concepts and ideas, and they need to be able to plan and execute goal-directed learning activities. This requires a number of cognitive control processes, including short-term and working memory, attention control and shifting, and inhibitory control (Smiley and Dweck, 1992).

Early investigations reveal that children, starting in infancy, are not just passive observers registering the superficial appearance of things but are building explanatory systems. These implicit theories organize their observations and help them predict, explain, and reason about the world around them. This research can inform educational strategies that avoid oversimplifying children’s understanding of subject-matter content. It can also help educators recognize that a child’s lay theory may influence the way they interpret evidence.

Learning about different cultures

During early childhood, children are absorbing culture, customs and practices from their parents and community. This is a powerful way to develop a sense of identity, and it also teaches children how to interact with different cultures. They learn that everyone is different and that racial or ethnic divisions can lead to misunderstandings and even violence. Exposing children to different cultures helps them to be more aware of their own cultural biases, and it encourages them to consider where these biases originate.

It’s important to teach children how to respect and value differences from an early age. They should be able to understand that all people are different and that this difference should be celebrated. This will help them become global citizens, and it will help them to understand that the world is interconnected. They will learn to embrace diversity and will be able to create a better future.

Learning how to interact with others

While subject-matter content knowledge and skills are important for children’s classroom success, they require and support other kinds of learning competencies. Heckman (2007) describes these as “noncognitive skills.” Examples include attention control (the ability to stay focused on the task at hand), attention shifting (the process of changing a mental set, e.g., when working on a word problem), and cognitive flexibility (the ability to shift between different concepts).

In addition, many studies show that social interaction supports learning more generally than non-interactive learning does. For example, in one study, nine-month-old babies learned to discriminate Chinese Mandarin sounds when in interactive interactions with a native speaker versus exposure to recordings of the same speakers.

In addition, the development of self-regulatory skills supports learning by enabling children to remain engaged in challenging tasks and develop persistence, focused attention, and the ability to delay gratification. These capacities are important for academic learning, but they also enable children to manage their emotions and participate in classroom activities productively.

The work of education support professionals—from cafeteria workers to bus drivers and security staff —is central to every school. They make learning possible in noisy buses, bright hallways, and busy classrooms.

Students have many touchpoints with all members of the school community, each interaction influencing their experience at school in both minor and major ways. It’s important to collaborate with ESPs to help students meet their individual needs.

1. Collaborate with Teachers

The teacher-to-teacher relationship is one of the most important components of collaboration. Schools can help educators feel able to work together by fostering an environment that promotes trust and mutual respect, as well as by encouraging regular, informal meetings.

A teacher-to-teacher relationship that is collaborative and productive can help students. In turn, teachers can learn from their peers about best practices and techniques that can improve teaching outcomes for all.

Educators can collaborate to develop a shared vision for student learning that is informed by the latest research. They can also identify and prioritize individual students’ needs, strengths, and growth to guide their decision-making.

Schools can help foster collaboration between teachers by encouraging them to share their experiences and expertise in professional development sessions. In addition, they can encourage teachers to regularly meet with their colleagues in groups that can discuss classroom observations and other relevant topics. Educators should also make sure that all staff members are included in school events and celebrations.

2. Collaborate with Paraprofessionals

Education support professionals, also known as paraprofessionals or teacher aides, play an integral role in helping teachers and students work together. They may provide one-on-one support, facilitate discussions in small groups, and assist with classroom management. They also often help follow instructions and implement accommodations outlined in Individualized Education Plans (IEPs).

Make an effort to get to know your paraprofessional team. Show a genuine interest in their lives and find out what their interests are outside of school. Getting to know each other will build trust and will allow teachers to assign tasks that align with each individual’s strengths.

Be sure to share information about students on a regular basis, including day-to-day classroom observations and any changes in instruction. Additionally, encourage an open exchange of knowledge about pedagogy and classroom practices from both experienced teachers and paraprofessionals. This can be facilitated by co-teaching or simply by making time to meet with each other on a regular basis.

3. Collaborate with Other Staff

In schools, collaboration is not only with teachers and paraprofessionals. Students have touchpoints with all staff members throughout the day, and their interactions can influence their learning journey. Whether it’s a quick exchange with the custodian or an IEP meeting with an educational support specialist, students learn from the dynamics of every interaction they have in school.

Consider incorporating group projects that require students to work collaboratively. Make sure the project is rigorous and that students have ample opportunities to engage in rich discussions and debate. These types of projects promote leadership, decision-making, and trust-building skills.

Ensure that all school-wide events and celebrations are inclusive of education support professionals. This is a great way to show them that they are valued and to encourage students to model inclusivity as well. It’s also an excellent opportunity to celebrate their hard work and dedication to the school community.

4. Collaborate with Students

Collaboration is a key skill for students to develop in school. When done well, it prepares them to work with others to drive their own learning in the future. To support student collaborative skills, teachers can provide group assignments that involve teamwork and communication. Additionally, they can provide frequent feedback on how well students are performing as a group and intervene when a group needs more support.

For example, a group assignment that involves researching a specific topic and developing a position paper allows students to collaborate with their peers to build their understanding of an academic idea. It also teaches them how to come to consensus on a position, a key aspect of effective communication.

Providing multiple opportunities for student-centered discussions that are driven by academic content can help students feel more confident in their ability to participate. Teachers can use Nearpod’s Collaborate Board feature to add new reference media, pre-assess students, and check in with student progress during a discussion.

School is where kids learn the basics of reading, writing and math. It is also where they can explore other subjects that interest them.

There are many different types of schools. Some are traditional, like the one you probably attended in your childhood. Others are more unusual. Some have clubs that allow students to delve deeper into their favourite hobbies and interests.

1. Learning at your own pace

Anyone who’s ever raised a child knows that kids learn at different speeds. While many schools have a set pace for students to learn, this can lead to problems with children being pushed too fast or struggling with subjects they can’t understand.

Learning at your own pace helps to avoid these issues. Online learning is an ideal way to allow a student to move through their course at their own tempo. This allows them to go through lessons and assignments more quickly if they’re good at them, or to take more time on something that they struggle with without worrying about falling behind their classmates.

Additionally, moving at your own pace can help to foster intrinsic motivation, a passion for learning that’s driven by a desire to understand and explore. When a student feels that they’re learning at their own pace, they can enjoy the satisfaction of mastering a subject rather than feeling the pressure to keep up with a predetermined class speed.

2. Meeting new people

Developing friendships at school can be difficult if you’re shy or introverted. But making friends at school is a big part of the whole school experience. Friends can offer support, honest opinions and pep talks. They also can make life in school easier and more rewarding.

Meeting new people can happen in many ways, but it’s important to be open and approachable. Putting yourself out there can help, including introducing yourself to other students in the hallways, participating in residence hall events and attending group classes or activities.

You can also look for opportunities that are built-in to meet other students, such as clubs or organizations that you’re interested in. In these groups, you’ll already share a common interest with others, so it makes the process of meeting new people a lot easier. This is a great way to make friendships that will last well beyond the end of your time in school. It will feel like work sometimes, but it’s worth the effort!

3. Developing fundamental social capital

The old adage, “it’s not what you know but who you know,” is especially true for young people on their way into adulthood. Across disciplines, including education and sociology, a growing body of research indicates that social capital in schools improves students’ life outcomes.

Students can build their social capital in a variety of ways. For example, through their participation in school-based internships they can connect with professionals in the fields that interest them. Their interactions can result in permanent, mutually beneficial relationships that will enable them to harvest their network for resources throughout their lives.

In addition, many schools and educators focus on fostering near-peer relationship building through activities such as mixed age classrooms and ongoing cross-grade opportunities, for instance, through clubs, electives and projects. These types of schools and educational models aimed at developing social capital have a significant impact on student outcomes, including academic achievement.

4. Building a strong foundation

Just as a building requires a strong foundation to stand tall and endure the elements, a solid educational foundation sets the stage for a lifetime of learning and development. This foundation is crucial for people of all ages and backgrounds.

Parents and educators play a vital role in the construction of this foundation by nurturing children’s natural curiosity and eagerness to learn. They can do this by providing them with engaging and interactive learning experiences at home and school.

Having a solid foundation also means being able to handle the ups and downs of life, and this is where resilience comes in. A person with a resilient mindset can persevere through difficult or tedious tasks and be better equipped to achieve their goals, both in school and in life. For example, an entrepreneur with a financially sound business model can more easily weather economic downturns. Achieving a robust and sustainable foundation requires the efficient allocation of resources, such as time and money.

Kindergarten is a big step for kids and parents alike. It’s normal for kids to feel nervous or excited about going to school.

In Finland, students spend large chunks of their day playing—but it’s not just any old play. It’s guided, pedagogical play, like organizing toys by shape or operating a pretend ice cream shop.

Learning to Read

Learning to read is one of the primary goals for kindergarten students. By the end of kindergarten, most children can recognize and name letters (both upper and lowercase), know the sounds that each letter makes, and begin to read some high-frequency words, or sight words, which are easy for kids to memorize since they don’t use phonics when reading them.

Developing a strong vocabulary helps students become fluent readers who can make sense of unfamiliar words using context clues. Teaching phonics is essential to this process, as it is the link between word sounds and letters of the alphabet.

Learning to Write

Writing is a skill that takes time to master. Young children first learn to recognize that print conveys meaning, that letters represent sound and that lines go from left to right.

By the end of kindergarten, children should be able to write several sentences about a topic they have studied or an experience that they have had. They should also be able to use drawing and dictation to compose narrative, informational, or opinion pieces.

Keep in mind that kindergarten students have the attention span of fruit flies! It is important to teach them skills in small, short mini lessons.

Learning to Add

Learning addition is one of the first steps to understanding math. Kids can begin adding with their fingers, objects, a number line or marks on paper. Ultimately, kids should be able to add numbers in their heads and understand the part-part-whole relationship with numbers.

The best way to learn addition for kindergarten is through hands-on interactive games both online and offline. It also helps if children get immediate feedback on their answers and can make corrections in real-time. Moreover, it’s best to use multisensory activities as children have diverse learning styles.

Learning to Subtract

Learning subtraction involves comparing numbers and finding one less than another. Kids need a solid understanding of addition to succeed at this skill since it helps them understand how subtraction works.

When students are ready to learn subtraction, they can practice using concrete objects and visual aids, like the aforementioned counting monkeys or number cards. They can also play board games that use subtraction strategies.

Students can also work on their counting skills by using a number line and hopping on it to find the difference. Once kids have mastered these realistic and visual strategies, they can begin working on abstract ones like keeping a large number in their minds to count backwards until they get the answer.

Learning to Multiply

Children need to understand multiplication and division concepts before they can move to memorizing the times tables. They need to be able to convert counting into instant recall, which they can only do when they have the understanding and reasoning behind it.

Children should learn about number families to make this easier. They need to know that 4 x 5 is the same as 20 / 4, for example.

Kids should also be taught to see patterns in numbers, such as doubling when adding two. They should be encouraged to use their math manipulatives or pictorial representations of objects such as ice cube trays or egg boxes to find these patterns.

Learning to Divide

Kids learn division when they’re comfortable with the connection between division and multiplication and understand that the order of numbers doesn’t matter. Typically this happens around third grade, but it may vary by child.

Help your child make sense of division by linking it to sharing. Show them how items can be evenly split among a group of friends. This method makes it easier to grasp the concept.

After your child understands division by sharing, they can move on to long division that ends in a whole number. This requires a strong grasp of multiplication and the ability to correctly interpret remainders.

Learning to Count

Counting is an important early math skill. Kindergarten students learn to orally count objects and then match them with numbers; this is called one-to-one correspondence.

Children also learn to recognize and write the number that comes before and after a given number, which helps them understand number sequences. This is an important foundation for arithmetic and measurement, and builds their understanding of the cardinality of numbers.

Encourage your student to count everyday – from the number of socks in their drawer to the number of cookies on the plate. This repeated experience will help them build a strong counting foundation that will lead to future mathematical success.

Reading intervention provides individualized attention to students struggling to learn to read. This allows children to build reading skills at a pace that fits their abilities.

To become proficient readers, students must develop their phonological awareness, build decoding skills, understand the alphabetic principle, and increase their fluency with texts. In addition, students need to develop comprehension and vocabulary.

Phonics

Phonics is the research-backed approach to reading instruction that teaches children how letters or groups of letters (graphemes) correspond with single sounds in words (phonemes). This knowledge allows children to decode written words, which leads to improved reading fluency and comprehension.

Studies of phonics-based interventions reveal that students who receive explicit instruction on how to connect phonemes and graphemes make better gains in word reading than do those receiving phonologically implicit or embedded instruction. These findings are consistent with the work of other researchers, including literacy expert Anita Archer, who explains how explicit instruction in phonics yields better outcomes than whole reading approaches.

To identify which students need phonics intervention, teachers can use earlyReading composite scores to determine a student’s reading level. Low scores on the letter sound or consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word subtests indicate a need for explicit phonics instruction. Then, the teacher can implement a phonics intervention that teaches high-frequency short words. Children are then taught to read and practice blending and segmenting the phonemes in these words.

Fluency

For students to read fluently, they must not only recognize words quickly but also be able to read them at a rate that is accurate and sounds like spoken language (appropriate intonation, volume, smoothness, phrasing). To build fluency, it is important to focus on both speed and prosody.

Reading to children and modeling how to pronounce words and pause for punctuation is an excellent way to improve fluency. Students can practice paired reading, where a student with strong fluency reads to a struggling partner and both listen for accuracy. Students can also practice Reader’s Theater, where they act out characters in scripted passages.

Research has shown that repeated reading (RR) is one of the most effective interventions for building oral fluency. Other strategies include phonological awareness activities, decoding practice, morphological awareness instruction (e.g., teaching prefixes, suffixes and base words), and identifying high frequency words.

Comprehension

Reading comprehension is a child’s ability to think and process what they read. They visualize a story, anticipate what will happen next, laugh at jokes, and make inferences based on the information they have read.

Comprehension instruction must be responsive, identifying pupils’ specific comprehension difficulties and providing appropriate and explicit instructional guidance to support their learning. This includes teaching strategies that focus on sequencing, main idea, and summarization. It also involves building morphological awareness by teaching pupils about prefixes, suffixes, and bases. This helps them to pull apart words that do not follow traditional patterns.

It is important to understand that comprehension skills are interlinked with other essential literacy skills such as decoding, vocabulary, and fluency. Students who struggle with one of these components may also struggle with comprehension, and a focus on improving a student’s word identification skills without addressing these other issues could further exacerbate their reading difficulties.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary plays an important role in reading comprehension. In fact, research has shown that students with high vocabulary scores tend to have better comprehension skills. It is therefore critical to include vocabulary instruction in reading intervention.

Explicit, systematic, and meaningful vocabulary instruction should be taught using explicit instructional routines and a focus on both meaning and usage. Teach tricky words before, during, and after reading to build background knowledge and support comprehension. Using targeted classroom read-alouds can also help harvest vocabulary and model strategies for clarifying difficult words while reading.

Providing practice opportunities for new vocabulary can increase the likelihood that students will retain these words. Try having students discuss the meaning of the word with a partner, use it in a writing activity, and review previously-taught vocabulary terms. Research shows that it takes multiple encounters for students to learn a new vocabulary word. Choose Tier two words (words that are partially familiar to students but not fully understood) that are likely to appear in a variety of texts, as this allows for more frequent and consistent exposure.

Children learn best when information is relevant and presented in a way that meets their learning style. This can be accomplished by encouraging them to pursue their interests outside of school.

Access to quality education is everyone’s right, regardless of age or circumstances. When children miss out on education, they suffer from poverty, health problems and social isolation.

Education is the key to a better future

Education offers a wide range of benefits to children. It improves their health, reduces poverty, and boosts economic growth. It also helps kids become more empathetic and helpful to others. It helps kids understand different cultures and respect differences in people, especially when they interact with peers at school. It also gives kids a chance to practice their communication skills, whether it’s through gestures or words. This is important to make them more comfortable and confident in social situations.

Education also provides a strong sense of self-esteem and pride. Educated kids are more likely to have healthy relationships and to engage in social activism. They also have better job prospects and earn higher wages than those with fewer qualifications. They’re also more likely to volunteer and help strangers. Education is the key to a brighter future for every child. Sadly, however, many kids around the world don’t have access to quality learning opportunities. This is due to a lack of trained teachers, poor education materials and insufficient infrastructure.

It is the right of every child

Children deserve the right to a full and robust education. They are the future of the world, and we have a responsibility to them. However, far too many are missing out on their education because they cannot afford it or face barriers to getting into school, like war, natural disasters, poverty, and gender-based discrimination.

Learning begins prenatally, but it is often impeded by the inequalities of the existing system. This inequality can lead to different developmental pathways that hinder a child’s growth. It can also limit their contribution to society over time.

In order to achieve equality, we need a robust definition of children’s rights. This definition should include a positive right to equitable, developmental equality, which translates into an affirmative duty to support children and families and recognizes the intersection between children’s dignity and family dignity. This right should trigger structural reforms that prioritize a child’s needs. It should be grounded in the principles of equality, equity, and dignity at the core of equal protection jurisprudence.

It is the weapon to fight poverty

Education is one of the most powerful weapons to fight poverty. It gives children the skills and knowledge to improve their lives and build a more secure future. It’s also a crucial driver of economic growth, as it helps people become more productive and resilient to change.

A lack of access to education can have devastating consequences for a child’s life. Without it, they may grow up to be malnourished, have poor health and be at greater risk of abuse or neglect. They are more likely to abandon school and end up in harmful activities like child labour, where their earnings are not enough to meet their basic needs.

At Concern, we believe that all children have a right to quality education. But there are many obstacles that prevent children from exercising this right: conflict, natural disasters, health crises, poverty, geographic isolation and social exclusion. You can help us break these barriers by donating to our Let Them Learn appeal today.

It is the foundation of a nation’s economical growth

Education is essential for a nation’s economic growth, but securing access to quality education is increasingly challenging. Competing global crises, including the pandemic, climate change, high inflation and debt, and a digital divide that hinders remote learning during long school closures, are occupying policymakers’ attention and fiscal space. This leaves little room for education.

As children develop cognitively as preschoolers, their new ways of thinking call for both similar and different behavior by adults. For example, children are naturally suited to experimental inquiry that involves hypotheses and testing, while the use of simple labels can unify disparate observations or discrete facts into coherent conceptual systems. They are also more capable of deliberately enlisting their implicit theories in new learning situations. Clapping to a rhythm can teach counting and mathematical operations; playing board games can introduce one-to-one correspondence.

Children who cannot go to school are at greater risk of exploitation, abuse and discrimination. Girls in particular face barriers to completing their education, leaving them vulnerable to recruitment into terrorist organizations and criminal gangs.

Education support is a broad term that can refer to many different services and programs. They may include tutoring, homework centers, and open use computer labs.

ESPs make a big impact on school culture and student learning. Honor their work by respecting their skills and expertise, and celebrating their contributions to your learning community.

1. Identify Your Needs and Goals

Education support services are a wide range of activities and programs that aim to improve the quality, accessibility, and effectiveness of education. They include tutoring, mentoring, counseling, coaching, guidance, and feedback. These services can be provided by students, peers, teachers, volunteers, experts, or institutions.

Students are the primary beneficiaries of education support services, as they can help them overcome challenges that may affect their academic performance or well-being. These challenges can be related to their learning disabilities, emotional or social problems, or family issues. Education support services can also help them develop non-academic skills such as goal-setting, time management, and self-regulation.

In addition, education support services can help teachers in their professional development. They can provide teachers with training and consultation on various aspects of teaching, such as curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. They can also help them identify and address the challenges and opportunities in their classrooms.

2. Choose the Right Service

Education support services are not a one-size-fits-all solution and must be tailored and customized to meet the needs, challenges, and goals of students and educators. This may require identifying and analyzing the existing strengths, resources, and opportunities within an educational system or institution, as well as designing and implementing innovative approaches and strategies.

For example, academic advising and mentoring programs can help students make informed decisions about their learning options and career paths. Counseling and social work services can help students address emotional or personal issues that may interfere with their learning and development. Library and information services can provide students with access to research materials, tutoring, and open use computer labs.

Furthermore, as learners become more diverse, autonomous, and self-directed, they will demand personalized education support services that cater to their unique needs, preferences, and learning styles. This will also require effective coordination and collaboration among different education support services. As such, students, educators, and stakeholders will need to collaborate on the planning, implementation, and evaluation of education support services.

3. Engage with the Service

Education support services can include a variety of activities and programs that help students learn, achieve, and succeed in their education. These include tutoring, mentoring, counseling, coaching, guidance, feedback, and assessment. They may be provided by teachers, parents, peers, volunteers, experts, and organizations.

As more and more students are demanding access to personalized education, schools need to keep up with these demands. This means providing customer service that is tailored to the unique needs and learning styles of each student.

It’s also important for educational institutions to be available 24/7 so that students and parents can reach them whenever they need assistance or guidance. Omnichannel support tools like chatbots and live chat are great for reducing the time it takes to respond and ensuring that each conversation is seamless, personalized, and engaging. Additionally, tracking metrics such as Average First Response Time can help you improve your team’s effectiveness and performance.

4. Monitor Your Progress

When it comes to education support, it’s important to monitor progress. This helps ensure that the service is being used effectively and that it’s having a positive impact on the student. It also allows educators to make adjustments if necessary.

One way to monitor student progress is through regular, formative assessments. These allow you to see how students are doing throughout the course of a unit or semester and can help identify any areas that may need further attention.

Another method of monitoring student progress is through self-assessment. This technique involves asking students to reflect on their work and what they’ve learned from it. This can help them identify areas where they need further assistance and can also be a great tool for reflection and feedback.

Education support personnel are vital to the delivery of education services and should be treated with equal status, rights and conditions. They should also have the opportunity to contribute their ideas and expertise to the development of new and innovative educational support services.

Finding the right school for your child can feel like sorting threads in a tapestry. Terms like Montessori, magnet and parochial can create confusion.

Students who have positive social relationships with teachers and peers tend to think more positively about school. This is especially true when adversity is present, such as poverty, housing and food insecurity, and abuse or neglect.

Origin

The word school has an interesting history. It derives from Greek schole, which had the sense of leisure and eventually became associated with learning. It evolved into Middle English scol, and then into our modern school. The same root also produces shoal, as in a large group of fish swimming together.

Before formal schooling emerged, various religious, civil service and apprenticeship systems existed. These emphasized the enrichment of self and community through literacy, philosophical thought, and practical skills.

Formal schooling started to take shape in ancient Greece and Rome, when the ludus litterarius was introduced for boys. It was a precursor to university education, and the students were known as schoolmen. Schooling then spread to the rest of Europe, with countries developing different educational philosophies and structures. Today, many countries have systems of formal education that are sometimes compulsory. The philosophies and structure of schools can vary widely by country, but all have the same fundamental goal: to nurture informed, capable individuals.

Purpose

Schools fulfill a variety of purposes. They can train people for specialized jobs or teach them the skills they need to succeed in life. They can also foster social and emotional growth. They can help students understand their cultural heritage and appreciate diversity. They can also teach students how to make decisions, communicate effectively, solve problems and cooperate with others.

Some people believe that the primary purpose of school is to prepare students for the workforce. Others, however, think that this purpose is too narrow and that schools should foster a culture of curiosity, creativity, criticism and communication. They should also help students develop the ability to learn in a variety of ways, including through hands-on activities.

Understanding the history and purpose of schools can help us understand the challenges many countries face in ensuring that their education systems are relevant. It can also help us ensure that educational transformation efforts center relevance alongside inclusion, equity and quality.

Structure

Schools are places where people come together to learn. They have classrooms, cafeterias (dining halls), all-purpose play fields and schoolyards. Schools may also have laboratories, workshops and other specialized spaces. They have teachers and administrative staff. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is often compulsory. These include primary and secondary schools, and sometimes kindergarten or pre-school. They can also have tertiary education institutions, such as universities, vocational schools and colleges.

The kind of culture and supporting structure schools need require a very special nexus of structure, time and culture. As long as these remain adaptive responses that bend, rather than break, existing customs, they are unlikely to get schools where they need to go.

One way to make structural change work is for schools to treat collective time as a precious resource, formally scheduled and rigorously allocated to specific aspects of the school agenda. When this is done, schools can reclaim their power to improve student learning.

Culture

School culture is a key element of success, but it can be difficult to define. Principals often report that their schools have a good culture when teachers are unified and students succeed, but they struggle to explain exactly what creates this sense of unity and support.

This can be partly explained by the fact that culture is less tangible than concrete measures like test scores or graduation rates. Instead, it is the underlying values and beliefs that make up a school’s culture. This can include how a school treats its employees and students, but also the traditions and ceremonies that shape the culture.

The most effective way to change a school’s culture is through communication. When all levels of the school are communicating effectively, it is easier for messages about shared beliefs and commitment to spread throughout the culture. When communication is poor, however, it is harder for these ideas to take hold. This is why a strong leader can play such an important role in shaping a positive school culture.