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Self-Regulation Development in Early Childhood: A Handbook, Summaries of Innovation

Insights into the development of self-regulation in young children through various activities, teacher evaluations, and research. It emphasizes the importance of early social interactions, oral language development, and play in building self-regulation skills. The handbook also covers key principles supporting the program, such as emotional warmth, familiar routines, and providing challenge.

Typology: Summaries

2021/2022

Uploaded on 09/27/2022

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Developing Essential Skills
Supporting self-regulation in 3-4 year olds
Early Years Teachers handbook
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Developing Essential Skills

Supporting self-regulation in 3- 4 year olds

Early Years Teachers handbook

Introduction

This manual provides support for early years practitioners who are exploring the concepts of self- regulation and the implications for practice. It is a resource that is designed to enable preschools to support self-regulation abilities in children aged 3-4.

'Self-Regulation', 'Managing Self' and 'Building Relationships' are now included in the Early Learning Goals which are measured as part of the Foundation stage profile.

In concern for economy of expression, the term ‘pre-schools’ is used in this handbook to indicate any provision for children aged 3-4; the term ‘teachers’ is used to indicate any adult interacting with children in pre-school settings.

This action research project and the resulting manual has been developed by Dr David Whitebread, formerly acting head of the PEDAL centre University of Cambridge, working with teachers from three London preschool settings, a maintained nursery school, a nursery class within a state primary school, and a LEYF social enterprise day-care nursery. The project was managed by the Sutton Trust and supported by the University of Oxford.

Whitebread is one of the leading academic figures investigating the significance of Self-Regulation in early childhood; he has drawn on his expertise and wide knowledge of the subject as well as those of other leading academics in the field (in particular, Nancy Perry).

Section 1.

The nature and significance of self-regulation in young children

The significance of early self-regulation development

Self-regulation comprises an individual's ability to be aware of and to deliberately control their own mental processes, including cognitive strategies, emotions, social skills and motivations. These abilities develop most rapidly in young children during their first 6- 7 years and have been shown to predict a range of academic and 'soft' or '21st Century' skills development through childhood into early adulthood more powerfully than any other aspect of early development.

Achieving a good level of self-regulation in the pre-school years has been shown to ensure that children:

  • are able to cope with school and make a good start on learning to read and mathematics
  • are better able to make friends and maintain friendships
  • become effective learners, and enjoy a good level of academic achievement in the short and long-term
  • develop a belief in their own abilities and a high level of self-efficacy i.e. a belief that they can learn, or understand, or solve a problem, or develop an ability, if they work hard and persevere
  • develop a good level of emotional well-being.

The nature of self-regulation

The emergence and early development of self-regulation arises through interactions between three sets of developing abilities and dispositions in the brain of the young child. As illustrated in Figure 1, these consist of:

  1. executive functions,
  2. metacognition
  3. emotional and motivational dispositions.

These three sets of mental processes combine to enable the young child to move from being ‘ other- regulated’ (i.e. dependent upon others to meet their needs and achieve their goals, to help them cope with difficulties and disappointments, and able only to respond impulsively to events and experiences), to being self-regulated (i.e. being able to organise themselves, deliberately plan to achieve their own goals, to develop their own ways of undertaking tasks, and to manage their own emotions). As a consequence, self-regulation abilities impact on all areas of a young child’s development, including their emotional, social, cognitive and motivational development.

Figure 1: Mental abilities underpinning the development of self-regulation

Executive functions

These are basic processes by which the young child learns to manage their responses to events and experiences, each of which steadily improves in the first 6-7 years:

  • working memory enables the child to hold information in mind while they process it (eg: a child uses working memory to help her search for an object after listening to her teacher/parent describe where it is kept in the cupboard)
  • inhibitory control enables the child to stop an impulsive or automatic response to an event or experience, to stop and think, and make a different response (eg: not jumping in a puddle when you haven’t got your wellies on; not running across the road without looking when you see your friend )
  • attention control enables the child to deliberately focus their attention, based on an idea or a goal, to not be distracted by each new event or experience, and to switch their attention flexibly when this is helpful ( eg. A child asked to sort a selection of toys in different ways would be able to sort them first by colour and then by type. )

Metacognition

This involves two complementary sets of processes which enable the child to be aware of their own mental processes and to control them. These are called:

  • Monitoring : eg: keeping track of progress on a task, detecting mistakes, being aware of how well you are doing
  • Strategic control : eg: planning how to do a task, choosing a mental strategy or approach, developing new mental strategies for tasks, checking progress, correcting errors

Executive Functions

Metacognition

Emotional & Motivational Dispositions

Supporting early self-regulation abilities:

Research has shown that children’s early development of self-regulation is highly dependent on the quality of their early social interactions, on their oral language development, and on the opportunities they have had to play with other children, their parents or other caregivers. As a consequence of variations in these factors, there are huge individual differences between the level and profiles of children’s self-regulation abilities by the age of 3.

These environmental influences, however, also mean that the quality of 3 and 4 year old’s experiences, once they enter pre-school provision of any type, can have a very substantial effect on their self-regulation development. In other words, early years educators are in a unique position to have a major beneficial influence on children’s development, their realisation of their full potential as learners and a whole range of positive life outcomes.

From extensive evidence in pre-school settings, a lot is now known about the characteristics of these settings that contribute to children’s development of executive functions, metacognition and their emotional and motivational dispositions.

These characteristics can be categorised as being related to

  • the environment,
  • the activities provided
  • the quality of interactions with other children and adults in the setting.

The following section sets out the principles and practices which have been drawn from this evidence.

Section 2.

A pedagogy for self-regulation

A number of major reviews of the difference to children’s progress made by a wide range of educational interventions and programs, has concluded that the greatest impact is made by programs designed to support children’s metacognition and self-regulation, and that this impact is enhanced further if the intervention occurs in the early years of education.

Given this, it is also not surprising that a large body of research has investigated the characteristics of schools, teachers, curricula and classrooms that most powerfully support the development of self- regulation in children, and particularly young children. Essentially, three aspects of the educational experience have been shown to contribute most directly to an effective pedagogy for self-regulation. These concern:

  • The environment of the classroom
  • The nature of the activities available for the children
  • The quality of social and educational interactions in the classroom

Features of these three aspects of early childhood educational provision that contribute most significantly to the quality of the children’s experience in their pre-school or nursery setting have been shown to be:

  • Emotional warmth & security, including providing structure
  • Creating a community of learners
  • Giving children a sense of autonomy and feelings of control
  • Providing challenge
  • Supporting children to talk about their learning

The detail of the key principles and practices developed for the program derived from this evidence is set out in the following pages.

A list of further reading reviewing the evidence supporting these principles and practices is provided at the end of the handbook in Appendix b.

Example: Rules and procedures which help children organise themselves

Making sandwiches:

The children were using the home corner, but their play was repetitive and they wanted to use different materials, to enhance what they were doing. So, I decided to introduce them to making sandwiches

We started with basic rules and skills

Working out how to hold the knife: using a previously taught strategy “I did it!”

Example: Expectations/Instructions; Explaining/introducing activity; Making learning intention explicit

We are going to listen to each other playing music

During this workshop with children ask them what instruments they like the sound of. Use two instruments and ask them to name the instrument they hear.

Encourage the children to focus on the sounds of music and how it makes their body feel.

Hold daily music sessions and ask each child to contribute by playing an instrument solo and give recognition to the children who are able to resist the urge to play alongside their peer.

Example: Documenting children’s work/interactive classroom display

Building with boxes

To introduce the activity when the children came in one

morning they saw a tower built with cardboard boxes. They

were immediately excited and wanted to topple the boxes and

build for themselves.

All Nursery practitioners were told not to feel that they had to

step immediately if there was an issue with a child not sharing

or taking turns, as this would be used as a talking point for

further discussion.

Class discussion

The children watched a series of clips that were edited from the first two days of the activity. They watched the videos twice over and were asked to talk about what they saw. I pointed out the good points in the first two videos and in video 3 and 4 the children could identify and talk about what went wrong. This is what they said:

The difference:

  • Children began seeking each other out to collaborate - even my quiet, not so outgoing children
  • Resilient - happy for the tower to be knocked over because they knew they could do again - “Try, try again.”
  • Used language around sharing and taking turns sporadically, at this moment in the year they used gestures more frequently such as pointing.
  • Children continued the activity over the weeks and could help other children by being the expert - “I can do it I show you.”

Example: Involvement in decision making

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO TO HELP STAFF

RECOGNISE THE POWER OF PLAY AND HOW DO I

INVOLVE THE CHILDREN?

  • Use our child consultation meetings to discuss with children.
  • Use the children’s current interest in Dinosaurs as a starting point.
  • Meet with the Leadership team to discuss what the children are telling us want they want to do introduce
  • Encourage staff to be brave and stand back and watch the magic unfold.

WHAT DID THE CHILDREN SAY?

STATEMENTS FROM THE CHILDREN’S PLANNING MEETING

  • I want to draw dinosaurs

go to the shop”

  • “I want dinosaurs, the

dinosaurs go ‘roar’.

  • I want a ‘Jurassic park’

Example: Problem solving

An adult lifted Jenna and Hafsa into a Barrel. They loved being in the barrel, but I would not lift them in. They had to work out how to climb inside the barrel by themselves.

They built stairs out of blocks.

They realised that they had To move the barrel closer and build the a stairs higher.

When they had finished, they let other children have a turn.

Examples: Engaging in sustained shared thinking

What happens when I add this? Why do you think this happens?

What else should I add?

Do you make smoothies at home?

What flavour smoothie is your favourite?

Do you like strawberry flavour?

Can we have orange and strawberry? Do you think that would taste nice?