Early Math Counts

Just the title makes me want to read…. The Profound Impact of Early Education Read it….

The 3 Pigs and the 3 Bears (as in Goldilocks and the…) are two favorite children’s classics that can also be compared and contrasted with your children.  This exercise is very different from comparing and contrasting versions of the same story, since many of the similarities and differences may not be as readily apparent to […]

Several months ago I saw this clip on 60 Minutes… It got me thinking about how much babies already know even thought they can’t necessarily communicate that knowledge to us in ways that we readily understand. This reminds us all that babies are watching us and our every move.  They interpret human interactions as positive and […]

Last week I wrote about looking for progress when assessing children.  That means that rather than looking for endpoints or skill mastery, we look for small changes or progressions in competencies over time.  As long as children are moving forward, we generally don’t have too much to worry about. The High Scope Curriculum uses the […]

I used to teach a class about the language development of young children that focused more on how to support early language learning rather than the deeper developmental processes of language.  I spent a lot of time exploring children’s literature as a means of engaging children with words and new vocabulary, rhythm and rhyme, concepts […]

This article appeared in the Washington Post blog on February 1st.  Written by the fabulous Alfie Kohn, author of Punished by Rewards (one of my favorites), he articulately and concisely  argues what we ECE folks have known all along – that policy-makers focus on “high-quality” with little ability to describe what that means, and then […]

This publication from the Illinois Board of Education came out in 2012, but is timely for Early Math Counts because this edition focuses entirely on authentic assessment. Within its 15 pages, there are 11 short articles that range from best practices in authentic assessment to how to develop portfolios and serving dual language learners. Check […]

Development takes time.  This, we all know intellectually, but in practice we sometimes forget that things take time.  Some children can pick up a spoon, dip it into yogurt, and move it into their mouths the first time they try.  Others work that spoon for months, with yogurt flying everywhere but their mouths. When assessing […]

I always find that the best way to begin introducing new materials to children is to place them in a basket or a container on one of the tables and simply allow the children to explore them independently for a few days.  During this time, you can observe how they approach the materials without any […]

Long before Early Math Counts, the Internet, Head Start, Kindergarten, Maria Montessori and the Industrial Revolution; there was Gertrude. In 1781, Johann Pestalozzi, Swiss philosopher and educator, wrote the first of four books about the indomitable Gertrude in Leonard and Gertrude.  Later, Pestalozzi would write How Gertrude Teaches Her Children.  These two books would later  […]