What is Early Childhood Education?

 Early Childhood Education (ECE) relates to all the teaching imparted to children (formal and informal) from birth up to age 8. Early childhood educators play a fundamental role in a child’s development. They gently expose young minds to the joys of learning by inspiring them, influencing them, and laying the strongest foundation for their successful life ahead!

 Observation: The Most Important Tool To Promote Early Childhood Education

 Early childhood is all about exploration; exploration by touch, by sight, by sound, by speech, and more.

 As per the Early Education Association, a great early childhood education helps a country from an economic perspective. This fact is strongly backed by the Heckman report as well.

Role of Observation in Early Childhood Education

 Observation is the easiest as well as one of the most efficient ways of assessing young children during their development. Observation at its core is understanding. Observing how they behave, interact, react, and adapt are all key aspects that an early childhood educator requires.

 Deficiencies if any are recognizable during this phase by observation. An observant eye can easily detect issues such as developmental delays, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities, speech disabilities, etc.

 In ECE, observation is the continuous process of tracking a student over time. By documenting things over a while, educators can assess each child and implement complementary teaching methods. Why document? You may ask. Documentation is essential as observations can be reflected upon consistently and concern, if any can be addressed befittingly.

 Some important categories where observation helps track and analyze a child are:

1.         Emotional.

2.         Cognitive.

3.         Social.

4.         Physical.

5.         Language.

Tools/Methods that Assist in Child Observation:

 Rating Scales, Checklists, and Rubric Scoring:  The Checklists usually come in a tick box format. The Rating Scales are more detailed and indicate the frequency, skills, behavior, etc of kids. The rating scales have various formats and can provide very good insights. Rubrics employ a set of criteria to assess or evaluate a child. They provide detailed descriptions. Rubrics enhance consistency and reliability.

Worksheets: From an academic standpoint, worksheets are the most common method of assessment. The different types of worksheets commonly available are English worksheets for nursery, Kindergarten reading worksheets, Numerical worksheets for kindergarten, Kindergarten phonics worksheets, so on.

 In this digital era, there are a multitude of E-tools and applications that help achieve the same. This being the case, it is quite evident that there are no documented modes of assessment that can completely replace watchful and vigilant eyes!

 Hence an attentive early childhood educator is an asset to any child care facility, call it an early childhood education program, a preschool, or nursery!