One of the many issues identified and addressed to date is bringing up children to appreciate/respect the diversity of cultures, move past this difference and learn to peacefully coexist with others as children and later on as adults, pass down these values to the next generation (Taylor, Clayton, & Rowley, 2004). Cultural differences include physical differences and social differences in lifestyle, celebrations, dressing, etc. The responsibility for educating children lies on the educators and family members (Taylor et al., 2004). Curiosity is engrained in human nature at all ages or at levels (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004). Children are interested in things around them and they try to identify their own characteristics and qualities that form their own unique identity (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004). Therefore, it is quite natural that a child may notice numerous physical differences in a classroom or a playground like skin color, hair type, etc (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004). But this is innocent curiosity which has to be addressed and answered, by the teachers and parents, in an appropriate manner, early in the childhood years so that children may grow up to respect these differences and consider no one inferior but unique in his own individual identity (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004).
Educators should be open to questions from students from an early age about reasons for differences among individuals like accents, practices, dressing, etc. (Taylor et al., 2004). But this requires more than just patience on the part of the educator. Educators have to evaluate the impact of the information imparted to kids in a classroom and make it appropriate to develop an environment for the children where they learn to not only respect the difference but also take part in protecting the rights of others (Taylor et al., 2004). For such an awareness, educators and parents, both need to actively play their respective roles in identifying differences and responding to such differences in an appropriate manner (Taylor et al., 2004). The behavior of the child from an early age has to be observed and their actions corrected in a timely fashion or manner (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004). For a desirable result, children have to be monitored most of the time, their reactions in such circumstances observed and action taken which includes appreciating the child’s ability to identify difference, secondly, the reason that lead to such remark and lastly whether the child’s response to such a situation was appropriate or not (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004). This requires open discussions at home and in a classroom-based environment so that children may learn to see other students with a newer, better perspective. But the response provided by the educator should be positive, without punishment and given in a relaxed and educational (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004).
Children look up to and take their behavior from key adults around them. If they grow up in an environment where adults disrespect others with cultural differences or display bad behavior then children will also learn to react negatively when encountering a similar situation (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004). However, the point to note is that it is not only one-sided behavioral problem, there might appear situations in which children are faced with bias due to cultural differences and in such situations, they need to be taught how to react without creating any problem for themselves or others (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004). Educators, be they parents, adults in the family or the teachers, all need to actively seek opportunities to raise awareness, teach appropriate responses and take corrective actions where necessary (Taylor et al., 2004). Children actively learn when interesting and creative techniques are employed by the educator to highlight issues with children’s responses to cultural differences. These techniques may include but are not limited to group meetings, children identifying their own unique physical and social differences and appreciating these differences, self-reviews for behavioral analysis in given situation, and asking children to come up with different responses when faced with a biased situation, providing a variety of resources that are taken from different cultures and languages.
There are different developmental characteristics involved in why starting early childhood is necessary as it is important to have the child know how to be responsive towards cultural diversity (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004). Also, providing an anti-biased education experience to the children is essential in creating a just and inclusive society. Children become aware of differences in culture from an early age as mentioned earlier (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004). The most they start learning about cultural diversity is at the age of 3 and that is when they start absorbing different ideas and feelings, therefore, it is necessary for the providers to guide the parents in preventing the children from hearing of any stereotypes that exist in the environment (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004). Also, the parents need to be guided as well by the cultural diversity that is present around them so that they teach their children to be open to all kinds of changes that they come across. Teaching the children such things helps them in the school years and the future life (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2004).
Effective Communicative Skills
It should be noted that having effective communication skills is crucial not only for interactions at home but outside its premises as well. For children during their early years, it is essential that they are taught how to communicate with others. Parents have to be mindful of numerous things such as whether their child is developing the required skills to interact with others. Communication skills are based on four different skills which are speaking, listening, reading and writing. For a child, it is important to be able to speak and listen what others around him or her are saying. Parents play a significant role in the development of the child and therefore, whatever they do affects their child. Sometimes, it so happens that children are born with certain features that set them apart from others. For instance, there are millions of children who are born deaf or mute, therefore, taking special care of such children is a top priority. Parents need to be taught how to deal with their children during the child’s early years. In the case where the child is unique and needs special attention, parents are required different methods to help the children communicate their needs to others. Coming to the development of children and the necessity of communication, an important institute is the Early Years Foundation School. It focuses on children from their birth to the age of 5.
The significance of Effective Communication Skills
As the focus is on children and their development, it is necessary to have effective communication skills to persuade the parents about what their role is in the child’s development and what they need to do to enhance their relationship with their children. Having effective communicative skills allows a person to have a firm grip on his or her speech making the audience grasp the true meaning of the words that are uttered by the speaker. There are cases when people take words out of context and the speaker then becomes unable to communicate what he or she had initially meant to say. People perceive communication to be a one-way process however, effective communication is two-way process as the person communicating not only speaks but listens to what other people have to say. It is necessary for an effective communicator to always be aware of who his audience is based on and he or she should also be conscious of his or her tone so that the audience is persuaded in doing what the speaker wishes them to do. In this case, the purpose was to persuade the parents in understanding the importance of reading skills in young children. A workshop was arranged to interact with the parents of the children so that they could be involved in the process of helping their children develop reading skills. To arrange the workshop for the reading I had to communicate this to my class teacher, head teacher, and other staff, sending out emails to parents to notify them of the workshop.
Principles for Effective Communication
It should be noted that communication is essential for all kinds of relationships. Instances, where poor communication takes place, shows the audience’s discontent and explains why it is difficult to persuade the audience of what the speaker truly wishes to say. The aim of communication is to listen and to be heard, be it done through written communication, or spoken or through gestures. If the audience does not get a word of what the speaker intends on saying then the true meaning of communication is lost. It leads to people misunderstanding the meaning and becomes a basis for miscommunication. The reason why such an occurrence takes place is that most often people do not use the right words to convey their message across to the audience. It can occur in both verbal communication and in written communication as in both situations people tend to read between the lines and get the wrong message. To avoid such a situation, there are some basic communication principles that should be followed. Building trust and showing respect are one of the fundamental principles of communication. The audience, in this case, the parents of the children, need to have trust in the early providers that the children are cared for and special attention is paid to each and every child. If the parents are not treated with respect and given the treatment that they deserve then they will not be ready to listen to anything that the early providers have to say. To get them to listen to my point, I allowed them to share their concerns with me regarding their children and what they thought was needed to enhance their child’s learning process. If the parents are made to feel like they are unaware of what their child needs and how to tackle with a child then it will set off their mood and will make them less attentive to what is being said. They might shun any advice given to them regarding their child’s reading enhancement skill. The parents need to be made sure that they are not being judged and instead are being encouraged on presenting their opinions. It is important in any communication to have an understanding between the speaker and the audience otherwise the point of the whole interaction is lost and nothing is learned. Therefore, an important strategy is to keep the parents involved throughout the process so they are open to all kinds of advice and share their views as well. This will result in a positive outcome as the parents will be persuaded in helping their child work on his or her reading skills. Active listening is another principle of effective communication and focuses on the person speaking. To actively listen means to not interrupt the person speaking and to let them finish what they are saying. By doing this, the message of the speaker becomes clearer and in this situation, the concerns of the parents are brought forward. Letting them share their concerns regarding their children helps in putting their mind at ease. To have an effective communication, it is essential that one is not judgemental towards others. Allowing the parents to speak the things that they want to share without judging them is crucial. Parents need the help of early providers to help their children in learning and developing, which is why they speak out their mind during a parent and provider session. It is the early provider’s job to listen to what the parents have to say and then guide them in the right path so that they know what they have to do to enhance their child’s learning skills. Judging the parents makes it seem like the provider is putting himself or herself above the parent. Such an act can lower the parent’s confidence and causes issues when communicating with the parents. For me to persuade the parents that they needed to focus on their child’s reading skills, I had to give them space in which they could share their opinions first before giving my own opinions on the matter such as the development of reading skills in children and how to enhance the progress in this area of learning.
Mehrabian’s Communication Model Theory
For the purpose of communicating my point across to the parents, I utilized strategies from Mehrabian’s communication model theory. Mehrabian’s work is dedicated to providing the foundations for the most often quoted and simplified statistic for the effectiveness of verbal communication. Mehrabian pointed at a statistical chart associated with spoken communication in which he added that about 7% of the spoken messages are based on feelings and attitudes, 38% of messages associated to feelings and attitudes are paralinguistic and 55% of messages relating to feelings and attitudes are based on facial expressions. The findings show that most of the messages are associated with the facial expression of the speaker and lesser on the way the messages are conveyed and the words that are used to convey the message across to the audience.
Principles of Early Years Foundation School
The Early Years Foundation School focuses on different areas of learning however, children are mostly taught through games (Tickell, 2011). Some of the learning areas that the early year providers pay attention to the communication and language, physical of development of children, their personal, social and cognitive development, literacy, problem-solving questions, apprehending the world and learning how to use expressive art (Tickell, 2011). All of these learning areas make up for the Early Years Foundation School’s framework. The prime areas of the mentioned learning discourses are communication and language, physical development, personal, social and emotional development (Tickell, 2011). The reason why these are prime areas is that they focus on the child’s healthy development and future learning. Communication and language involve listening, attention, understanding and speaking while physical development is based on the child moving and handling things, also the health and self-care (Tickell, 2011). While the remaining learning areas are specific in terms of increasing the child’s knowledge regarding the things around him or her and also helping the child in understanding how things work in the immediate environment (Tickell, 2011). Literacy, mathematics, and arts help the child in enhancing his or her knowledge. It also focuses on what the early year providers have to do to ensure that the child is learning something and developing through the process. Literacy includes reading and writing and is a crucial area of learning (Tickell, 2011). It also works on promoting teaching and learning skills to make sure that the children are getting the required skills that they need to be able to progress through their school and future life (Tickell, 2011). The principles of the Early Years Foundation School are as following
- Every child is different and unique and is constantly learning. The child is resilient, capable of learning, is confident while being self-assured.
- The only way a child learns is by being strong and independent through the initiation of positive relationships.
- It is crucial to note that a child will only develop and learn if an enabling environment is provided, in which the child goes through different experiences and these experiences respond to the child’s needs. And there is strong association prevalent between the providers and parents.
- Every child accepts the process of learning and development in a variety of ways and at a different rate which sets him or her apart from other children. The framework of the Early Years Foundation School should cover the education and care of the children in the early year’s provisions, also the children with special needs should be looked after.
Role of parents in helping the child learn communication
The role of a parent in helping the child learn is evident through a variety of the behaviors exhibited by the parent. These behaviors can be seen in the routine activities such as the parent’s verbal involvement with the child during playtime or when feeding the child. And in other instances, the parents indulge in intentional efforts to motivate the child to learn such as urging the child to speak or to read a word or phrase. Any activity carried out by the parent at home with the child is an important step towards supporting the child in learning and development. Playful activities have a long-lasting impact on the child’s learning as they advance academically in schools. Toddlers who are unable to speak or haven’t learned how to communicate need the parent’s attention in the process of talking. Parents need to actively participate in their child’s life so that the child learns the basics of communication and apprehends new words and ideas. Also the interactions the parents have the providers who care for the children can also impact the child’s development. Such interactions allow both the parents and the providers to learn a lot of things about the child and also learn how to support the child’s learning keeping in mind the needs and the circumstances. In cases where the child has special needs, for instance, the child suffers from Dyslexia, both the parents and the providers can learn new ways of handling the reading process of such a child (Irlen, 2005). Children who have learning disabilities show difficulties while reading such as not being able to read a specific paragraph, or they might skip words and phrases while reading (Irlen, 2005). In some cases, children reverse the order of words and utter them back as they are unable to tell right from left (Irlen, 2005). Another issue faced by such children is that they have a problem in differentiating one word from another or recognizing the words written on paper (Irlen, 2005). Dyslexia is a learning disability in which the child is unable to read sentences fluently and accurately (Chapman & Tunmer, 2003). The child faces problems with reading passages, in spellings and also has trouble while writing. To treat such a problem, the parents need to focus on the child’s word learning skills (Chapman & Tunmer, 2003). Parents should pay attention to how the child comes with different words and also help the child in understanding how each word is to be uttered (Chapman & Tunmer, 2003).
Work Cited
Chapman, J. W., & Tunmer, W. E. (2003). Reading difficulties, reading-related self-perceptions, and strategies for overcoming negative self-beliefs. Reading &Writing Quarterly, 19(1), 5–24.
Irlen, H. (2005). Reading by the colors: Overcoming dyslexia and other reading disabilities through the Irlen method. Penguin.
Taylor, L. C., Clayton, J. D., & Rowley, S. J. (2004). Academic socialization: Understanding parental influences on children’s school-related development in the early years. Review of General Psychology, 8(3), 163.
Tickell, C. (2011). The Early Years: Foundations for life, health, and learning. An Independent Report on the Early Years Foundation Stage to Her Majestys Government media. Education. Gov. Uk/Assets/Files/Pdf/F/The% 20Early% 20Years% 20Foundation S% 20for% 20life% 20health% 20and% 20learning. Pdf (17.12. 2011).
Webster-Stratton, C., & Reid, M. J. (2004). Strengthening social and emotional competence in young children—The foundation for early school readiness and success: Incredible years classroom social skills and problem-solving curriculum. Infants & Young Children, 17(2), 96–113.
