Know

Your infant-toddler classroom likely serves a diverse group of children, so you must be prepared to meet a variety of needs. Child development is an important tool for understanding what children learn. What a nine-month-old infant may like to engage in is very different from what a two-year-old child may like to play with. Developmentally appropriate practice provides caregivers with structured guidance on how to support the growth and development of children along with making learning meaningful and purposeful to their abilities. Developmentally appropriate practice is an approach to teaching grounded both in the research on how young children develop and learn and in what is known about effective early education (NAEYC, 2009). You must understand what skills are typical for children of certain ages, what is appropriate for an individual child, and what is valued by families and communities (NAEYC, 2009). You should use this knowledge to make daily decisions about the learning experiences you offer children.

Experiences and Activities that Promote Infants' and Toddlers' Cognitive Development

Infants and toddlers learn best through daily experiences and interactions. Consider the following ways in which these young children learn important concepts through play (Guyton, 2011). You might notice that many of these examples involve learning in more than one area. You may also notice that these examples reflect everyday experiences, which offer many opportunities for learning.

• 当一个年轻的婴儿通过到达一个物品或视觉上追踪移动项目时与手机互动时，他们正在学习原因和效果的重要概念，同时改善他们的眼睛交易。狗万app怎么下载
• 当一个前幼儿与书籍互动时，他或她正在参与早期扫盲，同时学习书籍页面上的物体或角色的名称。狗万app怎么下载
• When a toddler uses a puppet to 'tell' a story or act out happenings in the story they are learning to use their imagination, abstract thinking, and language.

It is important to remember that young children are natural explorers. They are hungry for information about the world around them. Children are learninghow学习。成年人可以培养这种好奇心。您可以帮助孩子学习如何学习。您如何帮助婴儿和幼儿实现这一目标？目前的研究说，最好的方法是通过促进勘探和解决问题。这有助于幼儿培养思维技能。你可以做很多可以帮助年轻孩子学习。以下是支持您的护理中婴儿和幼儿的方法简短列表：

• 自己的思维能力模型。自言自语。佛r example, you might say, "Hmm. I really wanted to paint this part of my picture purple, but Josie is using the purple paint. I think I'll paint this part yellow instead."
• Find opportunities throughout the day to play "What if…?" games. Ask the children questions like, "I wonder what sound this drum will make if I bang on it?!" or "What if we run out of snack? What should we do?"
• 给孩子很多的陈ces to explore concepts. Read books and promote literacy development during individual and group activities, sing songs about the stories you read, and encourage children to imitate story characters with sounds or movements.
  

文化，气质和学习风格的重要性狗万app怎么下载

As you have learned, your relationships with the infants and toddlers in your care are the basis for promoting their cognitive development. One of the ways you deepen those relationships is by respecting their family's culture and their individual temperament and learning style. By knowing infants and toddlers well you can intentionally create learning experiences that support cognitive development.

Learning experiences that are culturally responsive and unbiased take into account infants' and toddlers' temperaments, and are tailored to their individual learning styles. These experiences will not only support their cognitive development but all the other developmental domains as well. Infants and toddlers bring their own set of unique characteristics to their relationship with you. They are who they are as a result of their culture, their temperament, and their individual learning styles. When you understand who they are as individuals you are better able to support their cognitive development.

反思文化

Culture influences how我们所有人view the world and the people around us. Every time we enter the classroom, we bring our own culture in with us. This culture influences the way we think and act. Understanding our own individual culture can increase our confidence and ability to work with others around us. Culture affects every part of our life. Look at the role culture plays in your interactions with others. Think about the ways your history and values affect your teaching. Do you expect family members to attend meetings and help with the class? Do you expect children to be toilet trained at a certain age? When do you think children should feed and dress themselves? These questions can be influenced by our culture and upbringing.

Children enter our programs with unique backgrounds and experiences. Knowing children's backgrounds and preferences is the heart of developmentally appropriate practice. You can use this information to send the message, "You belong here." By acknowledging the cultures and traditions of the children, parents, and staff in your own classroom you can make embracing culture more relevant for the infants and toddlers in your care. By doing that you also help promote a sense of belonging and community.

了解本课程中“文化”一词的含义很重要。这个词对不同的人有不同的含义。对于本课，“文化涉及习惯性信仰，价值观和实践人员从家人和社区中学到。”（Dodge，Colker，＆Heroman，2006）。每个人都有文化。它会影响我们如何沟通，我们如何互动，我们如何解释人们所做的事情;它甚至塑造了我们的期望。文化在儿童饲养中发挥着重要作用。

Think about all of the interactions you have daily with each member of each family, each child, co-teachers, program staff, and your director. Each of those people has a culture. So each day, you are interacting with many people, including infants and toddlers, who have their own values, beliefs, and practices. And, you have your own culture. That is a lot to take into consideration, but you need to ensure that the experiences you plan respect the culture of each and every infant and toddler.

Allowing negative biases to affect your duties as a teacher can negatively affect the development of the infants and toddlers you are entrusted with caring for. When promoting thinking skills, exploration, and problem solving, caregivers demonstrate bias when they have separate toys for boys and toys for girls, guidelines that boys may get dirty but girls need to stay clean, or when they offer separate activities to children, like dramatic play for girls and building with blocks for boys. These are examples of gender biases; other biases involve race, ethnicity, language, and special learning needs. Awareness of your own biases is the first step in supporting cognitive development by preventing these biases from negatively affecting the development of infants and toddlers.

When it comes to being culturally responsive, keep the following in mind:

• 婴儿和幼儿需要了解自己的世界和社区。他们的社区包括他们的家人;你和他们的其他护理人员和他们的直接环境。
• 婴儿在护理惯例中特别敏感。例如，如果您对他们的呼吸响应相反，他们可能会感到不舒服，而不是他们的父母要做多久，或者他们的尿布在家里改变时存在差异以及它们如何改变由你。
• 支持the home language by learning a few words from the child's native language to make them feel more comfortable. Young infants are going to be more interested in your voice and touch, while toddlers are also going to be interested in books and music.
• 材料需要在图像中是正面的。避免陈规定型材料，例如原生礼服的人，除非那件衣服是您服务的家庭的典型信息。
• Maintain open communication with families on what materials you are providing to support their child's cognitive development.

Infants' and toddlers' families are their first teachers, and their family's culture is integral to their development. When you offer culturally relevant experiences on a daily basis that are based on their real life experiences you are supporting their cognitive development.

Thinking about Temperament

Temperament describes how a child approaches and reacts to the world. In other words, it is their personal "style" (Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning, 2010). While temperament does not clearly define or predict infant and toddler behavior, research has identified and described several temperament traits and children fall into a range for traits such as the following: Their activity level, their adaptability to daily routines, how they respond to new situations, how sensitive they are to what is going on around them, how quickly they adapt to changes, or how distractible or persistent they seem to be when engaging in an activity.

这些特征可以分为三个气质样式。这些样式是：

1. Easy or flexible: These children tend to be happy, regular in sleeping and eating habits, adaptable, calm, and not easily upset.
2. 活跃或活跃: These children may be fussy, irregular in feeding and eating habits, fearful of new people and new situations, easily upset by noise and stimulation, and intense in their reactions.
3. Slow to warm or cautious：这些孩子可能不那么活跃或往往是挑剔的，并且可能最初反应或在新情况下撤回;然而，随着时间的推移，当他们重复接触新的个人或情况时，它们可能会变得更加积极。

Knowing a child's personal style or temperament helps you in both your interactions and in the learning experiences that you provide. For example, when it comes to learning, a slow to warm or cautious child may learn by initially observing or watching others do something, an active or feisty child may learn better by actively engaging in an activity, and an easy or flexible child may be able to resist distractions and stay focused on an activity. When planning for experiences and activities, it is important that you modify your own way of doing things or the way you structure some of your activities as needed, to address the temperament styles of the children in your care.

Considering Learning Styles

就像气质一样，婴儿和幼儿有个别学习风格，这些风格影响他们如何学习。狗万app怎么下载例如，婴儿经常通过嘴来了解自己的世界;幼儿前者通过他们的手来了解世界，多次通过他们的脚来了解世界的幼儿。婴儿和幼儿是：

• 活跃的学习者，他们通过做来学习，这包括爬行，滚动，跑步，站立，看，坐着，攀爬和口感
• Best suited for open-ended play that encourages self-discovery
• Sensory learners using touching, smelling, seeing, hearing, and tasting
• 受到他们的气质的影响

认识到个人学习风格和plannin狗万app怎么下载g experiences that account for them supports cognitive development.

Addressing the Needs of Diverse Learners and Families

就像你在第4课学到的那样，开发有意义的学习体验非常重要狗万app怎么下载all孩子们。这包括具有特殊学习需求的儿童。狗万app怎么下载所有儿童都需要强大的发展适当的课程，支持性环境，以及与成年人的关系。然而，对于一些孩子来说，这对他们来说是不够的。有些孩子需要特别的住宿。作为婴儿和幼儿照顾者，您将不得不规划住宿以帮助个别儿童。

Infants and toddlers with Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs) have a specific plan to help them meet personal goals. Caregivers should read the IFSP to learn about the child's goals, services, and adaptations. Just as each infant and toddler is different, each IFSP is different. In general, these children will need changes or adaptations to the curricula, the classroom, and the daily activities.

Children who speak another language and are learning English are often called English language learners (ELL) or dual language learners (DLL). Children learning English in your classroom will probably be at very different levels. Some might hear quite a bit of English in their home, while others may hear none. This means that some children might need more help than others. You can help children who are learning English by (a) including multicultural activities, (b) giving them special supports, (c) reaching out to their families, and (d) making these children feel included in all experiences and activities.

What does it look like to help all children learn? It is characterized by flexibility and a variety of changes.

更改课程

Think about whether your curriculum includes the right kind of goals and instruction for a child. If not, you can make some changes to how information is presented. For example, some children might need to hear certain words more times or may learn better when words are signed to them or accompanied by visuals like photographs or pictures. Children who are Dual Language Learners (DLL) may still need you to name objects or items in their native language as well as in English.

对环境的变化

You might have to change the classroom to meet the needs of some children. If you have a child who uses a wheelchair, you may have to adjust the height of tables in your classroom to make sure the particular child is included in experiences and activities. A child might need changes in where he or she sits, such as a chair if the child has trouble sitting on the carpet. Other classroom changes might include Velcro adaptations to help play toys stay in place, or knobs on puzzles to ease access of pieces. Additional adaptations include using picture cues (such as photographs) or schedules as reminders, shapes taped to the floor to help children figure out where they need to be, sensory objects, or changes in the lighting or sound in the room.

Changes during activities

Children with special needs might find it hard to work on and finish activities that other children might do easily. If a child has trouble painting, an adult could put his or her hand over the child's to make it easier. During the day, the same child might need more help or more time with some activities and less help and less time with others. The help that you give a child probably will change over time as he or she gets better at doing an activity. Think about fading help so that the child learns to do the activity on his or her own.

One of the best things that educators can do is actively include all children in all activities. Children with special needs or those learning English may have a hard time joining classroom activities because they may not be sure what to do. Try some of these ideas to help include all children:

• 当他们在玩耍时观看儿童，并确保儿童没有被排除在活动之外。
• Before an activity, think about what might be hard for a child, such as stacking blocks, and be prepared to help that child complete the activity.
• Use classroom rules as a way to teach children about including everyone.
• 显示婴儿和幼儿如何在他们的戏剧中包含其他人。
• Praise children when they try to include others.

It is important to answer a question that many educators have: Are changes and supports for one child fair to other children in the class? The issue of fairness becomes less of a worry when you think of your role to supportall孩子们。You give each infant and toddler what he or she needs when he or she needs it. Every child gets extra help and support at one time or another. As a teacher, you should know the strengths and needs ofallchildren and know how to helpeachchild.

See

以下视频显示了教师如何从事婴儿和幼儿在促进认知发展的经验和活动中。

Incorporating Family Into Cognitive Supported Experiences

球戏剧

Do

在支持文化相关的经验和纪念个人学习风格和气质时，请执行以下操作：狗万app怎么下载

• Get to know each family by asking questions and listening for cultural cues and plan experiences based on their preferences.
• 显示和使用家庭的物品，例如在婴儿和蹒跚学步的视线中安装家庭照片。
• Provide books, pictures, dolls, and dramatic play food and clothing that honor their culture.
• Include music for infants and toddlers to play, dance, and sing to that is familiar to them, including music that may be in their home language or played in their home setting. This may include country, jazz, and classical.
• Respect the non-use of food items for art and sensory play.
• Identify the temperaments of the children you serve and match your interactions and the experiences you plan to their style.
• 允许自愿参与活动,honoring the fact that not all infants and toddlers like the same things.
• Use daily observations to better understand the learning styles of the infants and toddlers you care for in order to meet their individual needs.

When families seek guidance on screen use, you can use the following suggestions from theAmerican Academy of Pediatricsand other research-based information:

• Children younger than 18 months are encouraged to avoid screen media other than video-chatting with loved ones
• No solomedia use under age 2. Creative, unplugged playtime is best. When screens are used, parents are advised to engage with media along with their child to help communicate what they are seeing. For example, “Look, Barney is happy now. He is singing a song with friends” Or ”In English, we say ‘happy,’ in Spanish, we say ‘contento.’
• Encourage families to turn screens and devices off when not in use. Background television and device use can decrease the quality of children's play and the amount of interaction occuring between family members.
• 支持families in establishing bedtime routines that do not involve media and technology use. Viewing electronic devices close to bedtime can affect the quality and amount of sleep, as well as the ease of falling asleep for children.
• With the support of your trainer, coach or administrator, consider if and when there are appropriate ways to use technology with toddlers. This twelve-point checklist from the Fred Rogers Center can help you assess the best uses of interactive media in your program, see the Checklist for Identifying Exemplary Uses of Technology and Interactive Media for Early Learning athttp://fredrogers143.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Checklist-for-Identifying-Exemplary-Uses.pdf.