The ABCs of early learning

Surabhi Agarwal

Hello preschool teachers!
Your children are quite young. Closer to being babies as compared to other school children. The gap between expectations and reality during these early learning years is wide. To take them on a learning journey is no easy task. Also, many recommended pedagogical practices that we may appreciate in older children may not work here.

Given below are practices that help in day-to-day actions of a preschool classroom. These strategies especially cater to this age group. Nevertheless, many of them can be applied to higher age groups as well. Each of these is low cost, light on resources, independent of the curriculum and attempts to address unique challenges the age group presents.

Let’s explore the ABCs of early learning.

Art based classrooms – Children have a natural affinity towards art. They gravitate towards opportunities to draw, colour, paint, and create. Colours and curiosity go hand-in-hand. Mentor them as they experiment with colouring and craft supplies. Plan and introduce music and dance in your morning routine. Such interventions can also motivate the children to engage with their surroundings.

Behavioural management – Rules are your best friends in managing classrooms. Design two to three classroom rules. Follow the three Cs. Clear, consistent, and communicative. Be clear and specific about the behavioural expectation, apply it consistently, and communicate it in such a manner that children understand.

Do away with negative or aggressive language. Focus on what needs to be done. Rules can be framed to reinforce good behaviour.

Turn this…	… into this.
Don’t look over there!	Eyes on the teacher.
No hitting or pushing.	Hands to ourselves.
Please be silent!	Let’s use a soft voice.

Collaboration – To be able to work with their peers, children need to be clear on what is expected of them. For example, an instruction like, “Take turns to colour,” is insufficient. Elaborate. Detail the precise steps to ask for turn, give turn, and wait for turn.

Stagger your approach while introducing collaborative activities. First, introduce pair work. Observe. If conflicts arise, resolve them through conversations. Once the students show willingness to share and work together, move to groups of three. Avoid making large groups of children.

Differentiation – Children learn at their own pace. There will always be few who have either not met the learning objectives or have exceeded them. In both cases, the children tend to zone out of the learning process.

This is where differentiation steps in. In simple terms, it means having a backup plan for the outliers. You may differentiate your content (worksheets, books, assessments) or pedagogy (peer learning, one-on-one time), or both. The idea is to make learning relevant for learners. Try to meet each child at his or her learning level. Ensure that everyone feels included and involved.

Energizers and attention grabbers – Navigating through different energy levels in a preschool can be daunting.

Let’s visualize. It is the last hour of the day and everyone’s feeling tired. How can you charge up the space? Energizers are rhymes, songs or games with simple actions that can be wrapped up in a few minutes. Not only are they super fun but they also raise the energy levels of a dull or lazy class.

What about the other way round? Are they refusing to settle down? Use attention grabbers. For example, “1, 2, 3… eyes on me!” Attention grabbers must be introduced when the class is calm. This way, next time chaos breaks out, the same attention grabber will get it to order.

Finessing the fine motor – Fine motor skills are the foundation for further writing and learning. To finesse these skills, each child should get sufficient objects to fiddle with. A lot of common, everyday objects can be used for this. Give beans (chana or rajma) for picking and counting. Stack using some plastic cups or jars. Use stickers and scotch tape for pincer grasp. Distribute thread rolls or straws to practise beading. Use a punching machine to prepare objects for lacing.

Playing with these objects not only develops small muscles and hand-eye coordination but also increases attention span and patience.

Giving effective feedback – Little kids benefit a lot from positive feedback. Observe closely and recognize their efforts. Praise them. Tell them why you are appreciating them. Praising is fundamental to behavioural learning theory and works much better than incentives.

Corrective feedback is the tricky one! If it is loud, sarcastic, or rhetorical, it can trigger a stress response. Instead, simply state your expectations in a neutral tone. Let your feedback be specific, on time, and something that offers choice.

Type	Non-example	Example
Specific	You can do better! Wrap it up quickly!	I saw you colouring inside the lines today. Next time, we will also keep our crayons back in the kit.
On time	I saw you pushed him yesterday!	I see you pushing. Pushing can hurt. Let’s keep our hands to ourselves.
Offers choice	Why did you spill? (rhetorical)	Did you spill it by mistake? Would you like to wipe it off?

Handling conflicts – For many children, school is the first time they interact with others of their own age. It takes time to understand boundaries, and therefore, they often get into conflicts. They may throw temper tantrums, cry inconsolably, go into a shell, or even hit and hurt. In such situations, act quick and act calm.

First, stop any hurtful behaviour, action, or language. Next, maintain your composure. Then, soothe the kids involved in the tussle. Pause and acknowledge their feelings. Hold hands, hug, sit quietly, and offer to listen. Once they’re calm, they’ll be able to listen to you. Suggest ways to resolve. And, if they do so in due time, praise and encourage the children.

Iterations – You’ll often find children stuck on a story, song, rhyme, or game. This is because repetition helps them make better connections. Repetition also allows them to acquire language and concepts.

Revise, recap, and repeat the learning objectives. It increases their confidence with the content. Bring variation in the worksheets, activities, projects, and pedagogy to keep the lessons interesting. Teaching lesser concepts with more repetitions is better than the other way round.

Journaling – Journaling is a fun activity that will get your students excited about writing. Sit in a circle, distribute journals, provide stationery, give a few prompts, and let them express themselves. Encourage them to exhibit their skills, ideas, and feelings. Guide them on ways to personalize their journals.

Let them handle their journals, curate their own work, and share it with their friends. Make it a regular activity.

Keeping up with technology – You are nurturing a generation that has grown up with technology. Befriend technology. Use it to facilitate your teaching-learning process. Technology is an excellent tool to incorporate collaboration, language acquisition, and cultural development in your class. Be their coach and facilitate their interactions with technology.

Use technology to read, research, learn, unlearn, and relearn so that you keep pace with the evolving world of education.

Leveraging parent interactions – PTMs have the potential to be more than just an administrative formality. They can be leveraged to enable transformative changes in children.

Always enter a PTM with adequate preparation. Summarize key points that you wish to discuss. Use the time thoughtfully. Clearly communicate your expectations. Such awareness will be useful in avoiding contradictory parental behaviour at home.

Share the performance indicators constructively and encourage their inclusion in the child’s overall progress.

Making use of assessments – It is reductive to use assessments only for filling in reports cards. Modern assessments go beyond examinations, corrections, and data! They present a holistic growth record around all developmental areas (languages, numeracy, cognitive, socio-emotional, physical/motor). They form the base for constructive collaboration with parents. Assessments also help in understanding the gaps in curriculum and instruction.

Numbers around you – When it comes to foundational numeracy, the world around is full of opportunities.

Teach sequencing to the kids by listing the tasks of the day. Allot numbers to their books and toys. Use floor games to develop spatial awareness. Let them compare the number of rocks and flowers in a garden. Teach measurement using common stationery items. Count and number the furniture around you. Kids can learn plenty of pre-maths skills provided they pay attention to the world around them. Your task is to teach them how to observe.

Observing routines – Establishing routines make nervous pre-schoolers feel safe. It builds familiarity and anchors their school day to a time or feeling. Repetition with routines gives them a sense of emotional safety. Create small routines around everyday activities like circle time, snack time, washroom breaks, and closures. Apply them consistently. However, be flexible enough to accommodate their health and safety needs!

Play based learning – Any learning moulded as a game will engage the children. Educators recommend it. NEP too endorses it. Learning through play breaks the monotony and allows students to discover and experiment. Use games and puzzles like jigsaw, jumbled letters, abacus, and shape sorters to meet learning objectives. Mould the academic skills into playful experiences that kids can enjoy and learn from.

Quiet time – Constant stimulation of senses can be overwhelming. Plan for ten to fifteen minutes of quiet time in your daily routine. There are no curricular goals during quiet time. You may choose to play calm music and allow activities that kids can do quietly like reading, colouring, and puzzles. Tell them to work individually and silently. Children learn to use this time to relax, recharge their energy, deal with conflicts, handle anxiety, and calm their nerves. Healthy boredom unlocks a child’s creative potential. The key is to support them with ideas and activities.

Reading corners – With technology entering so many aspects of our lives, getting children to choose to read is going to get increasingly tough. Set up a class library or a reading corner that has a collection of books in all relevant languages. Curate book lists to include contextual, age appropriate, richly illustrated, and non-boring books so that kids embrace the habit of reading. Look for titles for emergent and beginning readers. Include some bilingual books if you can. And read when they are around!

Story reading – Very few things hook children better than an effective read aloud. It develops familiarity and love for the language. Thoughtfully select the books for holding read aloud sessions. Experiment with stories. Use stories. Use them to teach skills. Let them observe and question through picture talk. Ask them to predict plot. See them empathize with feelings and struggles of a character. Read stories with conflicts and resolutions to teach about good choices. Let the world of stories spark their imagination.

Teacher modelling – Children observe and mirror your skills, techniques, and behaviour. Ensure that they see you demonstrating precisely what they’re supposed to do.

Contrary to belief, teacher modelling can be interactive and engaging. Narrate your thought process while modelling a task. Use simple sentences (I am colouring the Sun. I’d like to use yellow and orange. I am colouring inside the lines.) Ask pointed questions while you are modelling (What colour should I use for the Sun? Can I use black instead? No? Why?) Use sentence frames (or question frames) that kids can imitate while doing the task on their own.

Understanding daily transitions – Transitions refers to the time between two distinct activities. Transitions may get highly chaotic as kindergartners can be unwary or impulsive. When transitions involve movement, kids may become disruptive as well.

Plan ahead. Mark all the times of the day when you’ll need to switch between activities.

Next, tell your students what they need to do during the transition. Use short sentences to breakdown their task (It’s play time. We will go to the garden. We will walk in a line. We will keep our hands to ourselves.)

Give repetitive instructions to signal the start and end of an activity. For example, Let’s begin! or It’s wrap up time! You may build a small routine for transitions along with a transition song.

Verbalizing feelings – Excitement, jealousy, anger, adamance, inhibition, and pride are difficult emotions for grownups, let alone children. They feel these but cannot explain.

Give them words. Words they can use to name their feelings. Use a feelings chart that they can refer to for recognizing their emotions. Use puppets and toys to explain simple emotions like happy, sad, angry, and scared. Above all, demonstrate healthy expression of feelings.

Working with visuals – Strategically design and set up your classroom. Smartly use colours to create an ambience for your class (labelling, grouping, sorting objects). Use the displays to reinforce your literacy and numeracy goals.

Make word walls and update frequently. These help children absorb new vocabulary, recognize sight words and differentiate languages. Work your current theme in displays. For example, if your theme is around animals, you may show count using animal pictures.

X is for explore – Learning can happen outside the classroom as well. Step out. Outside is fresh and fun. Outside is also better. Better to observe, discover, and question.

Ask the children to count the flowers and grow a plant. Guide them to make a story about an ant that they find in the garden. Tell them to recognize patterns in leaves and replicate it. Nature provides many such learning opportunities. Use outside time to implement discovery-based and inquiry-based pedagogy.

Yoga – Yoga is the answer to a lot of early learning struggles. Allow the children the immense benefits of a regular exercise routine. Keep it short and appropriate for their age.

Yoga helps the children develop balance and flexibility. It also sows the seeds of sound mental health. It builds focus, attention, and reduces anxiety.

Zoning – Children can get messy and unpredictable. Create zones or learning centres within your classroom for different activities. Use colours to demarcate zones and display the rules.

Zoning is effective when activities require specific stationery (colouring, painting, moulding) or grouping (projects, jigsaw) or ambience (reading corner, free play). Zoning comes handy while practising differentiation as it allows kids to work with the material they prefer.

The author is a former Teach for India fellow who works as an independent educational consultant and can be reached at surabhi.edtech@gmail.com.