i

The Intentional Teacher

Choosing the Best Strategies for Young Children’s Learning

Ann S. Epstein

National Association for the Education of Young ChildrenWashington, DC

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ii The Intentional Teacher

National Association for the Education of Young Children1313 L Street NW, Suite 500Washington, DC 20005-4101202-232-8777 or 800-424-2460www.naeyc.org

The Intentional Teacher: Choosing the Best Strategies for Young Children’s LearningCopyright © 2007 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

Through its publications program the National Association for the Education of YoungChildren (NAEYC) provides a forum for discussion of major issues and ideas in theearly childhood field, with the hope of provoking thought and promoting professionalgrowth. The views expressed or implied in this book are not necessarily those of theAssociation.

Carol Copple, publications director; Bry Pollack, managing editor; Malini Dominey, designand production; Lisa Bowles, editorial associate; Natalie Klein Cavanagh, photo editor;Susan A. Liddicoat, consultant editor; Laura Power, indexer.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2006939553

ISBN: 978-1-928896-41-8

NAEYC Item #165

Photographs copyright © by: Nancy Alexander—107; Susan Klein—1; Jean-Claude Lejeune—i;Lois Main—front cover (top left); Elisabeth Nichols—front cover (top right), front cover (bottomleft); Ellen B. Senisi—front cover (bottom right), back cover, 41; Michael Siluk—23;Renaud Thomas—9, 67, 87; Francis Wardle—127.

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iv The Intentional Teacher

Contents

Acknowledgments vi

Preface—Why “The Intentional Teacher”? vii

* * *

1. Introducing Intentional Teaching 1Intentional Teaching Terms 2

2. Best Practices for Intentional Teaching 9An Overview of Best Practice 10Using Best Practices to Support IntentionalTeaching 21

3. Language and Literacy 23Young Children’s Development in Languageand Literacy 24

Teaching and Learning in Languageand Literacy 25

Fitting the Learning Experience to the LearningObjective 26

Language 26

Child-guided experience 26Adult-guided experience 28

Reading 32Child-guided experience 32Adult-guided experience 35

Writing 37Child-guided experience 37Adult-guided experience 38

4. Mathematics and Scientific Inquiry 41Scientific Inquiry and Its Relationship toMathematics 42Young Children’s Development in Mathematics andScientific Inquiry 43Teaching and Learning in Mathematics andScientific Inquiry 45Computer Technology 46Fitting the Learning Experience to the LearningObjective 49

Number and Operations 49Child-guided experience 50Adult-guided experience 52

Geometry and Spatial Sense 54Child-guided experience 55Adult-guided experience 56

Measurement 58Child-guided experience 58Adult-guided experience 59

Patterns, Functions, and Algebra 60Child-guided experience 60Adult-guided experience 62

Data Analysis 63Child-guided experience 63Adult-guided experience 64

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v

5. Social Skills and Understandings 67How Social Studies Fits In 68

Young Children’s Development in Social Skills andUnderstandings 69

Teaching and Learning in Social Skills andUnderstandings 69

Fitting the Learning Experience to the LearningObjective 71

Emotional Learning 71Child-guided experience 71Adult-guided experience 73

Social Learning 76Child-guided experience 76Adult-guided experience 80

6. Physical Movement 87Young Children’s Development in PhysicalMovement 89

Teaching and Learning in Physical Movement 90

Fitting the Learning Experience to the LearningObjective 94

Movement Skills 94Child-guided experience 95Adult-guided experience 97

Movement Concepts 99Child-guided experience 100Adult-guided experience 102

7. The Visual Arts 107Young Children’s Development in theVisual Arts 108

Teaching and Learning in the Visual Arts 110

Fitting the Learning Experience to the LearningObjective 111

Creating Visual Art 111Child-guided experience 111Adult-guided experience 114

Appreciating Visual Art 118Child-guided experience 118Adult-guided experience 120

8. Reflections on Intentional Teaching 127Guiding Principles of Intentional Teaching 128

Final Thoughts 129

* * *

Resources 131

References 136

Index 141

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1Introducing Intentional Teaching

IntroducingIntentional Teaching

T

1

Preschoolers Tony and Salima are sitting on the floor,playing with the acorns Salima collected at outsidetime. Salima divides the acorns evenly between them.Their teacher sits on the floor next to them. Tony pileshis acorns together, while Salima forms a large circlewith hers. Tony says, “Hey, you got more than me!”Salima responds, “No, I don’t. We each got the same.”The teacher wonders aloud how they could find outwhether they have the same number, and the childrensuggest counting the acorns.

Tony: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. (Helines up his acorns in a row as he counts.)

Salima: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.(She also lines up her acorns in a row.)

Teacher: You each have 14.

Tony: Yeah. We got the same.

Teacher: (Spreads Tony’s acorns across the floor andputs Salima’s in a pile.) Now who has more?

Tony: (Smiles.) I do!

Salima: No, you don’t. We each got the same. See?(She counts her acorns and puts them in a row, thencounts Tony’s acorns and puts them in a row as well.)

Teacher: (This time she puts Tony’s in a pile andspreads Salima’s out across the floor.) Now who hasmore?

Tony: (Thinks for a moment.) Nobody’s got more. Wegot the same!

Salima: (Smiles.) That’s what I said!

his book is about how the intentional teacher,like the teacher in this opening vignette,acts with knowledge and purpose to ensure

that young children acquire the knowledge andskills (content) they need to succeed in school andin life. Intentional teaching does not happen bychance; it is planful, thoughtful, and purposeful.Intentional teachers use their knowledge, judgment,and expertise to organize learning experiences forchildren; when an unexpected situation arises (as italways does), they can recognize a teaching oppor-tunity and are able to take advantage of it, too.

Intentional teaching means teachers act withspecific outcomes or goals in mind for children’sdevelopment and learning. “Academic” domains(literacy, mathematics, and science) as well as “tra-ditional” early learning domains (social and emo-tional, cognitive, physical, and creative develop-ment) all have important knowledge and skills thatyoung children want and need to master. Inten-tional teachers therefore integrate and promotemeaningful learning in all domains.

Intentional teaching requires wide-rangingknowledge about how children typically developand learn. Teachers must have a repertoire of in-structional strategies and know when to use a givenstrategy to accommodate the different ways thatindividual children learn and the specific contentthey are learning. At some times or for some con-

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2 The Intentional Teacher

tent, children seem to learn best from child-guidedexperience—that is, they acquire knowledge andskills through their own exploration and experi-ence, including through interactions with peers. Atother times and for other content, children seem tolearn best from adult-guided experience—that is, inset-up situations in which their teachers introduceinformation, model skills, and the like. (See the boxopposite.)

The division between what is child-guided andwhat is adult-guided experience is not a rigid one.Rarely does learning come about entirely through achild’s efforts or only from adult instruction. In anygiven subject, how a child learns will vary overtime. For example, young children begin to buildtheir speaking and listening skills through sponta-neous and natural conversations (child-guidedexperience). However, they also learn syntax andvocabulary from the adults around them, andteachers often make a point of introducing newwords and structures (adult-guided). Children alsodiffer individually in how they like to learn. Somedo a lot of exploring and thinking through prob-lems on their own, while others very readily askadults for information or help. But every childlearns in both modes.

Similarly, the division of content into theknowledge and skills that seem to be best acquiredprimarily through child-guided experience versusthose through adult-guided experience is not anexact process. For example, in typically developingchildren, basic language abilities clearly are ac-quired largely through child-guided learning expe-rience (albeit, with linguistic input from the adultsaround them); children are born with the capacityto hear and reproduce the sounds of speech and areinherently motivated, as social beings, to communi-cate with others. By contrast, identifying the lettersof the alphabet is something that children cannot dointuitively; as arbitrary creations of a culture, letterforms and their names clearly are learned in adult-guided experience. In other content areas, the divi-sion is not so clear. But even in cases where assign-ment to “primarily child-guided” versus “primarilyadult-guided” is more difficult, knowledgeable

educators can make a determination that most willagree on. I found this consensus in consulting withmy expert informants for this book.

These divisions are imprecise. But it is stilluseful for teachers to consider when and how tosupport children’s own discovery and constructionof knowledge, and when and how to convey con-tent in teacher-guided activities and instruction.That consideration is a major focus of this book. TheIntentional Teacher asks which type of learning expe-rience is likely to be most effective in which contentareas, and what teachers can do to optimize learn-ing in that mode. It also emphasizes that regardlessof whether children engage in child- or adult-guided experience, teachers always play a vitaleducational role by creating supportive environ-ments and using instructional strategies to advancechildren’s thinking to the next level.

In other words, both child-guided and adult-guided experience have a place in the early child-hood setting. It is not the case that one is good andthe other bad, or that one is developmentally appro-priate and the other not. Intentional teachers under-stand this and are prepared to make use of either orboth in combination, choosing what works best forany given subject, situation, or child.

Intentional teaching termsAt the top of the daily message board, the teacherswrite the sentence: “Who is here today?” Underneaththey draw a column of stick figures, and next to eachfigure they write the name of a child or adult in theclass. Each day the teachers indicate who is absentthat day by making an erasable X in front of that name.Each day they also draw stick figure(s) and write thename(s) of any guest(s) who will be visiting the class-room. If the guest is free to play with the children, theydraw a toy, such as a ball or book, in the stick figure’shand. If the guest is there only to watch or observe,they draw a clipboard in the hand.

Each morning the class begins by talking aboutwho is “present” and who is “absent.” Then, togetherwith their teachers, the children count the number ofstick figures with no mark (in school) and those with amark (not in school). They also discuss any guest(s)who are coming and whether that person will be a

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3Introducing Intentional Teaching

Child-guided experience + adult-guided experience = Optimal learning

An effective early childhood program combines both child-guided and adult-guided educational experi-ences. The terms “child-guided experience” and “adult-guided experience” do not refer to extremes(that is, they are not highly child-controlled or adult-controlled). Rather, adults play intentional roles inchild-guided experience; and children have significant, active roles in adult-guided experience. Eachtakes advantage of planned or spontaneous, unexpected learning opportunities.

Child-guided experience . . .

is not entirely child-controlled (with the teacherpassive)

proceeds primarily along thelines of children’s interests andactions, with strategic teachersupport

is not entirely adult-controlled (with the childrenpassive)

The teacher does not getinvolved, even when thechildren become frustratedand begin to get angry at eachother over who has more.

The children first try to make twoequal piles by eyeballing them, butthey are not satisfied.

The teacher suggests they counttheir beads.

They do so, and then move beadsbetween their piles, count again,and make adjustments until thepiles are equal.

The teacher counts the beadsand divides by 2, telling thechildren how many beadseach should take.

Adult-guided experience . . .

is not entirely child-controlled (with the teacherpassive)

proceeds primarily along thelines of the teacher’s goals, but isalso shaped by the children’sactive engagement

is not entirely adult-controlled (with the childrenpassive)

The teacher allows the chil-dren to deflect the focus fromshadows to a discussion ofwhat they want forChristmas.

The teacher plans the lesson andleads a small group in exploringshadows with flashlights and asheet.

The teacher encourages and usesthe children’s input; for example,when they want to make “animal”shadows.

The teacher controls allaspects of the lesson anddelivers it to the whole group.

Example: Two children want to divide a bowl of beads equally between themselves.

Example: The teacher wants the children to learn about shadows and their properties.

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4 The Intentional Teacher

“player” or a “watcher.” Sometimes the teachers askthe children to “predict” whether an absent child will beback the next day. For example, after informing theclass that Tommy had left yesterday for a three-dayvacation, a teacher asks, “Do you think he will be heretomorrow?”

These teachers are acting with intention throughoutthis daily activity. They take advantage of bothchild-guided and adult-guided experience. Thechildren are naturally curious about the members oftheir classroom community, and using a daily mes-sage board helps to solidify their social awareness.The children know everyone’s name and noticewhen a peer is missing from their small-grouptable. This awareness the children come to on theirown, that is, through child-guided experience. Foradult-guided experience, the teachers use thechildren’s knowledge and interest to introduceliteracy ideas and processes—writing each person’sname on the message board.

They also embed mathematical concepts andprocesses into using the board. There is classifica-tion (present versus absent; players versus watch-ers), counting (one-to-one correspondence of namesand stick figures; tallying those with and withoutmarks), and relational time concepts (yesterday,today, tomorrow). Children are asked to predict, aprocess used in science; later they see whether theirprediction is confirmed.

Throughout the activity, adults and childrenengage in conversation, which enhances languagedevelopment. Using adult-guided strategies, theteachers intentionally introduce new vocabularywords, such as present and absent. And the naturalflow of talk, in which adults capitalize on the child-guided desire to communicate, boosts fluency.

Earlier in this chapter, I introduced the conceptof “the intentional teacher” and organizing idea of“child- versus adult-guided experience” using threeterms that reappear throughout the rest of the book.They are intentional, teaching, and content, and be-cause they play such a key role in understanding

the chapters that follow, let me clarify now how Idefine them and how they fit together.

The meaning of intentionalTo be “intentional” is to act purposefully, with agoal in mind and a plan for accomplishing it. Inten-tional acts originate from careful thought and areaccompanied by consideration of their potentialeffects. Thus an “intentional” teacher aims at clearlydefined learning objectives for children, employsinstructional strategies likely to help childrenachieve the objectives, and continually assessesprogress and adjusts the strategies based on thatassessment. The teacher who can explain just whyshe is doing what she is doing is acting intention-ally—whether she is using a strategy tentatively forthe first time or automatically from long practice, aspart of an elaborate set up or spontaneously in ateachable moment.

Effective teachers are intentional with respectto many facets of the learning environment, begin-ning with the emotional climate they create. Theydeliberately select equipment and materials and putthem in places where children will notice and wantto use them. In planning the program day or week,intentional teachers choose which specific learningactivities, contexts, and settings to use and when.And they choose when and how much time tospend on specific content areas and how to inte-grate them. All these teacher decisions and behav-iors set the tone and substance of what happens inthe classroom.

Intentionality refers especially to how teachersinteract with children. Pianta defines intentionalityas “directed, designed interactions between chil-dren and teachers in which teachers purposefullychallenge, scaffold, and extend children’s skills”(2003, 5). Berliner (1987; 1992) emphasizes thateffective teaching requires intentionality in interac-tions with students, with an understanding of theexpected outcomes of instruction. He summarizesresearch on the relationship between classroom

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5Introducing Intentional Teaching

environment and learning outcomes in a list ofelements characteristic of good intentional teaching:

> High expectations—Teachers assume children arecapable of achieving meaningful educational goals.Teachers who expect children to learn will deliber-ately engage in instructional activities to enhancechildren’s knowledge and skills. Teachers’ highexpectations are also transmitted to children andparents, who then see themselves as active andcapable participants in the learning process.

> Planning and management—Teachers have con-crete plans to introduce subject matter and se-quence children’s learning. They can manage bothindividual behavior and group dynamics. Whileguiding the class toward defined objectives, teach-ers remain open to pursing related topics that ariseand capture children’s interest.

> Learning-oriented classroom—Children, as wellas teachers, value the classroom as a place wherelearning occurs. When adults act with the intentionof teaching, children can act with the intention oflearning.

> Engaging activities—Teachers understand howchildren learn and that activities and ideas con-nected to children’s own experience are more likelyto capture their interest. They understand also thattasks pegged too far above or below children’scurrent capabilities can undermine children’s self-confidence in their ability to learn.

> Thoughtful questioning—Teachers pose ques-tions to get insight into what children are thinkingand to stimulate their thought processes. Rotequestions and the thoughtless recitations theyevoke, by contrast, not only fail to further children’slearning but can derail it through boredom, resent-ment, or discouragement.

> Feedback—Children naturally look to teachers forsupportive and evaluative feedback, and effectiveteachers know when and how to provide it. Pre-senting information, making comments, askingquestions, identifying contradictions in children’s

thinking, and posing “what if” challenges are hall-mark strategies of intentionality. Unlike praise orcriticism, which merely indicates “right” or“wrong” and may be interpreted as a sign of theteacher’s personal (dis)approval of the child (e.g., “Ilike the way you solved that problem”), evaluativefeedback focuses on learning rather than judgment(“Your idea to carry the cup on a tray solved theproblem of water spilling on the floor”).

The meaning of teachingTeaching is the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, andespecially the behaviors and skills teachers employin their work with learners. An effective teacher iscompetent in three areas:

> Curriculum—the knowledge and skills teachersare expected to teach and children are expected tolearn, and the plans for experiences through whichlearning will take place. Effective teachers know thesubject matter covered in their program’s curricu-lum and how children typically develop with re-gard to each domain addressed. Efforts to specifywhat preschool children need to know and be ableto do have been made by states in their standardsand by specialized professional organizations suchas the International Reading Association (IRA &NAEYC 1998), Council on Physical Education forChildren (NASPE 2000; 2002), and the NationalCouncil of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM 2000;NAEYC & NCTM 2002).

> Pedagogy—the ways teachers promote children’sdevelopment and learning. Effective teachers en-sure that children experience a learning environ-ment that promotes their development and learningin all areas of the curriculum. For starters, teachersestablish a nurturing environment in which chil-dren are healthy and safe and feel secure. Beyondthis basic responsibility, teachers respect children’sdifferences, are inclusive with respect to specialneeds, relate to families, and use instructional ap-proaches and strategies effectively to supportchildren’s learning and thinking. The essentialelements of this component are highlighted in the

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6 The Intentional Teacher

Teaching standard of NAEYC’s Early ChildhoodProgram Standards and Accreditation Criteria(2005) and in its book Basics of DevelopmentallyAppropriate Practice (Copple & Bredekamp 2006). Aquarter of a century of research, summarized in thepanel report Eager to Learn: Educating OurPreschoolers (National Research Council 2000a),establishes that how adults interact with children isa significant determinant of developmental out-comes. More than any other variable, instructionalinteractions define a program’s quality and itsimpact on children’s intellectual and social develop-ment (Pianta 2003).

> Assessment—the process of determining howchildren are progressing toward expected outcomesof learning and development. Effective teachersknow how to administer, interpret, and apply theresults of assessment as they plan learning experi-ences for individual children and the class as a whole,and to monitor individual and group progress.Teachers share assessment results with parents toensure home and school work together to supportchildren’s early development. (Assessment also isincreasingly used for program and teacher account-ability.) Some assessments are dictated by adminis-trators or policy makers, then administered byteachers or outside specialists; other assessments aredeveloped by individual teachers to fit their class-room needs. Guidelines for appropriate assessmentof early learning are defined in a joint position ofNAEYC and NAECS/SDE (2003) and in the Assess-ment standard of NAEYC’s Early Childhood Pro-gram Standards and Accreditation Criteria (2005).

The meaning of contentContent is the substance or subject matter thatteachers teach, and therefore the object of children’slearning. For the purposes of this book, contentrefers more specifically to the knowledge (certainvocabulary and concepts) and skills in an area oflearning:

> Vocabulary—the language used in a content area.For example, reading vocabulary includes thenames of the letters in the alphabet as well as words

such as alphabet, book, author, and rhyme. Socialdevelopment vocabulary includes words for feel-ings (angry, happy) and the language used to invitesomeone to play or to tell someone to stop throwingblocks. Visual arts vocabulary includes descriptorsfor color, shape, and texture, as well as names ofartists, genres, and techniques.

> Concepts—the important ideas or principleswithin a content area, its “big ideas.” For example,basic reading concepts include that books are readfront to back, that print on a page is read from topto bottom and left to right, and that a relationshipexists between spoken and written language. Insocial development, basic conflict resolution con-cepts include that it is better to solve problems bytalking than hitting, and that solutions should befair to everyone. Visual arts concepts include “bigideas” such as realism versus abstraction, and howcultural beliefs and values are represented throughart.

> Skills—the specific abilities needed within adomain of learning and development. In reading,skills include recognizing the component sounds inwords and the letters of the alphabet from theirwritten shapes. Conflict resolution skills includeexpressing feelings, listening to others, and negoti-ating a compromise. Examples of visual arts skillsare manipulating a paintbrush to make art, andobserving and comparing the work of two artists.

Of course, there are knowledge (vocabularyand concepts) and skills that cut across one or morecontent areas, and early childhood education strivesto maximize such broad and general learning.Because this book is organized by content area,however, the challenge for the intentional teacher ispresented as identifying the “what” and “how toteach it” in each content domain. But, while thisbook looks at content in area-specific ways, in theclassroom the cumulative result of a comprehensiveand integrated education should be developingchildren’s total vocabulary, enhancing their overallconceptual understanding of the world, and ex-panding their full repertoire of skills.

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The field of early childhood education is some-times accused of being anti-content. If the accusa-tion has some truth to it, it’s partly carryover from atime when much of the emphasis in early educationwas on sharing, cooperating, and playing nicely inorder to transition children from home to a groupsetting. It’s also partly developmental appropriate-ness misinterpreted, typified by well-meaningteachers who insist they cannot display the alpha-bet because it pressures young children to memo-rize their ABCs.

If early education has been criticized for ne-glecting content, primary education is accused ofgoing the opposite way and ignoring social andemotional development (and, in response to currentacademic pressures, of reducing support in otherdomains such as physical development and thearts). This tension prompted NAEYC and NAECS/SDE to develop a joint position on curriculum forchildren birth through age 8 (1991; 2003). The 1991statement aimed to address two basic problems ofthe time: “the ‘early childhood error’ (inadequateattention to the content of the curriculum) and the‘elementary error’ (overattention to curriculumobjectives, with less attention to the individualchild)” (Bredekamp & Rosegrant 1992, 3).

Today, curriculum that meets the needs ofyoung children is “comprehensive” (NAEYC &NAECS/SDE 2003):

[It] encompasses critical areas of development includ-ing children’s physical well-being and motor develop-ment; social and emotional development; approachesto learning; language development; and cognition andgeneral knowledge; and subject matter areas such asscience, mathematics, language, literacy, social stud-ies, and the arts (more fully and explicitly for olderchildren). (2)

Each of these content areas has its own vocabu-lary, concepts, and skills for children to master.Because young children typically are encounteringthese content areas for the first time, they need theirteachers to “set the foundation for later understand-ing and success” (NAEYC 2001, 39).

* * *If all children are to succeed, teachers need to createan effective balance between learning that’s childinitiated and learning that is guided by adults. (Hyson2000, 60)

This book advocates a balanced approach, acknowl-edging that children learn through both child-guided and adult-guided experience and that teach-ers are most effective when they are able to chooseamong and apply any of a range of teaching ap-proaches without going to the extremes. As shownin the box on page 3, that approach is neitherlaissez-faire, in which all learning is left to the child,nor entirely top-down, in which the child is seen asan empty vessel into which the teacher poursknowledge. Interactions between teacher and chil-dren are neither overly teacher-directed and didac-tic nor overly child-centered and left to chance.Instead, intentional teaching means systematicallyintroducing content, in all domains, using develop-mentally based methods and respecting children’smodes of learning.

Naturally, there will be individual differences.What some children get on their own or throughinteractions with peers, other children will encoun-ter only through direct adult intervention. There-fore, the suggestions offered here cannot substitutefor teachers observing and knowing the experiencesand learning styles of the individual children intheir classrooms.

At present, the early childhood field lacks alabel for such a balance between child-centered andadult-directed approaches. “Eclectic” seems toorandom. “Combination” or “middle-of-the-road”are vague. In this book, I have suggested a term notoriginal to me, but useful in this context, I believe. Isuggest intentional teaching—because it says teach-ers play a thoughtful role during both child- andadult-guided experience. Whatever label we use, itis important that the words convey our commit-ment to child development principles as well as toeducational content.

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8 The Intentional Teacher

Questions for Further Thought1. What terms other than intentional teaching might describe the kind of thoughtful, multifacetedinstruction advocated in this book?

2. In what contexts does child-guided experience seem to predominate? In what contexts does adult-guided experience seem to predominate? In what situations do adults themselves learn primarilythrough their own efforts and in what situations is their learning primarily guided by others? Howcan understanding adult modes of learning inform how we intentionally teach children?

3. How can the early childhood field reverse public perception that it is “anti-content”?

4. How can the early childhood field educate the public that “content” for young children shouldcover all areas of learning, not just literacy, mathematics, and science?

5. What strategies, in addition to writing books such as this, can the early childhood field employ toencourage the adoption of intentional teaching?

Defining and following such a balanced ap-proach may help us to get past polarizing debatesand reach more effective practice. Further, thisapproach will inspire us to continually update our

knowledge and reflect on our practices—that is, tobe intentional teachers whose methods ensuresuccessful outcomes for young children.

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