The United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization in conjunction with Bernard van Leer Foundation, Un Kilo de Ayuda (Mexico), Save
the Children, UNICEF, the WFP, the WHO and the World Bank have come up with the
Holistic Early Childhood Developmental Index (HECDI). HECDI was created in December 2010, and
wants to promote a more cohesive approach to monitoring children from prenatal
development to the age of eight. The
goals of the HECDI are to measure the aspects of ECCE policy and programming at a national and subnational level,
legal protection of children, social protection and child welfare, social-emotional
and cognitive development, access and quality of early childhood care and
education, and health/nutrition.
These
are all important factors for the educator in me to see being measured because
it will allow us to provide a more standard form of policy and programming. For
me that is one of the biggest problems I see in the EC field right now. For instance, certain centers are trying to
follow standards while other are not. This
provides a problem for children who are not going to be prepared for
Kindergarten. I would like to see area
centers get on the same page as to what is being taught to Pre-K children so children
could be more on the same page before entering Kindergarten. I also feel it is important to have Pre-K programs
also screen for learning disabilities for children that way Kindergarten
teachers are able to provide interventions the moment the child comes into his
or her classroom.
Resource
Children do need quality preschool programs in order to be prepared for the type of kindergarten in today's society. Children who do not experience a quality preschool program are at a disadvantage in today's kindergarten. If kindergarten used developmentally appropriate practice this would not be such a problem, but today's kindergarten is much more like first grade used to be.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about every center having different agendas. I see it all the time. To me as parent who was shopping around for preschools for my four year old it was confusing and frustrating. I would like one school literacy format but like another schools focus on importance of outdoor activities. I feel if there was common agenda it would more beneficial.
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