Approaches to Learning Standards and Interest Areas for Exploratory Play
Academic Standards
While the early learning standards clearly reflect the developmental focus from which they are written, it can be more difficult to discern those developmental goals in K-2 standards. For instance, the South Carolina Good Start, Grow Smart early learning standards explicitly state one standard as: “Children [will] demonstrate initiative, engagement, and persistence in learning” (p. 16). In contrast, this desired outcome appears in the area of social studies (for example) not as an explicit standard to be met for learners but as part of the introductory explanation in expectations for social studies teachers about how the standards should be taught, “Social studies teaching and learning are powerful when the learning is active . . . . teachers gradually move from providing considerable guidance by modeling, explaining, or supplying information that builds student knowledge, to a less directive role that encourages students to become independent and self-regulated learners” (NCSS, 2002, p. 13).
Integrating curriculum content, materials, and activities in the early childhood years from both developmental and academic perspectives, as evident in the various sets of standards and guidelines, can be challenging. Therefore Chapters 7 to 11 will address academic content areas (creative arts, physical education and health, social studies, mathematics, science, and literacy) within the context of the five early learning developmental domains (Approaches to Learning, Physical Well-Being, Social-Emotional, Language, and Cognition/General Knowledge) listed above. This chapter begins with the early learning standards that address Approaches to Learning and the National Core Standards for the Arts.
7.2 Approaches to Learning Standards and Interest Areas for Exploratory Play
Approaches to Learning (ATL) standards are grounded in research on brain development. They emphasize the importance of a particular set of skills and mental processes that constitute executive functioning, which is necessary for effective problem solving and higher-order thinking (Berk, 2001). Central to executive functioning are self-regulation, attention, and memoryskills that prove highly valuable later in life for such tasks as completing homework assignments independently or planning, researching, and writing a report. The extent to which a child exhibits these characteristics may actually be a better predictor of future success in school than intelligence measures (Berk, 2001; Institute of Medicine and National Research Council of the National Academics, 2015; McClelland, Cameron, Wanless, & Murray, 2007). Figure 7.1 displays key elements of executive functioning.