Week 3

Learning Resources

This page contains the Learning Resources for this week. Be sure to scroll down the page to see all of the assigned resources for this week. To view this week’s media resources, please use the streaming media player below.

 

Required Resources

 

Note: Please read/view the following Required Resources in the order indicated below. You are required to view only the segments of the CD-ROM that are indicated in the Learning Resources. Be aware that the developmental domains are referred to differently on the CD-ROM than they are in the course text (i.e., the biological realm is the same as the physical domain, and the psychosocial realm is the same as the social and emotional domain).

 

• Course Text: Discovering Child Development
• • Page 243: Early Childhood Development
  • Chapter 8: Physical Development and Health in Early Childhood
  • • Pages 245–251
• CD-ROM: Development: Journey Through Childhood and Adolescence
• • Unit 6: Early Childhood
  • • Learning Launch: Early Childhood: The Cognitive Realm
• Course Text: Discovering Child Development
• • Chapter 9: Cognitive and Language Development in Early Childhood
  • • Pages 269–287 (Read to “How Does Early Childhood Education Influence Development?”)
  • Chapter 10: Social and Emotional Development in Early Childhood
  • • Pages 299–315 (Read to “How Do Parenting Behaviors and Family Context Influence Young Children’s Development?”)
    • Pages 326–331 (Read from “Young Children’s Friendships” to “Differences in the Quality of Sibling Relationships”)
• Online Reading: Week 3: Sum It Up (PDF format)
  From Exploring Child Development (2nd ed.) by Richard Fabes and Carol Lynn Martin
  Published by Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA. Copyright 2003 by Pearson Education. Used by permission of the publisher.

 

Media

 

• Video: Laureate Education (Producer). (2008). Child development: Preschool children [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
  Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 6 minutes.

  In this media segment, you will observe young children 3 to 5 years old in a mixed-age preschool classroom.
  
  Note: You will need to watch this media segment in order to complete your Application Assignment for this week.
  

   

 

Optional Resources

 

• Web Article: “Understanding Physical Development in Young Children” by Sean Brotherson
  http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/famsci/fs632.pdf (PDF format)

• Web Site: Six Stages to a Strong Self-Image
  http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/emotional-growth-and-its-link-learning-six-stages-strong-self-images

• Web Site: Growing Ideas: Friends & Feelings: Social-Emotional Development in Young Children
  http://ccids.umaine.edu/resources/ec-growingideas/socemores/

• Web Report: “Children’s Developmental Benchmarks and Stages: A Summary Guide to Appropriate Arts Activities,” an excerpt from the Arts Education Partnership report Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections
  http://journal.naeyc.org/btj/200407/ArtsEducationPartnership.pdf (PDF format)

 

• Respond to each item. Each response should be concise and between two and three paragraphs in length.
• Use MS Word to write your responses, and submit your answers to all three questions in one Word document.
• Copy and paste each question within the document, so that your instructor can see which question you are responding to.

 

1. As in all stages of development, brain growth is an important influence on children—physically, cognitively, and socially and emotionally. Review page 247 in your course text and then explain how continuing development in the prefrontal cortex area of the brain can affect young children’s readiness to enter the more structured environments of kindergarten and the primary grades. Considering that each child develops in his or her unique way, what are some of the challenges (physically, cognitively, and socially and emotionally) that children might encounter when they start formal schooling such as kindergarten, despite being the appropriate age?

2. Between the ages of 3 and 7, children’s fine- and gross-motor skills advance considerably. Review “Milestones in Motor Development,” Figure 8.4 on page 250 of your course text. Based on the information you have learned from the Learning Resources for this week, explain at least two ways changes in motor competency may impact children’s development and skills in the cognitive domain and in the social and emotional domain.

3. Review the sections “Young Children’s Understanding of Pretend and Real” (pp. 280–281) and “Young Children at Play” (pp. 328–330) in your course text. Then explain how pretend play has the potential to enhance children’s development in all of the domains.