Website I studied : http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/

• What are some of the current international research topics?

Reconciliation is a movement that the early childhood Australia group is working on. They recognize that racism, bigotry and segregation are an issue within their country. These are important variables in their country that are causing issues in the early childhood field for children. "Transformation that moves us from ignorance and racism to respect, from inequity and prejudice to justice, and from inaction and fear to hope" (earlychildhoodaustralia.org). This is very interesting because this is an issue that we face here. I found it very interesting to read the documents that they have on this subject. 

• What surprising facts/insights/new ideas about early childhood did you gain from exploring this international early childhood website?

The facts and insights that I gained was that they are no different then the US because it seems that all countries struggle with these same issues. I believe from everything that I have read and gained knowledge from that many of these traits are part of human nature. Our cultures and religions have a natural instinct to try and have power over another. One day I hope this is not true but the evidence shows that we will not see and end in the near future. It is going to take many individuals standing for all rights all over the world.

• What other noteworthy information did you find on this website?
• They have a symposium coming up and it is to help the whole population of Australia. "Building and nurturing strong relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is central to our national identity and well-being. Starting these relationships in the early years will secure positive outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait children and their families. This effort also ensures all children develop a better knowledge, appreciation and understanding of the living culture of Australia’s first peoples." (earlychildhoodAustralia.org) I found this to be interesting. They find the importance of communication and working together for the future of their country. The education and the cooperation of all cultures is beneficial to the children and future of the country.

Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

For this blog post I am going to share an article and give some personal stories about my children because they have learning disabilities (LD).  The article I am going to share is "All Children Can Write" by Donald Graves. Donald Graves is to be considered the father of how the process of writing for children. This paper focuses on the fact that poor writing skills has more to do with what a child knows. The example that is in the paper is about a child who would cover their paper and have a lot of black smudges all over because of him trying to spell. Many children do not realize that writing is not just something that you need to know but it is a form of communication. "There was not attempt to connect his writing with the communication of ideas" (Graves, 1985, p.1). When the correct approach is taken children understand this but with the wrong instruction they see it as just something they have to do. When the child was diagnosed with visual motor problems the approach then they took a different approach to helping this child write. The teacher took time to find out what he was interested in. The teacher allowed the boy to teach them about something he was interested in which help change is perception about writing. "The writing-process approach to teaching focuses on children's ideas and helps children teach the teacher or other children in the class what they know, with emphasis first given to ideas and clarifying" (Graves, 1985, p.2). The realization that writing can help a child to communicate with other children. When children understand that their writing is being read by other children can help them understand the importance of written communication. The two basic principles that have been gained by the research is that teachers teach best by showing and the environment must be structured. What I gained from this article is that teaching writing is about showing children the meaning of writing. My children struggle with writing and find it time consuming.

My oldest is ADHD and one of the problems is that sloppy hand writing is just a fact of life. The reason is because it takes too long. She understand writing is a communication form but it is hard to spend the time writing because it takes a long time. Attention span is a struggle. My middle child struggles with writing because she has short-term  memory issues and she had fine motor issue early in life. She is very frustrated when she writes because it is a struggle and time consuming . Both my children's writing difficulties flow over into reading for one reason or the other. Because of Donald Graves research my children are taught differently how to write. They are not treated bad or talked differently about. Children all learn on a different level I found this article interesting because it was 35 years of work and they made many strives to help impove the experience of children learning to write.
Reference
Graves, D (1985) All children can write, Retrieved from http://www.ldonline.org/article/6204/?theme=print

Personal Research Journey

This is going to be a journey learning about how to create a research simulation. The topic that I want to focus on is RTI (response to intervention). RTI is a personal topic for me because of my children. I have had many experiences with not getting my children diagnosed or recognize that there is a delay until it is too late or we have missed the window. My 6 year old had a 90 minute seizure when she was 18 months old. We have been see more and more affects from this seizure as she enters school. My family is consider middle income so we do not always get the help that we need. When the professionals in the school system tested her since she was 2 years old she has always tested above average. The problem is she has sort term memory problems and she struggles with writing. She had fine motor skills problems from birth. I had to take classes to become a Developmental intervention assistant in order to help my own daughter because I could not get the professionals to see what I had been witnessing.  There are many other delays she has but these are the big ones. So, I want to learn about context at subsequent application of RTI. I want to answer the question of what should be the time period between discovering that the instruction is not responsive to a child's needs and development? How and when and by whom? I am tired of the line she will grow out of it. My sister has a 5 year old that struggled to walk normally and speak normally and she is just now getting the proper help. My sister is also low income and her children have been in preschools and on help programs but no one would take the step to help it was always she will grow out of it. We have these great programs but children are still falling through the cracks. I want to understand why. I want to learn from this course on how I find out why and how to conduct a research so I can answer why to help children who are not receiving the proper help. What I have gained from completing the charts so far is that research in the early childhood field is very complicated compared to doing a scientific experiment in organic chemistry. When I was 18 I was a biology major and I would conduct and do research projects in organic chemistry. Finding reliable research and that many of the research in early childhood is qualitative not quantitative. Yes, there is many research conducted with quantitative date in the early childhood. In this field you have many variables to consider. When studying a child you have many things change in one day. I have gained that developing a research simulation takes many considerations and understanding all the variables. It is not like picking 2 chemicals and watching their reactions in different situations. These are the things that I have gained so far in this course. I am looking forward to guidance and insights from the information in the course and colleagues.

Final Blog Entry EDU6162

Three consequences that I have found about learning about international early education is that it is a global issue. Early education cost money for everyone and many nations struggle to find money to pay for quality care. Many nations pay for early  care/education but it does not come with out cost. When the government starts to see the benefits of early education then they find the funds. Policies are not all universal many nations have minimal requirement for the environment. Some nations have no requirements for teachers and others have high qualifications. I can see how it is not just the US that struggles to make policies and requirements for the early education field. I do not see an end in sight to understanding the real issues with early childhood education and why we can not put in forward it in many political agendas. We are not give manuals for children and we need to educate all parents. This is another thing that is an issue around the world. My goal for international awareness is to still find a professional to learn from so I can become more aware of other countries early education policies and issues.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

For this week's blog I chose to look at the alternative. I was able to read a paper on early childhood care in New Zealand. The paper I read was a UNESCO Policy Brief on Early Childhood. There are many things that I found interesting and gained knowledge on. The first thing that I learned was that New Zealand has no requirements educational wise when it comes to home-based care caregivers. They have laws that govern the environment but not the caregiver. In the 20th century more parent were seek the home-based care because they wanted their children in a home environment. " A key reason for Government support and regulation is that the quality of early childhood services, including home-based services, is linked to long-term educational and social benefits for children and families" ( Podmore, 2002, p.2). This paper looks at why there needs to be regulations on home-based care for children. I found that New Zealand views the early education and care of to be very important for children and their society. The government provides the same amount of funds to home-based care versus center based. The government sees that an infrastructure needs to be present in order to help provide the high quality care for the children. What I gained from this article is that we are not the only society that struggles with not having an infrastructure.


Reference
Podmore V. N. (2002) Home-Based Early Childhood Services: The Case of New Zealand Retrieved on February 19, 2016 from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001373/137381e.pdf

Sharing Web resources Week 6

For this blog I went and explored different links on the DEC's Website. I found a letter about inclusion. I found this letter very interesting because it encourage states and programs to embrace inclusion. The letter was written by Arne Duncan, Secretary U.S. Department of Education and Sylvia Matthews Burwell, Secretary U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. An interesting thought in the letter was:

"Through the policy statement we released, we aim to support and encourage States, early childhood programs and schools, teachers and providers, national professional organizations, advocates, and families to take action to expand access to high-quality inclusive early childhood programs for all children. This policy statement is one effort in a series of Federal actions promoting the inclusion of young children with disabilities in high-quality early childhood programs. The Departments intend to work with our partners in the community to raise public awareness and identify resources to support high quality programming and inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood programs."

The reason I found this interesting is because it raises the point of how important inclusion is for children. All children desire high quality education.The only part about inclusion is some children require more accommodations and who pays for these costs. Because inclusion is suppose to be not limiting do providers get reimbursed or is it on the parents? These questions were not addressed in the letter. 

This research has lead me to understand that cost is not always the first subject that comes up. I read the U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION POLICY STATEMENT ON INCLUSION OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES IN EARLY CHILDHOOD PROGRAMS and no where did I see about cost and access. Yes we need inclusion but we need to make all type of education and care affordable. I know with my daughter I have to provide all the accommodating material for her at school. This is partly because it is a private school and they do not fall under IDEA. I do not understand this fact but it is true. So, when our legislation talks about inclusion it is for all public schools or public facilities. I have been doing quite a bit of research and I have not found where private schools or programs that do not take federal or state money that they have to comply with the law IDEA.

"Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation, such as private schools, private child care programs, or private preschools; regardless of whether an entity receives federal funds"(US Department of Health and Human Services, 2015, p.3)

But the private schools do not have to provide accommodation they just can ask you to find another program or school

Reference

United States Department of Education (2015) Dear Partners Retrieved on February 12, 2016. Retrieved from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ecd/office_of_secretary_decision_joint_letter.pdf

US Department of Health and Human Services (2015) Education policy statement on inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood programs. Retrieved on February 12, 2016 Retrieved from www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ecd/policy_statement_on_inclusion_of_children_with_disabilities_in_early.pdf

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

I have been trying to communicate with my international contact and have had no luck. It seems we have different schedules. For this week I am going to do the alternative. Exploring the website Harvard University’s “Global Children’s Initiative” I found something interesting when they talk about working with other countries other than the United States. They have to work on translating the research information not only by language but by culture. I thought this was very smart and interesting because they are taking in the uniqueness of the country and culture. Another thing that I gain was that the work that they are doing in Latin American they believe can help them learn lessons globally,regionally and locally. 
"The project team members work together to understand the implications of what they’re learning as they implement in community-based settings – including an understanding of who the intervention is working for, who it’s not working for, and why" (developingchild.harvard.edu, p.1, 2016). This innovation cluster is about learning fast so they can incorporate their findings. I found this very interesting since in our country it takes a while to implement new ideas and findings. Another thing I found interesting was the Grand Challenge Canada, Savings Brain seeks to improve the lives of children living in poverty within the first 1000 days of life. They want to expand the reach of products, services and have polices to protect and nurture early brains. I found this imformation to be very encouraging and insightful because of how work around the global is supporting young lives.


Reference
developingchild.harvard (2016) Innovation Clusters http://developingchild.harvard.edu/innovation-application/key-concepts/innovation-clusters/