Discussions

Classroom Management

Within the instructional setting, controlling young children behavior gives guidance and discipline as well as helps them learn to be cooperative. It is important for educators to teach children to be responsible for their actions and to empower them in exercising self-control (Mosier, 2009). For instance, creating rules and setting limits can help nurture the behavior of taking turns when participating in school activities. According to McClelland and Tominey (2013), he behavior helps control students and teaches them not to be greedy especially when playing with their favorite toys or play area. It also encourages them to be generous by allowing their peers equal opportunities during play time. 

Hand-raising is also another classroom management situation that can be used to teach children self-control (McClelland and Tominey, 2015). The practice can also be used as a sign of respect as children learn to listen and not talk when others are talking. Teaching children to raise hands in the classroom teaches them to wait for their turn to be picked and nurtures discipline and self-control. 

Virtually, to nurture developmentally appropriate behavior among children, it is important for the teacher to create rules and set limits that act as guidance for the children and to ensure cooperation. The practice helps clarify behavior expectations since children understand what is expected of them.

Planning

Students joining kindergarten have different cognitive abilities and life experiences as they develop language and transition from oral to written literacy. The Common Core State standards advocate different content standards to address the issue of oral transition to written language. The State standards online for Kindergarten in the state of Georgia advocates for basic learning and development of comprehension strategies to help them understand the complexity and manipulate grade-level texts. The standards have clear and specific expectations for speaking, listening, reading, writing, and language development.

ELAGSEKSL6: Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly

The specific content standards advocates for the development of skills and concepts for students by increasing the vocabulary, communicate effectively, use complete sentences, and start using subject-verb agreement (Georgia Department of Education, 2015). The instructional strategies to meet the learning goals include modeling and guidance for speaking clearly, guiding students to express ideas effectively, and providing opportunities to students to communicate effectively. The teacher can accomplish this through various methods such as role play, or think out loud. Virtually, during role play, the children are arranged in small groups, where they are expected to convey ideas audibly, express thoughts, and feelings towards their peers (Georgia Department of Education, 2015). For instance, the teacher should encourage children to tell their friends when they want to play and with the specific toy. On the other hand, thinking out loud helps kindergarten children to generate their ideas and thoughts and to see reading as an interactive process (Cochell, 2017). In order to accomplish this, the teacher will introduce specific questions such as who, what, where and why during a reading activity. The attention of the students will be drawn by pointing to the questions and encouraging them to answer and develop their questions as well. 

References

Cochell, M. (2017). English language arts the kindergarten way. Place of publication not identified: Capstone Pr Inc.

Georgia Department of Education. (2015). Teacher guidance: for teaching the Georgia standards of excellence (GSE). Retrieved from: https://www.georgiastandards.org/Georgia-Standards/Frameworks/ELA-Kindergarten-Guidance.pdf

McClelland, M. M., & Tominey, S. L. (2013). Self-regulation and early school success. New York: Routledge. 

Mosier, W. (2009). Developmentally appropriate child guidance: Helping children gain self-control. Texas Child Care, 32(4), 2-9.