Category Archives: Special needs

Scientific justification for the recommendations for physical activity in early childhood

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The recommendations for physical activity in early childhood have been based largely on scientific justification. The articles for the Scientific justification for the recommendations for physical activity in early childhood (2016, Ministry of Education and Culture 2016:22) have just been published. The Orientation project results and insight have been a major contributor in this process, see:

Laukkanen, A., Määttä, S., Reunamo, J., Roos, E., Soini, A. and Mäki, P. Perheen tärkeä rooli [The important role of the family], p. 22-26.
Reunamo, J. Lapsilähtöinen toimintakulttuuri edellyttää lapsen kuuntelua [Child-initiated action culture requires listening the child], p. 27-31.
Iivonen, S., Laukkanen A., Haapala, A. and Reunamo, J. Motoristen taitojen kehitys [The development of motoric skills], p. 32-37.
Soini, A., Laukkanen, A., Mäki, P. and Reunamo, J. Fyysistä aktiivisuutta ja liikkumista edistävä ympäristö [An environment that enhances physical activity], p. 44-48.
Kyhälä, A-L. and Soini, A. Organisoitu liikunta [Organized excercise], p. 49-53.
Reunamo, J. and Kyhälä, A-L. Liikkuminen varhaiskasvatuspäivän osana [Physical activity as part of everyday activities in early childhood education], p. 54-58.

Hopefully the articles will be translated in English as soon as possible!

Recommendations for physical activity in early childhood

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The new Recommendations for physical activity in early childhood have been published in 7th September 2016. The recommendations for physical activity in early childhood inform about the amount and type of physical activity for the under eight-year-olds, roles of the physical, psychological and social environments, and planning and implementation of guided physical exercise and education on exercise as part of early childhood education. The Orientation project results and insights have been integrated in the recommendations in many ways. Hopefully we get the English translation for the recommendations as soon as possible!

A grant for our project

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The Finnish National Board of Education has granted our project on Progressive Feedback for 280 000 euro. The grant was clearly the largest sum funded of all applications. This funding is a major support and recognition of our project. The participating municipalities include Espoo, Hyvinkää, Hämeenlinna, Järvenpää, Kerava, Mäntsälä, Nurmijärvi, Sipoo, Turku and Vantaa. The project coordinating municipality is Kouvola. Thank you for the team for a succesful project! The funding will help us to make the best of progressive feedback. We will concentrate on accuracy, depth, topicality and feedback.

 

Progressive feedback as a permanent practice

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In Finland, in municipalities Espoo, Helsinki, Hyvinkää, Hämeenlinna, Järvenpää, Kerava, Mäntsälä, Nurmijärvi, Sipoo, Turku and Vantaa, we make the progressive feedback a permanent practice. The observer training starts in January 2017 and the building and testing of the needed infrastructure and tools starts immediately. From September 2017 onward, every day 180 randomized observations is conducted in different municipalities. When we merge the observation data with skills and learning environment evaluations, we get a real time feedback of the essential processes of early childhood education in Finland. This gives us an opportunity to get hold of these processes and change them in a conscious way. Furthermore, we get instant feedback about the effects of the development work almost in real time, which can be shared and further developed by the community and educators.

Funding for study of multicultural children

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outiAlli Paasikivi foundation has awarded the 2016 grants. Outi Arvola received funding (21 000 euro) for her research, where she studies the Orientation project results from the point of view of the multicultural children and their families. At the moment, Outi is working with the support needed for different families with a multicultural background and probably the  multicultural children’s everyday experiences are the next topics of her research. Congratulations for Outi! The funding is an essential help in accomplishing the needed deepness and validity of this timely topic.

Online progressive feedback in ECE

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ryhIn a meeting with the participating municipalities in Finland 3rd December in Vantaa, we discussed about the needs and interests to enhance ECE in each municipality. The municipalities situation, resources and interests are versatile. Our task is to integrate these interests to deepen the online developmental feedback. The purpose is 1) to enhance municipalities’ possibilities to get essential feedback and impact its collection, 2) to enhance the tools and possibilities for online progressive feedback, 3) to connect the feedback with ECE development and 4) to steer ECE development based on valid and real-time understanding. In December 2015 the municipalities get a proposition for the practical issues of feedback. In the next meeting 26th February 2016 we go through the questions and propositions evoked by the proposition. We aim to make the decision about starting progressive feedback in April 2016.

Just as an example, we can keep up with the variety of children’ mean physical activity in different groups (see the figure above) and study the effects of different enhancements.

 

Bullying and learning

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Our article based on Orientation project data has been accepted for publication in the series Contemporary Perspectives in Early Childhood Education http://www.infoagepub.com/series/Contemporary-Perspectives-in-Early-Childhood-Education. The series is globally perhaps the most important yearbook on Early Childhood Education. The publication is a major recognition of the work we are doing in our project. In the article we study bullying from the perspective of learning, which is a new opening in the study of bullying. Learning often helps to process bullying, but in can also result in confrontation, withdrawness or attempt to accept the bullying as a fact. It is also possible that the child learns nothing in the bullying situation, which means that nothing changes. Luckily, as children grow, the bullied child gets perspective and agency to process the situation, but unfortunately some children face a dead end. Article info: Reunamo, J., Ko, J., Cheng, D., Lee, H-C., Wang, L-C. & Salminen, E. (In print). Openness and agency as strategies on addressing bullying. In O. Saracho (Ed.) Contemporary research on bullying in early childhood education. IAP Publishing: USA.

Children’s fears in Finnish day care and preschool

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Heli Soderqvist has just finished her graduate thesis on the Orientation project data about children’s fears. The children were interviewed by their parents. For the question Are you afraid in day care? answered 3434 children. In average the children were not afraid and they liked to be in day care. For the additional open question What are you afraid in day care? answered 1095 children. These descriptions by children themselves open up a unique view on the everyday in day care and preschool. Unfortunately, only the abstract is in English! Fortunately, Google translate seems to work well with the text 🙂 Take a look at Heli’s work here. Discuss children’s answers with the children of your group of with your own children!

And note that there are a lot of interesting graduate thesis presented in here!

The perspectives of the bullied children

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We asked 3-7-year-old children: – Think of a situation when another child comes to tease you, what do you do? 761 children answered to  the question and described their strategy in addressing bullying. Often children seeked help from the teacher or tried to negotiate with the bully. However, children had a lot of different strategies, for example, hitting the bully or starting to cry. Children’s interactivity increased as children grew older and the amount of withdrawn strategies decreased with age. Especially interesting was that we were able to trace the connection between children’s interview strategies and their observed activities. Because interview and observation were independent measures, the found connections describe something real.  The reference information is below:

Reunamo, J. T., Kalliomaa, M. Repo, L., Salminen, E., Lee, H-C & Wang, L-C. (In print). Children’s strategies in addressing bullying situations in day care and preschool. Early Child Development and Care.

Funding for Orientation project

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The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture has decided to grant Orientation project. The sum is 180 000 euro and the funding is for 2014-2016. The funding is for enhancing the positive feedback loop of early childhood physical activity. The evaluation of the funded projects was carried on in cooperation with the Academy of Finland, which allowed an international comparison of scientific competence. The funding is a significant recognition of the work done in the  Orientation project and it enables a more flexible work in the future.  Thank you for the participants in the project, who have made this grant possible.