Conversations Archives - Page 2 of 8 - Early Learning Nation
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Photo: Jayne Quan, Clinton Foundation

Meeting (and Teaching) Families in Unexpected Places Can Transform Cities

Grocery stores, bus stops, laundromats… what’s next?

School is a great place to learn, but it’s not the only place. No matter how excellent our teachers are, no matter how enriching the curricula, school accounts for only about 20 percent of children’s waking hours. That’s why a growing number of education pioneers are building out nontraditional sites for young minds to develop their language skills and to learn about their world.
Self control. Attention. Focus. These foundational skills make up a key area of early childhood development: Self-regulation. So what can teachers, parents, caregivers –even children themselves – do to help those skills grow? Oregon State University Professor Megan McClelland explains the science and the practical things we all can do. Filmed for Early Learning Nation’s Mobile Studio at the Society for Research in Child Development’s biennial meeting in Baltimore, MD, on March 22, 2019. #SRCD19

5 Takeaways from Jack Shonkoff’s EdRedesign Keynote

Welcome to Our New Column Covering Live Events

On May 19, Dr. Jack P. Shonkoff delivered the Education Redesign Lab (EdRedesign) spring keynote address via YouTube. Among his many distinctions, Dr. Shonkoff—Director of Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child and Professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Graduate School of Education—was awarded the 2019 LEGO Prize for revolutionizing the field of early child development. Here are our notes from his remarks.
Teacher-Coordinator Autumn Bevins reads aloud to children and mentors.

Why Don’t We Just Do That?

Over Cocktails, Restaurateurs Hatch a Plan for Literacy

Three years ago, Amanda and John Horne, owners of Anna Maria Oyster Bar in Bradenton, Florida, heard that 51 percent of children in their local Manatee County school system couldn’t read at grade level by third grade. They were appalled. “This was horrific,” Amanda says. “We had no idea that this was an issue.” Over cocktails one night, Amanda and John wondered what they could do. Their clientele is largely composed of older “grandparent-type” people. They have four restaurants and a mailing list of more than 24,000 customers. What if they could pair children up with a grandparent figure or somebody who cares about them, read with them and maybe instill them with a love of reading?
The pressure to over-program kids often seems endless – so much so that a simple, old-fashioned idea has fallen to the side: Children should play. Roberta Michnick Golinkoff & Kathy Hirsh-Pasek – researchers and co-authors of “Becoming Brilliant, What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children” – explain their “Learning Landscapes” program, where they help local municipalities turn public spaces like bus stops into child-friendly play zones.

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