Every child develops differently. All children need a foundation; the so-called basic development. Guidelines have been drawn up for this basic development. The four ,B’s, are central.
The four B’s
Within the basic development, four so-called Bs have been drawn up. These are the four most important characteristics of basic development.
The four Bs are as follows:
- Intention;
- Meaning;
- Involvement;
- Mediation.
These four Bs tell almost nothing separately when you look at each other like this. If we put it as follows, it becomes clearer:
Broad development is the goal. This should be done with meaningful activities, with high involvement of the children. This requires mediating teachers.
Intention
The intention refers to the purpose of the lesson. For the young child this is generally broad development, in the upper grades more work will be done on specific development. The intention within a lesson depends on the level of the class and what the teacher wants to achieve with a lesson.
Meaning
By giving meaning to an activity, children will more easily absorb the activity. How meaning is given to an activity depends on the children’s lived experience, the level and the purpose of the activity. The meaning can be given to the activity in several ways:
- The activity itself;
- Nature of the material;
- Personal content of an activity;
- Social contact.
The way in which a child gives meaning to play, for example, largely arises from the child’s personal experiences.
Involvement
Involvement must come from both the teacher and the student. If a student is engaged, he or she is more likely to learn something from the activity. As a teacher you can see from various signals whether a student is involved:
- Concentration;
- Energy;
- Complexity and creativity;
- Mimicry and posture;
- Persistence;
- Accuracy;
- Response time;
- wording;
- Fulfilment.
Increasing involvement
There are a number of factors with which you can increase student involvement:
- Atmosphere and relationship;
- Level adjustment;
- Activity;
- Student initiative.
To measure student involvement, you can use the Leuven involvement scale. This scale contains five measures of involvement, each with guidelines regarding the signals mentioned above.
Mediation
As a teacher you will have to play a mediating role in the development of children. After all, children do not develop on their own, but need each other and adults for this. To further expand and strengthen the possibilities that young children already have, professional adults (teachers) can and should use their influence.
As a teacher you need the following aspects to be able to play a good mediating role towards the children:
- Knowledge of materials;
- Didactic skills to teach children how to work with materials;
- Attention to the versatility of the materials;
- Insight into the goals and the initial situation.
Basic development goals
The basic development of children is there for a reason. A number of goals have been drawn up, which can be shown in a circle diagram.
Within basic development we see three goals:
- Basic characteristics;
- Broad development goals;
- Goals in area specific development.
These three goals each have their own circle in the diagram. The circle gives an idea of how you can work purposefully and specifically on goals with the children. As a teacher, you may be able to offer the children extra support during their development.
Basic features
The basic characteristics are goals that every child should be able to develop. If the child has not developed these properly, this will pose problems for further basic development. If we look at the basic characteristics, we see three goals:
- To be emotionally free;
- Curious;
- Self confidence.
These basic characteristics form the basis for the child’s further development. During this development it is important that the child retains these basic characteristics.
Broad development goals
The second type of goals we see within basic development are the goals in the field of broad development. These goals are about long-term development.
If we put all the goals of the broad development together, we see more goals here than with the basic characteristics:
- Be active and show initiative;
- Communication and language;
- Play together and work together;
- Exploring the world;
- Expressing and shaping;
- Imagination and creativity;
- Dealing with symbols, signs and meanings;
- Self-management and reflection;
- Researching, reasoning and problem solving.
These goals are arranged according to which goal is generally visible first. The goals are set for the young child, but are also reflected to some extent in the older child.
Specific development goals
Finally, we see goals in the area of specific development. These goals are for the short term. As with the goals in the field of broad development, we also see a longer summary of these goals:
- Motor skills;
- Observe and organize;
- Words and concepts;
- Social skills;
- Dealing with tools and techniques;
- Schematizing;
- Quantities and operations;
- Written and printed language.
Although these goals seem more focused on the older child, young children are also working on achieving these goals from an early age. For example, consider arranging colored pencils by size.