Effective Teaching Strategies
in Preschool
Teaching preschool looks simple from the outside. In reality, preschool teachers come into a child's life at a crucial developmental age. What happens in that classroom will build a foundation for the rest of the student's academic career. There are certain key strategies that a dedicated preschool teacher must understand and employ.
Repetition
Teaching preschool aged children is largely repetitive. You will need to establish simple learning objectives for the year and repeat them as often as possible. Exercise your patience. The students are unlikely to remember anything the first, second, even fifth time. Be ready to explain the same things over and over. When you are teaching letters, split your class into three centers. Each center should be about the same letter. If you are teaching the letter B, have one center decorating bags, another center blowing bubbles, and the last center coloring a bear. Stress the sound the letter B makes in each center.
Fine Motor Skills
Aside from helping your students with letters and numbers, it is a preschool teacher's job to guide the development of fine motor skills. This can be accomplished through any activity that engages the smaller muscles in a child's hands, toes, lips, tongue and eyes. Fine motor skills also promote good balance and coordination. Be sure to provide plenty of art projects and puzzles to work on inside the classroom, but also bring your class outside on a regular basis for some physical activity. Play catch or host a relay race.
Song
An extremely effective teaching method for younger children is turning their learning material into a song. While they may struggle with learning words by themselves, once you arrange some rhymes, a melody and hand motions, your students won't stop singing about the seven continents or how many pennies are in a dollar. As an added bonus, education songs are a great way to settle down a wiggly class without compromising any learning time.
Outside the Curriculum
One of the most attractive aspects of preschoolers is their natural enthusiasm and curiosity for life. As you go through the school day, be on a constant look out for learning opportunities. If it's raining while the children arrive for school, take a moment to discuss where rain comes from. Practice recognizing the letter R. Draw a picture of a rainstorm. The more they see you finding their learning material in real life, they more they will begin to see it too.
