Stop, Think, Act

Integrating Self-Regulation in the Early Childhood Classroom

Megan M. McClelland, Shauna L. Tominey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317755388
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildungspsychologie

Stop, Think, Act: Integrating Self-regulation in the Early Childhood Classroom offers early childhood teachers the latest research and a wide variety of hands-on activities to help children learn and practice self-regulation techniques. Self-regulation in early childhood leads to strong academic performance, helps students form healthy friendships, and gives them the social and emotional resources they need to face high-stress situations throughout life.

The book takes you through everything you need to know about using self-regulation principles during circle time, in literacy and math instruction, and during gross motor and outdoor play. Each chapter includes a solid research base as well as practical, developmentally-appropriate games, songs, and strategies that you can easily incorporate in your own classroom. With Stop, Think, Act, you'll be prepared to integrate self-regulation into every aspect of the school day.

1 Self-Regulation in Early Childhood

DOI: 10.4324/9781315798059-1

Ben and Max are playing together during free-play time at their pre-school. Both are very interested in a new kitchen that just arrived and are discussing cooking breakfast. Ben gets out the ingredients for pancakes, and Max starts to get out pans and cooking utensils. Everything is going well until Max puts on the only classroom apron and announces that he is the cook. Unfortunately, Ben wants to be the cook too and the two boys begin an aggressive tug-of-war over the apron. Their teacher, Ms. Lopez, steps in and calmly suggests that they can both be cooks and take turns wearing the apron. Before she has finished talking, Max hits Ben on the head with a wooden spoon and Ben starts to cry. Feeling frustrated, Ms. Lopez pictures herself snapping at Max, saying, “Look what you did now!” but instead takes a deep breath and addresses the conflict between the two boys calmly.

This scenario demonstrates a breakdown in self-regulation for Max and Ben. For Ms. Lopez, this scenario demonstrates a self-regulation success! In this situation, Max and Ben had difficulty with self-regulation when they began fighting over the apron rather than using words or other methods to come to a compromise. Max also showed difficulties when he was unable to stop and listen to Ms. Lopez's words before reacting and hitting Ben with a spoon. Fortunately, Ms. Lopez did not let her frustration get the better of her, but was able to stop herself from snapping to calmly guide Max through steps to think about his actions, apologize to his friend, ask if he was okay, and make amends. This scenario is just one example of situations like this that arise again and again in early childhood classrooms.

Children are repeatedly called upon to use self-regulation throughout the day in large and small group settings. Children who struggle with self-regulation skills have difficulty building and maintaining positive relationships, paying attention, following directions, and controlling unwanted impulses, all of which impact learning (Blair & Diamond, 2008; Diamond, 2010; McClelland & Cameron, 2011). In fact, when asked, kindergarten teachers report that being able to pay attention and follow directions are the skills most helpful to children when they start kindergarten (Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, & Cox, 2000)—in other words, being able to demonstrate self-regulation is key. Without adequate self-regulation, children may struggle socially and academically and, as a result, gradually disengage from school and learning. Alarmingly, there is evidence that this process begins as early as the end of kindergarten (Blair & Diamond, 2008; Ladd, Birch, & Buhs, 1999). Because early academic skills lay the foundation for later success, children who fall behind during early childhood or early elementary school because of difficulties with self-regulation may face achievement gaps that are difficult or even impossible to overcome.

The good news is that there is plenty of evidence that self-regulation can be taught, practiced, and improved. This is important because children with strong self-regulation have higher levels of classroom functioning, school adjustment, motivation, and engagement in learning (Denham & Weissberg, 2004; Zsolnai, 2002). Children with strong self-regulation abilities also have better relationships with teachers and peers and an easier time in school (Eisenberg, Eggum, Sallquist, & Edwards, 2010; Ladd & Dinella, 2009). Although early childhood teacher education programs often include self-regulation as an important developmental topic, few programs adequately provide teachers with the specific skills and strategies they need to promote children's self-regulation in the classroom (Tominey & Rivers, 2012). The struggles that many children have with self-regulation in early childhood, combined with a lack of information on how to promote these skills, likely contribute to the high rates of expulsion at the preschool age—three times the combined rate for students in grades K-12 (Gilliam & Shabar, 2006). Finding easy ways to integrate self-regulation practice in early childhood is critical to ensuring that early childhood education teachers feel confident managing the many self-regulation challenges that arise on a daily basis and ensuring all children receive the high-quality early education they need for success.

Using This Book: Promoting Self-Regulation in Your Own Classroom

A growing body of research highlights the importance of self-regulation for short- and long-term social and academic success (McClelland, Ponitz, Messersmith, & Tominey, 2010). With so much research pointing to self-regulation as foundational for school readiness, our aim in writing this book was to provide you, our readers—early childhood educators and professionals working with young children and families—with a resource to support your ability to effectively promote self-regulation in your classroom or early learning setting. By sharing a combination of research, practical tips, and strategies, we hope to provide you with a solid foundation in research on the importance of self-regulation as well as concrete ways to embed self-regulation into your classroom curriculum and routines through games, activities, songs, and more.

This book includes a summary of recent research on self-regulation, including:

• The “hot” and “cool” components of self-regulation
• How self-regulation develops
• Why early childhood is a critical period for promoting self-regulation
• Best practices for promoting self-regulation in early childhood
• The relationship between self-regulation and academic achievement
• Strategies for engaging families in children's self-regulation development and growth
• How self-regulation is measured and assessed
• And much more!

Each chapter combines research with practice, using examples and anecdotes, learning checkpoints, and teaching tips that you can begin using in the classroom immediately or bookmark for another time. Spread throughout the book are “Activity Breaks” with specific games and activities aimed at promoting self-regulation throughout the preschool day. Although it may seem beneficial to turn straight to the “Activity Breaks,” we encourage you to read this book in its entirety to gain a solid foundation of the work and evidence that support these ideas. Each chapter provides information that will help shape your knowledge of self-regulation across the developmental domains and contexts of children's lives, enabling you to use our suggestions more effectively and create your own activities to help children practice these important skills. The last chapter of the book, Chapter 9, provides a list of resources corresponding with each chapter, including recommendations for children's books, music, websites, and much more to support your ability to integrate self-regulation into your classroom. We hope that you will find the research and practical activities in this book useful and easy to integrate into your current teaching strategies and classroom curriculum.

In this first chapter, we lay the foundation for the remaining chapters by providing a definition for self-regulation, examples of how self-regulation might look in early childhood settings, and ideas to help you expand your toolbox of self-regulation activities for use in your classroom.

What Is Self-Regulation?

We define self-regulation as the conscious control of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions (McClelland et al., 2010). Simply put, self-regulation is the ability to stop, think, and then act. Another term that you might hear that is closely related to self-regulation is “executive function.” Executive function includes three components: attentional (or cognitive) flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory (Garon, Bryson, & Smith, 2008). Self-regulation is the ability to integrate all three aspects of executive function into behavior (McClelland et al., 2010). At face value, the components of executive function may sound complex, but we hope to make them easier to understand through examples (see Table 1.1).

Attentional Flexibility

Attentional flexibility is the ability to pay attention and focus on a task and the ability to switch attention away from that task when needed (Rueda, Posner, & Rothbart, 2005). For example, picture Mia painting happily at the easel. When her teacher begins singing the cleanup song, Mia places her picture on the drying rack, hangs up her smock, and joins her class on the rug. In this example, Mia demonstrates attentional flexibility in several ways. First, she paid attention to the task at hand (painting at the easel). Second, she switched her attention away from painting and refocused her attention to cleaning alongside her classmates when her teacher provided a cue that it was time to clean up.

Table 1.1 Examples of Executive Function Constructs

Executive function construct	How this looks
Attentional/cognitive flexibility	• Paying attention
• Listening to and following directions
• Switching focus from one task to another
• Ignoring distractions
Working memory	• Using short-term memory
• Remembering single and multi-step directions
• Recalling and recognizing facts, lessons, or instructions
Inhibitory control	• Controlling impulses
• Stopping one behavior and choosing another more appropriate action
• Calming down when upset
• Taking turns
• Waiting/delaying gratification

Working Memory

Working memory is the ability to mentally hold and process information (Gathercole, 2008). In preschool, children are continually being asked to use their working memory to remember instructions and rules and to follow directions. Information that children receive may be simple (e.g., a one-step direction) or complex (e.g., multi-step directions). For example, when Gabby arrives at school, she remembers that she must wash her hands before playing—a one-step direction. In another example, Jordan follows through with a complex set of instructions when he uses his working memory to help him remember to hang up his coat after playing outside, go straight to the bathroom, wash his hands, and join his classmates at the table for snack.

Inhibitory Control

Inhibitory control is the ability to stop an impulse and select another more adaptive response in its place (Dowsett & Livesey, 2000). For example, when Emma raises her hand and waits to be called on rather than shouting out a response, she is demonstrating inhibitory control. When Theo stops himself from hitting a friend who has just taken his toy and instead says, “That's mine! Please give it back!” he is also demonstrating inhibitory control.

Learning Checkpoint

1. How would you describe attentional flexibility, working memory, and inhibitory control in your own words? How do these concepts relate to one another and how are they different from one another?
2. Can you come up with a specific example of how each might look in the classroom?

Executive Function and Self-Regulation: Putting It All Together

These three executive function skills are distinct from one another, but they often go hand in hand. For instance, in order to use inhibitory control skills, a child needs working memory to keep in mind the appropriate alternate response to use instead of an impulse. To remember this alternate response, the child must have paid attention to the information in the first place. Let's put this together in an example.

Sophie had a strong impulse to push other children who stood in her way. Her teacher, Mr. Rob, worked hard to catch Sophie in these moments and reminded her to say, “Can you move, please?” and wai...