NERD_0039 Direct Instruction in Preschool

Welcome to the rerelease of That Early Childhood Nerd! This episode originally aired in 2017...back then the podcast was called Cause an Effect. A lot has changed since then, including the host's name (from Heather Wenig to Heather Bernt-Santy) but we hope you will tune in! 

In this episode, Heather is joined by Tiffany Pearsall to share their love of Erika Christakis's book The Importance of Being Little : What Young Children Really Need from Grown Ups. 

"There are two problems with the direct instruction-centric preschool universe. The first is that the rampant proliferation of DI in the early years too often leaves little time during the school day for the teachers to develop individual relationships so critical to young children. The second is that DI is too readily adopted as a pedagogic substitute when teachers lack the professional skills that studies show are essential elements in high quality preschool instruction."