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Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchives@ School: Expert Shares Tips for Teaching Tots

@ School: Expert Shares Tips for Teaching Tots

Early childhood specialist April Phillips. “A,” said the woman as she pointed to the letter posted on the wall.

“A,” small voices parroted back.

“B,” she said, pointing to the next letter.

“B,” they repeated.

A visitor sat down next to a small boy.

“My name is Miss April,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Name,” he replied.

“What’s your name?” she tried again.

“Name,” he said.

There was no conversation going on; he was still repeating what he heard.

She looked around the room. There was almost nothing in it to engage a 2- or 3-year old. No blocks, no Logos, no beads, no clay to help little hands develop motor skills and to open minds to imaginative thinking and problem-solving.

“I’m a little disappointed” sometimes in visits to daycare facilities on St. Thomas, April Phillips said. “They’re caring. They’re loving. They try to meet the needs of the child.” She paused. “They need training,” she added. “They need guidance. They need materials.”

It’s Phillips’ mission to help the operators of daycare centers and preschools to see what they need and how to obtain it.

Phillips is an early childhood specialist. She worked for 33 years with the V.I. Department of Education, first as a teacher at J. Antonio Jarvis School and since 1999 in administration. As the primary grades coordinator for the St. Thomas-St. John district, Phillips was charged with coordinating operations for public schools kindergarten through third grade, though in reality she said she sometimes worked on projects involving children slightly older or younger.

Phillips “retired” last year when long-term government employees were pressured to exit the government payroll or pay more toward their benefits. But she has very much kept her hand in education, working with the district on a number of projects, including workshops and, this summer, helping to manage the department’s first ever Kinder Camp for preschoolers.

Phillips has been a presenter at early childhood learning workshops and conferences coordinated by the Department of Human Services, Education and the University of the Virgin Islands.

She also works with the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands in its Family Connection program, as a consultant on preschool and daycare centers.

The Department of Human Services licenses those facilities and, according to its website, there are about 100 of them operating in the district. Phillips is consulting only with ones whose owners/operators have contacted CFVI for help in the past, perhaps by attending workshops or seminars. Right now, she’s working with seven centers.

“I tell them, ‘I’m not coming here to tell you what to do, just to provide assistance,’” she said. “I usually go in the morning and just observe.”

Sometimes Phillips is impressed by what she sees. Other times “it’s a rude awakening.”

One concern is that some adults – not only daycare operators but many parents as well – don’t understand the normal developmental stages, she said. They are anxious to push children to read, for instance, and rely too heavily on memorization as learning.

From her own experience as a student, Phillips said she knows the pitfalls of memorizing answers without understand them. She said she did well on tests in school. “The next day I may not know (the material) but I got my A.”

The world is changing rapidly and people must be prepared to make adjustments throughout their lives. Rather than learning a set of facts or a skill that may not be useful in the future, children need to learn how to reason and how to become problem-solvers, Phillips said.

In developing ways to do that, “we use the Virgin Islands Early Learning Guidelines,” she said. The guidelines were published two years ago in a joint effort by Education and Human Services. Phillips was on the steering committee that drafted them. They are available at www.dhs.gov.vi/OCCRS/documents/EarlyLearningGuidelines

The guidelines are a comprehensive manual packed with educational philosophy and practical suggestions. One tenet of the guidelines is that “tremendous variation exists in the growth and development of young children.” Another is that kids respond positively when adults show an interest in them and in their accomplishments.

Want to help a child develop gross motor skills? Encourage him/her to dance to music, climb, play ball, swim, sing and play “Brown Girl in the Ring.” To fine tune motor skills? Give him/her crayons, chalk, sand and a bucket, clay, pencils and paper.

The guidelines also contain concrete suggestions of ways to introduce very young minds to concepts like time, size and distance, and subjects such as social studies and science.

The government is currently working on a set of Guidelines for even younger children, that is kids from birth to age 3, and Phillips is part of that effort also.

Of course guidelines and recommendations from a consultant are only that. “I can suggest things” to parents and early childhood teachers and caregivers, Phillips said. But “they have to be willing to change too.”

Originally from Pennsylvania, Phillips was working as a graphic artist when she met her husband and came back with him to his island home. She worked at St. Thomas Graphics before entering education in the 1978-79 school year.

“I always gravitated toward young children,” she said. In college, she and a girlfriend had dreams of one day opening their own daycare center. That didn’t happen, but Phillips did enter the field and acquired her masters in Early Childhood Learning from UVI. She has a son and two grandchildren, ages 10 and 7.

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