Overview

Early Childhood Educators and Preschool Teachers play a significant role in promoting communication development in young children

Thousands of young children spend a significant part of their lives in early childhood settings, making Early Childhood Educators’ role a significant contributor to these children’s developmental outcomes. A key factor in the quality of a child care or early education setting is the training of the teachers. Educators’ level of formal schooling has been significantly and positively associated with their sensitivity and responsiveness to children.  Studies have shown that specialized professional development can increase educator-child interaction and responsiveness, which is known to promote children’s language, social and literacy development.

Using the Hanen Approach

Learning Language and Loving It™, an intensive in-service education program for early childhood educators, developed by The Hanen Centre, provides this kind of specialized training. Many early childhood educators have participated in the Learning Language and Loving It Program or use its resources.

Learning Language and Loving It is used by a variety of professionals in the field of early childhood education, including:

• Early Childhood Educators/Teachers
• Centre-based or home-based Child Care providers
• Speech-Language Pathologists/Therapists
• Early Childhood or Literacy Consultants
• Professors or Instructors in the field of early childhood education

Learning Language and Loving It addresses the need for:

Prevention of Language Delays:

By helping teachers create a language-rich, highly interactive environment for children at risk for language delays

Early Language Intervention:

By helping teachers provide children who have identified language delays with a highly interactive language-learning environment geared to each child's individual language level and conversational style

Language Enrichment:

By helping teachers provide typically developing children with an enriched language-learning environment that builds on their existing language skills and promotes the development of the language of learning

Research

Research demonstrates that the quality of early childhood settings depends on children’s engagement in warm, responsive and developmentally stimulating interactions with the adults who care for them. These types of interactions, which are fundamental to the Learning Language and Loving It approach, have been shown to be associated with positive short and long-term developmental outcomes.

For more information on Learning Language and Loving It, click here