Content area
Full Text
Purpose: Basic concepts are the academic building blocks for preschool children in early education programs and are important for academic success and higher order thinking. Recommended strategies for teaching basic concepts include using positive examples, non-examples, highlighting critical features of concepts through continuous conversion, initially isolating the concept and strategically integrating new concepts with prior knowledge, strategizing the order in which the examples are presented, and teaching generalization.
Method: This study provides a snapshot of how often 9 preschool teachers of children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) used four of the six strategies-positive examples, non-examples, continuous conversion, and isolating the concept-during a 20-minute lesson in which a new basic concept was taught.
Results: Results indicated that study participants frequently used positive examples to teach basic concepts but did not consistently implement use of non-examples, continuous conversion, or concept isolation when introducing a new concept.
Conclusions: Instruction that specifically incorporates recommended strategies for teaching basic concepts may help children who are DHH optimize their academic preparation for successful entry into mainstream kindergarten settings
Introduction
Basic concepts are the academic building blocks of thinking and learning in early education, central to cognitive discovery, daily conversations, and classroom instructions (Solomon, Medin, & Lynch, 1999; Wilson, 2004). They are words and concepts that a child must understand in order to perform typical tasks, follow directions, participate in classroom activities and routines, and engage in age-appropriate conversations. Engelmann and Carnine (1982) stated, ''a basic concept is one that cannot be fully described with words (other than synonyms). A communication for a basic concept, therefore, is one that requires concrete examples'' (p.10). According to Boehm (1971, 2001a, 2001b), general categories of basic concepts include: (1) temporal (e.g., start, finish, before, slow, now, and later); (2) spatial (e.g., top, down, under, over, first, before, together, and between); (3) quantity (e.g., more, less, many, some, most, both, all, empty, and full); and (4) other general conceptual descriptors (e.g., tall, short, large, small, same, different, missing). Basic concepts can be difficult for children since they have no constant referent. The toy largest in one group may be smallest in another group (Boehm, 1982).
The acquisition of basic concepts is correlated with a preschool child's overall linguistic and cognitive development...