Importance of Multimodal Activities in Early Childhood Studies

This essay discusses the importance of multimodal activities in early childhood studies and their association with the Reggio Emilia theoretical framework. It explores two activities designed for children with special care needs, one focusing on literacy and the other on technology. The activities aim to enhance literacy skills, phonological awareness, and print awareness, while also incorporating the use of information technology. The essay highlights the benefits of storytelling and the use of technology in early childhood education.

Running head: EARLY CHILDHOOD STUDIES
EARLY CHILDHOOD STUDIES
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Introduction
This essay will focus on the importance of the multimodal activities for the early year’s
settings. In order to explain these two multimodal activities for the children will be developed
based on the scenario that has been provided. In each activity there will be provisions for the
children with special care needs. The essay will show an association between the designed
activities and Reggio Emilia theoretical frame work. The activities should be based on the
pedagogical literacy practices and will reflect on the importance of the storytelling activities and
the use of the information technology in designing activities in the early year’s education.
The scenario that has been chosen for this activity, on the basis of which the two activities will
be prepared has been given below-
Elsa came to the Nursery one morning and was very happy. She was holding a ticket on
her hands and announces to everyone that she went to Epping Forest with her parents this
weekend. She is thrilled about this experience and she is describing to her friends the forest, the
trails and the trees. They all sit down in the arts and crafts area and draw a picture of this
forest.
Child led activities
Activity 1: Literacy activity
“Can you hear me? Can you tell who am I?”
After Elsa has narrated her experience in the Epping Forest to her classmates, she and
two of her classmates were asked to write the names of the animals, that Elsa had seen in the
forest, on small colorful paper chits. Those paper chits were then distributed among all the

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children present in the classroom and each of the students were asked to keep the names of the
animals confidential. After the chits have been distributed, each of the students were asked to
make sounds of the respective animals, that they have got on the chits and the other children
would identify them.
In order to make the activity suitable for the children EAL and SEN, those children were
volunteered to read out the story book “Little fox in the forest” after the activities. Furthermore,
they were also allowed to enact the animals apart from making the sounds, like using the hands
to show the trunk of an elephant or wings of a bird.
Activity 2: Tech activity
Diamond hunt in the mountains
A diamond hunt activity will be conducted involving the educators as well as the
students. In order to support the children with special needs, their parents would also be invited
to participate in the activities. One group of children (5-6) would be encouraged to search on
YouTube regarding the preparation of a false diamond, using papers and glitters. Other 5- 6
group of children would be assigned with the task of creating false mountains and forests using
bricks pebbles and stones. The educators would assist them in making a forest maze using dried
branches and green velvet papers, sticking on the already made maze in the playground. Children
with EAL and SEN will be assisted with painting of the papers and the sticking the green papers
in to the maze wall. After the maze and the artificial mountain has been prepared, the students
will be encouraged to search for the names of the places where diamonds are generally found and
write down those names in different post cards. Those cards were then stuck on the walls of the
maze and the mountains indicating that place. One of the educators would hid the diamond in a

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random place in the maze or the mountains. The total number of children will be divided into
two groups and each of the group will be given 2 minutes to find out the diamond. The winning
team will get a ticket to an amusement park.
The children with special care needs can be assisted by their parents in this activity. The
maze and the tunnels should be made spacious, such that they can move with ease.
Theoretical framework
The activities has been designed as per the Reggio Emilia approach, which aimed at
placing the creativity, art and play at the heart of the early childhood curriculum . A large
components of this philosophy is the attention of the educator to the art and aesthetics,
encouraging the children to express their ideas, questions, emotions via various symbolic
languages. The Reggio Emilia philosophy views teachers as tools of teaching rather than the
decision makers. In the two chosen activities, children will be given their full liberty to explore
their talents and creativity and the educators would just assist them in achieving their goals.
Under the Reggio Emilia approach, the children are viewed as active, capable, self-
sufficient and valuable members of the society. They should be encouraged to explore, question
and interpret the world during the initial years Teaching (Teaching, Scotland, 2017). The
educators who follow the Reggio Emilia approach should think that that the children have some
control over their own learning and development. Children have several languages in music, art
and drama and they should be encouraged to learn through experiences during the early years
(Roskos 2017). As per this approach, a self-guided curriculum would assist children to express in
different ways as their personality will be developed.

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A Reggio Emilia inspired classroom does not follow any the fixed curriculum and can be
customized as per the needs of the children. Children generally have easy access to the supplies
and the learning materials and are inspired and encouraged to direct their own learning, as
students will learn directly from the environment. Appropriate indoor and outdoor learning
ambience is an important factor of the Reggio Emilia approach (Lonigan et al. 2016). The
outdoor environment chosen for this activity has been constructed in a way such that is
resembles an original forest. Parent participation is another important element of the Reggio
Emilia approach. Parents of the children with special care needs can be directly involved in the
observation and the documentation process (Tuthill 2013). Reggio educators makes it sure that
parents are exactly aware of the needs of the child. Participation of parents helps the parents to
identify the strengths and the limitations of their child.
Reggio Emilia inspired preschool classrooms provides a framework for the
implementation of new technologies within early childcare settings. Various ICT tools are used
in Reggio Emilia based classrooms like the use of touch tablets, interactive whiteboards for the
kids (Tuthill 2013). There are certain blogs that encourage children to explore the other features
of tablet, like searching for information, how to switch on the tools, or use different apps
(Vasquez and Felderman 2012). However, the activities also involved utilization of information
technologies such as using Google to search for places or watching YouTube videos.
Pedagogical literacy practices
A top down approach is learning is based on the idea that the teacher drives the
classroom. It is the teachers who determines as what has been done in the classroom. The

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deciding of the topic and the activities is a top down approach that are usually employed by the
educators to enhance the literacy skills in the children.
In order to reflect upon the literacy approaches, it is essential to describe about the
emergent literacy (Bruce 2012). It is defined as the first stage of the development en route to
language acquisition. The emergent literacy knowledge areas includes oral language; that is the
ability of the children to understand and use the language through speaking and acquiring new
vocabulary (Wien 2015). Print awareness, that is the understanding of the child to printed
symbols and the way it relates to the meanings (Neumann et al. 2016). Department of Education
and Child Development (2016) have stated that approaches to enhance emergent literacy skills
in children involves establishments of routines, experiential learning, meaningful activities , read
aloud, exposure to reading and writing and evidence base recommended practice. It should be
mentioned that if the routines are established, the children will start to learn about the objects and
the vocabulary related to certain activities (Wien 2015). Considering children with special care
needs like those with visual impairment should get the opportunity to experience things via
hands on activities that are fun and meaningful. Again it is necessary to model appropriate
language for the children throughout the day. According to Wien (2015) many children benefits
from reading aloud.it helps to reinforce language and the development of concept. It is necessary
to include children in the process of reading and writing lists, recipes, directions, menus and the
messages.
The early literacy approaches for improving the skills of the young children includes
storytelling and group reading, the activities that develops letter knowledge, knowledge of
sounds and early phonics and introduction of different kinds of writing (Shamir, Korat and
Fellah, 2012).

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The first literacy activity that has been chosen for this paper involves making of animal
sounds that would not only add fun in to the activities but will also help to sharpen children’s
awareness of the words, phonology, syntax, words and semantics of language. The storytelling
activity following the sound activity would help the children to have knowledge of the initial
phonemes (Carson, Gillon and Boustead 2013). They introduce the children to challenges of
synthesizing words from separate phonemes. Educators normally use several activities for the
development of print awareness in the child. Activities like play dough mats, ABC bracelets,
tactile cards can be helpful to develop print awareness in the child (Neumann et al. 2016).
Wordless picture books can be used to increase print awareness in the children (Ratnasari and
Zubaidah, 2018, November). In many cases different signs can be put with sentences written on
them that would increase the knowledge about the letters. Phonological awareness in child can
be detected in the child if he/she is able to rhyme, the child can clap the syllables and if the child
can blend sounds to make words, or if the child is able to identify the beginning of a sound in a
word (Masoumi 2015). However, the activities has been developed with the aim of developing
literacy, phonological skills, print awareness and more. In order to make the animal sounds,
children have to blend sounds to make words. Writing the names of animals on the paper chits
will increase their spelling skills and the storytelling activity would help to increase their
vocabulary and phonic awareness.
Use of technology
According to Kerckaert, S., Vanderlinde and van Braak (2015) there are three reasons
why the use of information technology matters in early childhood studies. It has an effect on the
people and the environment that is surrounding the young people. Furthermore, the technology
provides several opportunities for strengthening several aspects of early childhood learning.

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Some of the authors have argued that use of ICT in early childhood studies can affect children’s
cognitive, social, physical and emotional development (Kerckaert, Vanderlinde and van Braak
2015). However, this concept has been replaced by the view, that ICT can be used as a useful
tool for supporting the learning of young people. Good software can allow the children to
involve in self-directed exploration that can be tailored to the individual needs of the children.
Use of ICTs help the children to understand complex things in simpler forms (Masoumi 2015).
Again assistive ICTs can also mitigate the barriers to participation for the children with physical
or learning needs. Play is a powerful mediator of learning in the life of children and different ICT
packages are often represented in a playful manner. Various skills like technical –computer
skills, problem solving skills, numeracy skills and abstract thinking skills improve due to the
introduction of ICT in early childhood learning (Nikolopoulou and Gialamas 2015). Apart from
the children, ICTs can also be helpful for the professional learning of the early childhood
educators. Apart from the advantages there are certain disadvantages related to the use of ICT in
early childhood education. Fu (2013) have stated that over exposure of the brain to ICT can be
associated to attention deficit and cognitive delays. This is due to the fact that the brain is not
built for sustaining the extensive monitoring for a long period of time. Another disadvantage is
addiction to internet. If the children are so much exposed to internet and ICT equipment, ten they
will get addicted to it and will feel too lazy to study.
Apart from the use of technologies, some of the other methods like storytelling, use of
books and speaking can also be useful for enhancing the literacy skills in children. Reading and
storytelling with the children promotes brain development and imagination, teaches the child
about language and emotions and strengthens the relationship. Reading and sharing stories helps
children to learn about sounds, phonetics (Otto 2015). Children learn to the value books and

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stories, it sparks the imagination of the child and helps to develop social and communication
skills. It helps the child to distinguish between “make believe” and “real”. Storytelling, singing
songs and saying rhyme together would also add a pinch of fun to the classroom activities.
Comprehension, vocabulary, pronunciation, memory and sequencing, memory and increased
creativity are the increased benefits of the story telling activities. The activities that have been
mentioned in this paper involved a story telling activity, regarding a fox, which will help to build
a separate image in the brain of the each child. The listener can personally the experience
excitement, fear, heroism, hate and compassion that will assist the children to imagine and
explore more. The storytelling activity that has been chosen will also be helpful for the children
with the special care needs. This will motivate the students with ADHD and help them to learn
new words.
Conclusion
Children has hundreds of languages and the students are encouraged to use all their
senses beyond the verbal and written communication. Children express themselves through
music, movements or pretend play activities. The classroom activities for the preschoolers and
the toddlers should be based entirely upon the Reggio Emilia based framework, that aims to
provide flexible and unique learning environment and tailored curriculum depending upon the
learning styles of the students. The approach mainly focuses on building the social, cognitive,
creative and the physical skills that empowers the students to remain knowledge bearers and
become the researchers of their own learning experiences.

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Children are full of creativity and imagination, hence the two activities that have been
chosen are based on the Reggio Emilia approach. The literacy activity chosen involves making
of sounds and storytelling activities that will increase phonological skills, reading skills and print
awareness in the children (Otto 2015). The second activity involves adventure, where both the
gross motor skills and the fine motor skills in the children will be increased. Children will also
develop ICT skills. Furthermore, emphasis has also been given on the development of an
inclusive curriculum to cater to the special needs of children with SEN and EAL.

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