Nineteen-month-old Gavin wandered the play area at Kids Care Academy.
“Poo poo?” he said, looking around and continuing to wander. Maureen Kelly and Josie Oakes, the two teachers overseeing Gavin’s class, looked at each other and briefly considered their young charge’s request.
“He just went,” said Oakes, who had 9-month-old Ramir sitting between her legs while his classmate, 3-year-old Rashad, gently showered hugs on him.
“It’s the purple ball,” Kelly deduced. “He’s been learning how to say ‘purple.’”
And, sure enough, nearly 2-year-old Aaron produced the purple ball for Gavin.
The “Tigers” group at Kids Care Academy, a daycare center and preschool in northeast Columbus, is what’s known as a “mixed-age group,” as are the other two groups of Pandas and Pooh bears. Each small group, which averages about seven to 10 children, mixes children from as young as 6 weeks old up to about 36 months. Additionally the children will stay with the same caregivers throughout their time in this “birth to 3” grouping, before moving onto a more traditional preschool classroom.
The Tigers, Pandas and Poohs represent a childcare concept known as “continuity of care” and it’s growing in popularity throughout the country.
About a year ago, Kids Care Academy director Dalauna Tillman switched her school, already a highly regarded facility (they hold the state’s highest rating for quality), to the new age-grouping format. Along with programs at Columbus Montessori Education Center, the Our Play Station and Learning Center, Starting Point Learning Center and The Ohio State University Schoenbaum Family Center Weinland Park, the school is piloting the format, eschewing the more conventional model where children are grouped by age and pass from one teacher to another every six to 12 months.
So far, said Tillman, the changeover has been very successful, primarily because of the family-like bonds that are formed between the children and their caregivers.
“We know from the research how important attachment is for children,” Tillman said. “It doesn’t matter what the socioeconomic status is. It helps their social, cognitive and emotional development.”
Her teachers agreed.
“The attachment is amazing,” said Kelly. “The drop offs in the morning are much less tumultuous.”
Kelly said the teachers also benefit from “how well the older kids model the appropriate behavior for the little kids, though you do have to respect their space and help protect it sometimes. It’s not fair to let a 1-year-old come over and destroy (an older child’s) project. But, without a doubt, you didn’t get to do as many activities in a toddler-only room.”
Tiyi Morris, Rashad’s mother, has seen both Rashad and his older brother Jamal benefit from the mixed-age grouping. Morris said she really likes how the mixed-age grouping “mimics the home setting.” An additional benefit for her family came with Jamal, who is now 5 and on the autism spectrum, being able to remain in the group long enough to stabilize his social and physical skills before moving onto preschool.
“If he had been in a group with his own age,” Morris said, “his delays would have been glaringly obvious. By the time he transferred (to preschool), he had caught up a bit.”
The “Caring Communities: Birth to 3” project, as it has been dubbed, is the result of local educator Linda Neugebauer’s passion for the concept. She founded Columbus Montessori in 1984. After assuming more of an emeritus role there, Neugebauer became intrigued by the idea of mixing age groups in a childcare setting for infants and toddlers. Neugebauer created the nonprofit organization Early Care & Learning to assemble research, develop teacher-training programs and now test the concept in the field.
“It’s well documented that the quality of the relationship between a caregiver and child is the single biggest factor in quality childcare,” Neugebauer said, adding that this quality is determined by the “depth and duration of the relationship.”
When children have experienced too many caregivers during their early years, Neugebauer said, the negative impact often shows up in school when they are unable to “recognize the teacher is the person to pay attention to…For them, it’s just another big person telling (them) what to do.”
Neugebauer’s group has launched a website to promote the concept to other childcare centers and is working with the Action for Children agency to help implement it in more schools. Though there is the initial cost of retraining faculty, Neugebauer said the ongoing cost is comparable to more traditional same-age settings, plus staff and student turnover tends to be lower.
“So many of the issues we have in preschool and elementary school are because kids have had too many adults in charge of them,” Neugebauer said. “It’s a relationship thing. And I really believe we can do better by our children.”
“Poo poo?” he said, looking around and continuing to wander. Maureen Kelly and Josie Oakes, the two teachers overseeing Gavin’s class, looked at each other and briefly considered their young charge’s request.
“He just went,” said Oakes, who had 9-month-old Ramir sitting between her legs while his classmate, 3-year-old Rashad, gently showered hugs on him.
“It’s the purple ball,” Kelly deduced. “He’s been learning how to say ‘purple.’”
And, sure enough, nearly 2-year-old Aaron produced the purple ball for Gavin.
The “Tigers” group at Kids Care Academy, a daycare center and preschool in northeast Columbus, is what’s known as a “mixed-age group,” as are the other two groups of Pandas and Pooh bears. Each small group, which averages about seven to 10 children, mixes children from as young as 6 weeks old up to about 36 months. Additionally the children will stay with the same caregivers throughout their time in this “birth to 3” grouping, before moving onto a more traditional preschool classroom.
The Tigers, Pandas and Poohs represent a childcare concept known as “continuity of care” and it’s growing in popularity throughout the country.
About a year ago, Kids Care Academy director Dalauna Tillman switched her school, already a highly regarded facility (they hold the state’s highest rating for quality), to the new age-grouping format. Along with programs at Columbus Montessori Education Center, the Our Play Station and Learning Center, Starting Point Learning Center and The Ohio State University Schoenbaum Family Center Weinland Park, the school is piloting the format, eschewing the more conventional model where children are grouped by age and pass from one teacher to another every six to 12 months.
So far, said Tillman, the changeover has been very successful, primarily because of the family-like bonds that are formed between the children and their caregivers.
“We know from the research how important attachment is for children,” Tillman said. “It doesn’t matter what the socioeconomic status is. It helps their social, cognitive and emotional development.”
Her teachers agreed.
“The attachment is amazing,” said Kelly. “The drop offs in the morning are much less tumultuous.”
Kelly said the teachers also benefit from “how well the older kids model the appropriate behavior for the little kids, though you do have to respect their space and help protect it sometimes. It’s not fair to let a 1-year-old come over and destroy (an older child’s) project. But, without a doubt, you didn’t get to do as many activities in a toddler-only room.”
Tiyi Morris, Rashad’s mother, has seen both Rashad and his older brother Jamal benefit from the mixed-age grouping. Morris said she really likes how the mixed-age grouping “mimics the home setting.” An additional benefit for her family came with Jamal, who is now 5 and on the autism spectrum, being able to remain in the group long enough to stabilize his social and physical skills before moving onto preschool.
“If he had been in a group with his own age,” Morris said, “his delays would have been glaringly obvious. By the time he transferred (to preschool), he had caught up a bit.”
The “Caring Communities: Birth to 3” project, as it has been dubbed, is the result of local educator Linda Neugebauer’s passion for the concept. She founded Columbus Montessori in 1984. After assuming more of an emeritus role there, Neugebauer became intrigued by the idea of mixing age groups in a childcare setting for infants and toddlers. Neugebauer created the nonprofit organization Early Care & Learning to assemble research, develop teacher-training programs and now test the concept in the field.
“It’s well documented that the quality of the relationship between a caregiver and child is the single biggest factor in quality childcare,” Neugebauer said, adding that this quality is determined by the “depth and duration of the relationship.”
When children have experienced too many caregivers during their early years, Neugebauer said, the negative impact often shows up in school when they are unable to “recognize the teacher is the person to pay attention to…For them, it’s just another big person telling (them) what to do.”
Neugebauer’s group has launched a website to promote the concept to other childcare centers and is working with the Action for Children agency to help implement it in more schools. Though there is the initial cost of retraining faculty, Neugebauer said the ongoing cost is comparable to more traditional same-age settings, plus staff and student turnover tends to be lower.
“So many of the issues we have in preschool and elementary school are because kids have had too many adults in charge of them,” Neugebauer said. “It’s a relationship thing. And I really believe we can do better by our children.”