Early Years Program

The Early Years Learner

Learning in the Early Years (Nursery through Kinder) is inquiry and play-based because children are natural inquirers and play creates a non-threatening environment to learn at their own pace. Additionally, per Reggio Emilia, learning spaces are the third teacher. Therefore, the PYP has given Early Years 4 central features where teachers support learning by:

planning time for uninterrupted play
building strong relationships with students and their families
creating and maintaining responsive spaces for play
offering many opportunities for symbolic exploration and expression

(IBO.The Early Learner)

The school involves research, curiosity; each child looks for the topic that interests them, to explore it on his own; wanting to go beyond.

Early Years Parent

Play-Based Learning

As mentioned in the Early Years section, play is an essential element of learning in the Early Years, together with inquiry, concept-based and transdisciplinary learning. Play provides benefits for cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development for students from all backgrounds. It offers authentic opportunities for exploration and development of the attributes and ATL skills. (IBO. Learning in the early years)

At the American School of Quito, teachers plan learning experiences and spaces that allow students to learn through play. These experiences and spaces also seek to foster language development in students (when collaborating and in role-play). Through indoors and outdoors carefully planned playful learning activities, teachers can observe and document student learning and development.

Multi-Age PYP Program International Section

Our Multi-Age Program transforms a child’s learning experience. Grounded in sound pedagogy, it brings three and four-year-olds together, in one classroom, while offering a more personalized and transformative learning experience.

In our program, we offer a caring environment with the many known benefits to the multi-age classroom, where the teachers put learning at the center, both socially, emotionally, and academically. The older students in the class help teach the younger students by modeling more sophisticated, complex problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Learn More

Even being so young, my daughter comes home, she tells me about everything, she communicates all that she has learned, she is happy when she goes to school; she says: 'I love my school'.

Early Years Parent

Central Features

Play

Student development is supported when hands-on learning is combined with student-initiated play. Play provides benefits for cognitive, social, emotional and physical development for students from all backgrounds, and offers authentic opportunities for students to begin their exploration and development of the IB learner profile. Play involves choice, promotes agency and provides rigorous opportunities to inquire into important concepts and personal interests. Through play, children actively construct meaning from their interactions with their physical and social worlds.

Relationships

The relationships in the early years is a fundamental part of establishing important skills and dispositions that center on trust, agency and belonging. When the importance of relationships is reinforced, the foundations for an effective learning community are established. To achieve this, teachers are in constant contact with families and respect student individualities.

Learning Spaces

A fundamental part of effective education in the PYP early years is the creation of safe, stimulating, and inviting learning spaces that promote exploration, wonder, creativity, risk-taking, and learning through play. As Reggio Emilia stated, at the American School of Quito, the environment is the third teacher. Deliberate attention is paid to the structure, purpose, and function of these spaces as contexts that support play-based transdisciplinary learning, collaborative learning of knowledge, conceptual understandings and skills, and opportunities to take action.

Symbolic Exploration and Expression

Language is the central operating system that generates and supports cognition. Learning language begins at birth and develops exponentially with experience. Teachers understand that becoming literate and numerate are evolving processes that bring students to more sophisticated understandings over time. Effective language and mathematics learning and teaching is based on students’ developing ability to listen to and speak with others, and to understand and use symbols. The importance of expanding these skills by transferring learning and experiences to other contexts allows students to re-encounter their thinking, develop symbolic competency, explore new connections and consolidate their understandings.

Language Acquisition and the Literacy Process during the Early Years

At the American School of Quito, we follow a cognitive-linguistic sequence for literacy development; based on the research of Stanislas Dehaene and other Science of Reading advocates. The sequence follows the same order in both for English and Spanish. However, as language development is the cornerstone for this process, there will be variations among grade levels and sections, depending on the student's mother tongue and Section (National or International). Language development (Spanish and English) is the main focus during Early Years. For the majority of students (depending on their home and family languages), the literacy process starts in Spanish -normally by the end of Pre-Kinder- once students have a strong grasp of the language. Formal literacy instruction begins in 1st grade, in English and Spanish.

Logo Image

In This Section