Ready to paddle.

Drowning remains the second leading cause of accidental death for children zero to five years old. One common means for trying to reduce preschool drownings is to teach young children water safety and swimming skills. Over the past decade, numerous preschool aquatic programs have emerged. The YMCA of the USA organized the Y Skippers in 1987, the American Red Cross established the Infant and Preschool Aquatics Program (IPAP) in 1988; the American Swimming Coaches Association started their Swim American preschool program in 1987; and, most recently, the National Safety Council published the Learn to Swim program, which is endorsed by the National Recreation and Park Association, in 1993. These programs are very popular. For example, since 1987 when the American Red Cross Pre-school Infant and Preschool Aquatics programs were established, Red Cross instructors have annually helped more than 350,000 young children (ages three to five years) become comfortable with the water.

Each national preschool aquatic program has its own individuality in approach and emphasis. All of them, however, include a major focus on the safety of young children in and around the water. In addition, all the national programs attempt to address skill learning in ways that are enjoyable and appropriate to the young child. Most of them still place a heavy emphasis on learning specific swimming strokes such as the front and back crawl, elementary backstroke, breaststroke and even butterfly.

Recently, a new developmentally based approach for introducing water safety and aquatic skills to young preschool children has been proposed. This contemporary approach, called developmental aquatics, integrates motor development, motor learning and motor control concepts for use by the preschool aquatic practitioner. The primary concept within developmental aquatics is aquatic readiness. Aquatic readiness is based on the key characteristics of the sequential, cumulative and directional nature of developmental change. Simplified, this means that all behaviors, including aquatic skills, appear in a relatively predictable order with simple, fundamental skills acquired before more complex and specialized skills. For example, skills such as brief face submersions or short arm paddling movements are prerequisites to learning rhythmic and rotary breathing and specialized arm strokes. Aquatic readiness requires that a young child be thoroughly familiar and comfortable with simple skills before he or she moves on to more advanced skills and strokes.

Aquatic readiness also acknowledges that learning aquatic skills is a complex adventure. Factors associated with the child, specific aquatic tasks and the aquatic environment all interact to mutually constrain learning aquatic skills (see figure 1). The unique interaction of these factors determines the developmental readiness of any child for any task at a specific time. Some areas associated with the child factor of aquatic readiness include gender, size, body proportions, body composition (density), cognitive development, emotional states, preferred learning style and experience. Many of the child factors are not easily controlled by the instructor.

Within the task factor are characteristics associated with the skill being learned, such as its goal, body parts or equipment involved and the overall complexity. Examples of skills include kicking, breath control or armstroking. A leg kicking task might vary depending on the style of kicking used, type of support offered to the child, whether swim fins are being used, and whether kicking is isolated or included with other body actions. Usually the instructor readily manipulates and controls characteristics of a task.

The final factor in aquatic readiness is the aquatic environment. It takes into consideration the larger facility and instructional environment in which the child is participating. The temperature of the water and air, the lighting, noise level, presence of music, depth of the water and equipment in the facility all are characteristics associated with the aquatic environment. The environment in most aquatic programs is largely static, providing only a pool and a small amount of equipment to support instruction. This factor can be controllable by the program and aquatic instructor.

You may be wondering how such obvious and common sense observations as aquatic readiness and child-task-environment factors are really new and different. You may also be curious why we suggest they are so important to a preschool aquatic instructor. The key to both their novelty and their practicality arises from the nature of the interactions among factors. Consider the following examples: Preschool aquatic programs are usually taught in traditional swimming pools, which are designed to accommodate competitive and adult programs. The shallow water in traditional pools is typically three to four feet deep. Due to the pool's design limitations, most preschool programs are instructed in water where the child cannot stand unsupported. A facility which is adequate or even outstanding for adults doesn't work well with short, non-swimming preschoolers whose primary tasks are learning basic buoyancy and breath control skills.

Young children often fear unknown situations and environments in which they lack control. They also have limited social and play skills. Their rudimentary cognitive, perceptual and social abilities interact negatively with traditional group swim lessons, competitive relay games, or tasks presented as "watch me...now do this," which all are successfully used to teach older children and adults. Swim strokes require a person to have mastered advanced breath control skills, relatively complex body positions and buoyancy and arm/leg actions unique to hydrodynamics. A young child's limited experiences, skillfulness, short limbs, and strength all interact negatively with the readiness requirement for successfully learning typical stroking skills.

However, a number of innovative preschool aquatic programs on the campuses of West Virginia University, University of North Texas, Kent State University, Purdue University, and particularly Paddlers on the Washington State University (WSU) campus have successfully taught aquatic skills to this age group in typical swimming pools. How have they been so spectacularly successful in the face of the negative interactions suggested above? What is their secret?

Using portable playground structures, numerous small water toys and instructional devices, these successful programs all understand aquatic readiness. They also reconfigure the interacting characteristics of young children, the complexity of aquatic tasks and the qualifies of the typical aquatic facility to interact positively. They turn potential negatives to their advantage by creating colorful, fascinating water playgrounds that captivate preschoolers' imagination. Adult-sized swimming pools and adult-oriented swimming strokes are transformed to create ideal learning environments by capturing the aquatic readiness of each preschool swimmer.

Paddlers, the Preschool Aquatic Developmental Learning and Readiness Skills program, is for children ages three to five-and-one-half years. Instructional staff are certified American Red Cross water safety instructors. All of the instructional staff receive specialized training to meet the unique challenge of instructing preschool aged children and learn how to teach skills using the equipment common to the program. One of the strongest aspects of this program is that it maintains an instructor to child ratio of one instructor to a minimum of two and up to four children.

All instruction is based on the American Red Cross IPAP and Learn to Swim programs with skills modified to give special attention to individual developmental learning processes outlined in aquatic readiness. In addition to the instructors, certified, university-approved lifeguards supervise from the deck of the pool throughout the program to ensure all participants' safety.

Some of the program's lesson plans are developed around themes. These themes may include a Stars and Stripes day, hat day, circus day, a day at the ball park and April showers day. Children are encouraged to participate in the themes when instructors focus on tasks related to theme ideas. As in playground settings, themes can reinforce the use of the structures by exploring aquatic skills in these young children.

Program sessions occur on eight consecutive Tuesdays and Thursdays for 45 minutes each. The lesson format consists of a five-minute introduction on the deck with the instructor, five to 35 minutes of individual and small-group instruction in the water; and 35 to 45 minutes of large- group activity and/or self-selected activities. The program is held in a traditional filed 25-yard swimming pool built in 1936 with a three foot shallow end gradually sloped to a nine- foot deep end. Parents may observe from the gallery or viewing area.

The WSU PADDLERS program emphasizes manipulating the aquatic environment. Environmental factors focus on controlling an optimal temperature of the water and air, providing a warmup station, increasing the lighting, reducing the noise level, playing music in the background and/or underwater, reducing the depth of the water and providing special equipment for learning.

Submerged platforms are available to provide shallow water support. Small instructional equipment or manipulatives are available in abundance. One unique difference of the PADDLERS program is the large aquatic equipment used for learning aquatic skills. Assembled by one to two people in the pool area prior to the activity, the structures fit together in a single unit which is configured to be used in presenting developmental sequences and levels. Within PADDLERS, the equipment consists of two large A-frame structures-seven feet tall; two medium A-frame structures-six feet tall; one small A-frame structure-five feet tall; one arched ladder; one double ladder and three pairs or sets of various connecting bars.

Research programs are isolating design features upon which environments can be built to best meet children's developmental needs. The design features used to shape playground environments for children's play are being used to shape water play environments to support the development of aquatic readiness skills. The equipment's formation parallels the children's varying developmental needs. The layout of the equipment systematically reflects the progression of aquatic readiness skills discussed earlier. The water safety instructors are trained each semester on land and in the water to use the equipment appropriately. During these training sessions, instructors set the parameters that govern equipment construction. These parameters are based on the setting's novelty and the environment's complexity, which first attracts and than holds the children's attention. Essentially, the novelty of the environment draws children to the water. A sense of familiarity with similar playground environments found in parks or schools motivates the children because they realize what can be done on the equipment. However, the real attraction is the uniqueness of finding playground equipment in the water. After a time, the novelty wears off. The structures for subsequent sessions are generally constructed to be more complex. In a sense, the novelty draws the children into the water to initiate aquatic readiness activities, but the complexity of the settings maintains their interest in the program.

To ensure that increases in complexity are progressive and appropriate to the children's developmental needs, a series of structure configuration rules are used to organize equipment in the pool. A separated format is used early in the Paddlers sequence of sessions and is reflected in figure 2. The interconnected or linked format is used later in the sequence to increase complexity and thereby increase the time spent by the children in exploring the aquatic environment.

The large equipment in the aquatic environment is developed by separate pieces of equipment stationed in relation to a linked structure. This combination creates a series of islands which can be used by the children and which are varying distances apart. Through careful selection, instructors are able to match the distance demands to the developmental readiness of each child (see figure 3). Because the student-to-instructor ratio is kept very low, it's easier to individualize instruction. An instructor can pay close attention to one child while another child explores different tasks on nearby equipment. The large equipment allows the instructor to select and choose parts of skills at developmental levels most appropriate to the child's aquatic readiness. It allows the instructor to systematically match the child, the environment and the task for positive interaction.

The equipment and structure islands act as a stopping-off place where teacher and child interact together to plan the next activity. By grasping and climbing on the equipment and leaving the arms of the instructor, children are able to control their own activities. The decision to re-enter the water or the instructor's arms creates a setting in which even frightened children are taking the initiative. In the end, it speeds up the rate of progression through developmental levels, actively involves the child in motor skills and creates fewer periods during which children are waiting on the wall for further instruction, as frequently occurs in traditional programs.

Large equipment provides numerous opportunities for the instructor to teach aquatic skills. The equipment directly increases practice variability, jazzes up the instructional environment and accelerates the learning rate. Here's one way we use this in Paddlers. During Paddlers' first class days, all the children are encouraged to walk the balance beam on land. As needed, a child is supported during this activity (reducing task complexity). All children are praised for their efforts and accomplishment, no matter how small. Most children have experienced balancing on a balance beam upright in a dry play setting. This experience and association on land increases a child's readiness to perform this task in the water.

Since the environment has changed, but the task is similar, the likelihood of the child's success is increased. By extending the arms and using the hands for support on the water, the child also can learn a rudimentary arm pattern which simultaneously helps him or her balance while practicing arm actions. The child learns initial entries and breath-control skills as he or she jumps or falls off the balance beam. Frequently, a child maintains a visual focus on the balance beam as he or she swims back to the beam or instructional platform. This can help to acquire a more horizontal body position. Children can practice entry skills, basic recovery skills after an entry, buoyancy and arm actions by using the balance beam in the pool.

By structuring and manipulating the interactions between the child, the aquatic environment and the appropriated aquatic tasks, the instructor meets the developmental readiness of young children as they learn to swim. Appropriately structuring aquatic environments, facilities and equipment is one innovative way to a successful, developmentally appropriate preschool program. Changing the environment with large equipment, which is adjusted systematically and progressively, enables preschoolers to practice aquatic readiness skills. By progressively drawing the child to more advanced levels of performance, one takes gradual but steady steps to acquire the rudimentary skills which are prerequisites to advanced swimming skills. The Paddlers program is one exemplary means for young children to acquire aquatic skills through appropriate instructor interaction and environmental adjustments. Children in all preschool programs can paddle their way to embracing and loving the water using this method.

Editor's Note: References to accompany this article are available from the authors at Washington State University, Department of Physical Education, Sport and Leisure Studies Pullman, WA 99164-1410.