Early Learning: What You Need to Know

Development

Play is the business of childhood! Toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners are in a developmental stage in which they learn via their senses through hands-on play, exploration, pictures, stories, music, and games.

They learn with their whole body through experience, such as by mimicking adults as they go about their lives. Their primary focus is learning about how to be people in this world, and they do this by playacting and pretending. When they playact and pretend, they really are doing practice runs at being adults. They are learning how to get along in a crowd, how to give and take, how to negotiate, take turns, and all the other group skills.

Early learners are also in full story mode; stories are their language. They make up stories, like hearing stories, and in this way, they understand life and their world. Pictures resonate with them.

Again, the business of childhood is playing – role playing being real people in this world – and growing into a sense of value and self-worth as a competent member of the group. This is what young children are supposed to be doing.

Expectations

Recent years have brought an increased emphasis on teaching school content to young children and more requirements are being placed on these young learners. They are expected to learn by listening, they are expected to follow verbal directions, deal with abstract symbols (letters and numbers), and they are asked to memorize facts and use these facts in meaningful ways. And now they are exposed to frequent testing and too many of these young children are not meeting expectations.

While this is not the primary work of young children, these are the requirements of the school systems where most of us live, so it is beneficial to help our young learners with developmentally appropriate ways to introduce letters, sounds, and numbers.

Tips for Teaching

The most successful learning takes place when an environment is prepared with such careful thought that when a child enters that environment, they automatically begin to absorb concepts without anyone instructing them and without even realizing that they are learning.

Living the concepts of school will engage children and help them to be successful. Engaging their emotions and interest in what they are learning is the first part of successfully teaching them anything. This kind of environment is perfect for any child, but most of all for the very young.

Some specific elements work well to create a natural learning experience:

Free Play

Children’s brains and bodies need certain types of movements that are accessed via non-structured activities. These movements (spin, balance, jump, stand on head, swing, roll) literally help with physical development and neural organization as well as actually helping children think better!

 

Imaginative Play

Imagination in a child cannot be overrated. Encourage imaginative play by letting children make toys to play with out of household items. Encourage them to make up stories and listen carefully as they share. Work to solve problems together rather than always fixing things for them. All these things combine to create a person who can make good choices in life. Funny thing is a well-developed imagination works wonders for school performance as well!

Consider the imagination needed to solve math problems, plan a report, or stop a fight on the playground. A child with a great imagination will not be passive, letting others dictate what comes into their life. It takes imagination to manage money successfully and to predict consequences to choices and actions.

Senses

Very young children learn about the world through their senses – sight, smell, tough, sound, and taste. They pick up cues about natural characteristics of objects in their world; they learn about things that are soft or hard, heavy or light, smooth or rough, hot or cold, sweet or sour, and so forth. They learn about shape, what happens when they drop something, what “round” means, and how round objects behave. They learn so much that becomes background for formal learning later in life.

The richer the sensory background, the broader the store of prior knowledge and understanding the child will bring to school. A rich environment is one that is full of accessible real things. Ideas include an empty laundry, some balls, blocks, a metal pan, a plastic bowl, spoons, and any other “stuff” laying around the house. The laundry basket could become a car that carries some of the objects. If the child puts balls into the basket and pushes the “car” around, they will notice that balls roll around. They will need to maneuver the basket around chairs or the coffee table, and if they run into a table leg or wall, they will need to back up and try a different angle of approach.

If you give them access to your storage containers, they will undoubtedly make a mess, but they will also learn much about what fits into what, as well as what various shapes feel like, etc.

Songs

If you want your child to learn a specific procedure, put it to music. Music has a way of making everything more engaging and memorable! You could sing, “This is the way we wash our hands, wash our hands, wash our hands. This is the way we wash our hands so early in the morning.” You can replace any of the lyrics to fit with what you are doing in the moment.  If you encourage the child to mimic what you are doing while you sing, you will be modeling for them how you do the particular job, and they will be practicing the skill as you sing.

Stories

Stories can be considered childhood’s language. Children are natural storytellers; they think of their lives in terms of story. The story line or plot is the glue that holds all the elements of the story together. If you want your little one to remember a sequence of events in a procedure, make up a story that links all the pieces together. Combine a story with images to make an even more effective learning experience.

 

Visuals

It’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words; a visual can convey so much in the time it takes a child to take a look. Pictures and images make use of visual memory where the picture and all its details are stored intact. Memorable images often can be recalled many years later in minute detail, carrying with them any learning concepts that were embedded in them. Combine a visual with song or story and you have a doubly effective teaching method.

These are just a few simple elements to include as you teach your child basic concepts in a developmentally appropriate way and prepare them for formal learning in school. Having said all this, I want to emphasize that the most significant preparation we can give our little ones is a close relationship with them – one in which they feel secure, cared for, and competent, as their emotional development will be the foundation of all other learning.

Hands-On Games & Activities

Hands-on activities are vital for young learners; they are a proven benefit when it comes to the real-word application of educational concepts. There are many reasons why it is worth the time and effort to integrate these opportunities into the classroom and at home.

1. Use household items:

• You could use a funnel and small foam balls. Have your child experiment with rolling the balls through the funnel into various containers.
  
  
• If you are introducing numbers and how many they are, try providing your child with groups of threes – three spoons, three stacking cups, three crayons, three little pebbles – just so they can get used to how many three is. They will find that they can hold two of the items in one hand and one in the other. This kind of unconscious learning will stand them in good stead when it is time for formal math concepts such as 1+2=3. They will have a background that is rich in understanding before starting their formal education.

2. I Can Sing from 1 to 10 is a delightful way to introduce young children to numbers and counting in a way that links number symbols and names. Each full-page, color illustration shows a number embedded in an image and provides details for the child to count, ensuring that from early on children learn the "how many" of each number.
   
   
3. How to Teach Young Children to Count: A Right-Brained Approach - counting resources that young children will love, utilizing an approach that relies on images, stories, patterns, and hands-on activities, transforming learning math skills into a process that is fun and effective.
   
   
4. An activity to encourage imagination:

• Supply your child with shapes cut out of paper, crayons, markers, tape, glue, and other creative supplies. Have them start by gluing shapes onto white sheets of paper, and when they finish doing that, they can embellish their designs with markers and crayons.
  
  On the surface this activity might look like just one more messy but fun art  project. But the value to the child lays in the fact that they are developing their imaginations by taking simple shapes and creating brand new objects. This is seed that can grow into valuable life habits such as looking ahead, problem solving, and imaging outcomes. 

5. Alphabet Tales is a great example of how to use story and visuals to convey “schoolish concepts” in a way that is friendly and age appropriate for the very young child. Try cuddling in a chair with a toddler and talking your way through the stories in the book without making any attempt to teach them. Over time, they will have absorbed a lot of ideas about letters, their shapes, and their sounds, but it will have been done in a way that is in sync with their developmental stage.
   
   
6. How to Use Coloring Time to Propel Kindergarteners into Reading – can also be adapted for use at home and for use with younger children.
   
   
7. Teach sight words to early learners:

• Teach sight words using materials that utilize their primary modes for learning in a developmentally appropriate way. If you use sight words with embedded pictures, images, and body movement, learning will seem like play for young children.
  
  
• Provide them with a rich array of words brimming with meaning and the will “get” what reading is. They will understand from the beginning that reading is not stringing sounds together but it is actually extracting meaning from words.
  
  
• For a more detailed plan on teaching sight words to early learners, check out our blog: Tips for Teaching Preschoolers High Frequency Words

 

Conclusion

At Child1st, we believe that if you have an engaged child, that child will learn and will love learning, and we work very hard to find ways to make learning effortless.

When it comes to transmitting those nuts and bolts of education such as reading and computing, we have created a storehouse of materials you can use that will bring as much of the sensory input into your child’s learning experience as possible. Image, color, pattern, and other essential learning elements will help your child succeed will having fun!