Building a foundation for future learning
“The first five years have so much to do with how the next 80 turn out.” – Bill Gates
A regular question on home schooling sites is “How early can I begin home schooling my child?” While you can start as early as 4 to 5 months, waiting a few years until your child is ready to go to nursery school before you start teaching ABCs and 123s won’t hurt their intellectual development. While teaching and learning go hand in hand, a toddler doesn’t need “lessons” as everything in their everyday life is a learning experience. Painting, play dough and counting and threading objects will develop their fine motor skills, and making words with magnetic letters, cutting out different shaped biscuits, singing number songs and reading stories will lay the foundation for future skills like reading and maths.
“For a small child, there is no division between playing and learning, between the things he or she does just for fun and the things that are educational.” – Penelope Leach
Like many children I took the first step of my formal learning journey through the door of Rutland Nursery School between the age of 3 or 4. Looking back over 50 years later it’s not surprising that I can’t remember any of the details, but I assume it was like our local pre-school which I visited beginning of the week with shelves full of toys, games, books and art materials and an exciting playground.
They were looking for a new Grade R teacher, and before my interview the headmistress took me on a tour of the school and introduced me to a group of children happily colouring in pictures of ostriches. Although the classroom was damp and dark due to a power outage, the brightly coloured birds and smiling children lit up the room and they were eager to show me their pictures.
“Curiosity and questions will get you further than confidence and answers.” – Maxime Lagace
One of my favourite areas in the Montessori school, where I taught for nearly 15 years, was the Cultural area where through working with pictures and models and taking part in group discussions the children learnt and shared information about the world around them. Learning involves being taught and remembering new information, and while I admired one of little boy’s artworks, I asked him a few questions about his ostrich. He told me that it was a bird that lived in Africa and that they laid very large eggs. Questions help to develop cognitive thinking skills, so my next question was “Can they fly?” He knew the answer “No, they are too big !!”, then he crouched down on the floor. I asked him what he was doing and he offered me a choice, I could decide if he was an ostrich that had become airborne and then fallen or somebody trying to avoid getting hit by the plummeting bird.
“Most of what children need to learn during their early childhood years cannot be taught. It’s discovered through play.” – Ruth Wilson
To succeed in life children, need to have a strong foundation of knowledge, skills and curiosity to help them to learn grow and develop. As our childhood years make up a very small percentage of our lives some people feel a that nursery school which promotes carefree playing and having fun is a better option than a Montessori environment which exposes children directly to letters, numbers and scientific concepts which they believe will cause them to grow up too quickly. While the Montessori approach is more academic, with “play based learning”, Maria Montessori believed that children learn best through hands-on activities and exploration and that combining play with learning would help children to learn academic skills while still allowing them to have fun.
“It’s the things we play with and the people who help us play that make a great difference in our lives.” – Fred Rodgers
While there might appear to be quite a difference between working with older children whose struggle with maths, reading and writing makes a school a challenge and five and six year olds eager to get started at big school, and between teaching in a Montessori school or a remedial classroom or Pennington Pre-primary, each of these environments with their wooden unit, tens and hundred blocks or Lego blocks, golden beads or colourful wooden threading beads and puzzles and games will “activate your child’s own natural desire to learn” and help them to develop the skills which will enable them to move along the path to success.
“Childhood is a journey, not a race.”
As a remedial tutor I often incorporate games, hands on activities and concrete materials in my sessions. Making learning fun can have a big impact on student through improving their memory, motivating them to take risks which will lead to independence, engaging their attention, reducing maths and reading anxiety and helping them to understand and retain new information. Whether you are helping your child to make a Lego model, or playing a card game of cards or I Spy to develop English and maths building blocks like the colourful towers you built with your toddler, having a strong foundation can help them to reach for the stars.
“Those blocks on your life journey can either be road blocks or building blocks. It’s up to you to choose.” – The Sophisticates
To find out how developing maths and English building blocks can help your child to achieve success.
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