It is so important to understand how children learn, so we can match their opportunities to their strengths. In today’s world, children are taught to start everything we learnt, much much earlier. They are also given instruction at a very young age, everything they do is organised & planned. In many ways, we are teaching them that they can’t learn by themselves nor to we provide the environment for them to learn alone or even learn with play.
We can set high expectations while remaining true to developmentally appropriate practice. Other research finds imaginative play helps children develop self-regulation skills, social skills such as problem solving and communication, and cognitive flexibility and creativity. Here are the key elements to how children learn:
- Children Are Good Observers
- Children Respond Well to Open-Ended Questions
- Children Are Researchers
- Children Benefit from Positive Models
- Positive Suggestions Guide Children
- Children Learn Through Play
- Playing For Long Periods, Develops Persistence
- Children Learn By Visualising
- Children Learn By doing
- Children Learn From each other
- Children Learn From Making Mistakes
- Children Learn With Support
Bring Back Play and Creative Learning
We have to remember that children like to do, not watch. The more hands-on experiences children have, the more curious and capable they become and, best of all, the more joy they feel at learning “a number of things”. When they are successful as something, they will be the first to show you.
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