Children’s education is a fundamental human right. UNICEF works to expand this right for millions of children worldwide – especially girls, boys, those living in poverty or affected by conflict and disasters.
Effective education supports a child’s development and learning by making rich connections between domains of children’s experiences. These include social-emotional and cognitive development, language, and mathematics understanding.
Social and Emotional Development
Children’s social and emotional development influences all other domains of their growth. It is shaped by the quality of their relationships, how they play, and what they learn. It is also influenced by their emotions and sense of self.
Children who have positive social-emotional skills are more likely to build healthy friendships, display empathy and manage their emotions. They are also more likely to succeed in school and achieve better long-term outcomes.
Each child has a unique temperament that determines how they approach the world around them. They need responsive, consistent adults to nurture their early social and emotional development.
UNICEF supports the right of every child to access quality education, which includes early childhood care and education (ECCE). However, conflict and displacement, health outbreaks, natural disasters, poverty and geographic isolation all prevent kids from exercising this fundamental right. UNICEF is working to address these challenges and ensure that children get the education they need.
Physical Development
Physical development refers to the growth and advancement of a child’s body, including their muscles, strength and coordination abilities. Children need healthy bodies in order to play and learn, and also in order to participate in activities that promote social-emotional and cognitive development.
Children are born with an innate desire to move, and they continue to demonstrate that throughout their early childhood. They want to explore their environment and reach out to people and objects that comfort them, and they are determined to master the skills that will allow them to do so.
Supporting children’s physical development requires providing indoor and outdoor spaces for physical movement, creating flexible development plans that incorporate different age groups, and ensuring that children have access to various materials that encourage motor skill development. It also involves understanding how children’s physical growth impacts their ability to engage in other developmental domains, and navigating situations where staff or parents raise concerns about a child’s physical or health status.
Cognitive Development
A quality education enhances children’s cognitive development, preparing them for academic success and a lifetime of learning. It fosters personal growth and nurtures self-confidence, resilience, and the ability to set goals. It also introduces them to other cultures and perspectives, fostering global awareness and preparing them to be responsible citizens of our interconnected world.
The study of cognitive development is complex and varied. There are several major theories about how children think and learn, including Piagetian stages, sociocultural influences, and whether cognitive development is continuous or discontinuous. Educators should be aware of these theories and how research in this area can improve teaching.
Language Development
Developing communication and language skills is an important aspect of children’s development. It is closely linked to cognitive development and can be an indicator of future success in schooling.
Early language development begins even before birth as infants recognize the rhythm and pitch of their mother’s voice, smile in response to hearing their own name, and respond to a familiar object or person. The first recognizable words are typically two-syllable jargon-like phrases, and children progress from this to narrative speech.
As they enter elementary school, children continue to expand their oral language, as well as begin learning how to read and write. Several studies in this domain show that DE pupils develop sufficient knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and writing in general and demonstrate high levels of reading comprehension skills.
However, a few studies on technical reading have resulted in scores below the national average, which may be due to limited time for technical reading instruction within DE. This Special Issue addresses these gaps in knowledge by presenting several new and highly innovative research papers that describe typical and atypical child language acquisition from different perspectives, including studies on bilingual language development.