Many children around the world lack access to education, a right that is fundamental to their development and well-being. Effective educators recognize that adversity can interfere with learning, but they also know that kids who live in poverty can meet high standards and expectations.
Play rhyming and letter games with your kids, and keep reading to them. Writing and reading are essential activities for boosting cognitive skills and developing a love of words.
Cognitive Development
Cognitive learning involves the development of conceptual understanding. Although young children may not show what they understand through their behavior, research using carefully designed experiments reveals that even infants and very young children unify disparate observations or discrete facts into coherent conceptual systems. Such implicit theories contain core causal principles and enable them to make predictions and reason about relevant phenomena.
A key finding is that the construction of children’s implicit theories depends on a number of factors, including their experience, the culture in which they are raised, and the language they use. For example, studies comparing children who saw an object with a particular function to children who saw the same object without any explanation found that the former group tended to construe other similar objects as having that function.
These findings have implications for the way that care and education professionals work with young children. For example, misunderstanding the extent to which children’s implicit theories influence their interpretations of subject-matter content can lead educators to design educational materials that oversimplify those concepts for children.
Social Skills
Most educators focus on teaching kids academic subjects, but social skills are just as important for kids to learn. Studies have shown that social skills improve students’ grades and overall success in school.
Social skills for children include sharing, empathy and active listening. Children can learn these by participating in group activities and working with others. They’ll also develop their vocabulary and learn to express themselves verbally.
Toddlers, preschoolers and kindergarteners are naturally egocentric and tend to focus on their own needs, but they can learn how to share, empathize, and collaborate with others. Learning these important social skills helps them to build friendships and connect with their peers, which is vital for a well-adjusted child.
Educators can help kids build their social skills through small class sizes and frequent teacher interaction. They can also use a social role-play activity to get students involved in a situation that illustrates the desired behavior. The educator then describes the scenario to the student and asks them what the best response would be.
Physical Development
Physical development includes children’s growth and their ability to use their body parts for specific skills. Children develop both gross (large muscle movements) and fine motor skills, including the ability to hold their head up, play with their hands, and write.
Physical movement and learning through hands-on activities promotes cognitive development and helps children learn and process information. Children’s innate desire to move is important to their well-being. Small class sizes and high teacher-to-child ratios enable staff to observe and respond to individual children’s physical needs as they grow and develop.
When a child experiences developmental delays or disabilities, staff need to be able to identify the symptoms and address them quickly. It is also important that they know how to provide support for children in their care who may experience discomfort, fidgeting or a slowing of their physical development. This enables them to be prepared to address any concerns raised by parents or families.
Self-Confidence
Children’s self-esteem and confidence directly affect how they cope with challenges. It helps them to stay motivated and resilient through life’s ups and downs.
Children with healthy self-esteem learn to appreciate their strengths while acknowledging their flaws. They recognise their uniqueness and understand that they deserve respect from others.
They are also more likely to take risks and be willing to try new things. When children feel confident, they are more willing to push themselves physically, emotionally and intellectually.
Parents and educators can help build children’s confidence by offering positive encouragement, praising effort and progress rather than achievements, and providing opportunities to be creative. In addition, they can encourage children to build connections with a supportive community such as family, friends and their sports team or house of worship. This will help them to develop a strong sense of belonging. In turn, this will contribute to a strong sense of self-worth and confidence. Then they can be more comfortable in social situations.