Education is a human right, and access to quality education helps people live better lives. However, many children have no access to education.
Children’s education builds their personalities and exposes them to kids from different backgrounds. It also improves their cognitive development. They can become more independent and able to make good decisions.
Social and Emotional Development
Children who have well-developed social-emotional skills are more likely to develop healthy friendships, show empathy, manage and express emotions, succeed in school and feel a sense of belonging. Social and emotional development starts early, during the first years of life.
Children learn social and emotional skills through their relationships with family members and other adults. Parents and caregivers play the largest role in children’s social-emotional development because they provide their children with the most consistent relationships.
Teachers, assistant teachers and child care providers can also support a child’s social-emotional learning by providing consistent interactions with children. For example, a teacher can offer children ways to regulate their emotions through deep breathing and mindfulness exercises. This helps children learn to calm down when they are frustrated or excited and persist at tasks even when it gets challenging. These are known as self-regulation strategies. Educators can also teach social-emotional skills by modeling them and involving children in activities that promote collaboration and problem solving, such as a group science experiment or a simple arts activity.
Physical Development
Physical development encompasses the advancement and refinement of children’s motor skills and body composition. It is essential to early childhood education as it lays the foundation for future physical abilities and overall health. Children build their physical capabilities through daily physical activity and play.
In addition to building large muscles, physical activity also promotes cognitive development. For example, seven-month-olds are able to push a button on a toy and hear an exciting sound, which suggests they are learning about cause and effect.
Educators can support physical development by offering a range of sensory experiences like playing with dough, kneading bread, and manipulating other pliable materials. Incorporate these activities into your curriculum through both adult-initiated and child-initiated opportunities. Daily physical activity breaks up monotony within the classroom, engages children, and is an important part of children’s overall well-being. It is also beneficial for their mental, social, and emotional wellbeing. A lack of physical activity can lead to health issues and poor academic performance.
Cognitive Development
Cognitive development is the process by which children think, understand their world and make sense of what they experience. It includes logical thinking and problem solving skills, which are essential for a successful education.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development explains that children progress through stages of mental growth in which they acquire and organize new information. Each stage has its own characteristics, such as the Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years): learning through sensory experiences; Preoperational stage (2-7 years): children develop symbolic reasoning but still lack logical thinking; Concrete Operational stage (7-11 years): children can begin to reason logically about concrete events.
However, researchers have not been able to establish clear criteria that would define what is and is not a cognitive stage (Flavell, 1972). Therefore, many psychologists have moved away from pitting structuralism against functionalism, toward viewing cognitive development as both stagelike in some ways and non-stagelike in others. This is known as a combination of structuralism and functionalism.
Language Development
Children develop language through interaction with their parents and other adults. It is also a part of their socialization with the community, environment and formal education. Children learn the rules of their language through phonology, which involves the structure and sequence of speech sounds; semantics, which is understanding vocabulary and concepts; and syntax, the way words are arranged into sentences.
From the age of 18 months, children have a period of rapid mapping, which means they are learning lots of new words and can associate them with their meanings. They also understand multiple-meaning words and use of common idioms.
Around this stage, children start following simple instructions and naming objects. They recognise their daily routines and will bring you things when they hear the name of them. They will also copy sound and word shapes correctly. They may be able to answer questions, say no and tell stories. They may even be able to sing songs.