A child growing up in a caring environment, one that is enriched and literate, is so fortunate. What is a literate environment? When we speak of literacy, specially for the young child, we must include not just books, but an environment balanced with both play and work.
The early childhood training workshops the Early learning center teachers give, always emphasize the importance of play in the development of young children. It is free, unhampered play, as well as a play attitude towards learning that is truly important. For example, in reading stories to our 1 1/2 year old kids, we use picture books. Pictures are familiar to them, A picture book on food can be fun when we mimic and make sounds eating the food. We try to integrate singing songs, creating art works and having puppet shows with the food theme. A simple cooking class on making pancakes, mixing the flour and water, just as they would make their play dough, makes understanding the elements and qualities of food interesting. As they perform all these actions, the teacher asks them; ” Do you like it?”, ” How does it feel?”, “Is it cold?”, and ” What did you make?” The words and sentences these toodlers hear soon form a new understanding in their minds. The stories they hear more than once become even more familiar to them. Very soon, we are happily surprised to hear them speak in complete sentences!
Going out and seeing places is another stimulating activity. Children first learn through symbols, such as a fastfood or gasoline station logo. Some years back, as a mother to my young growing children, I always delighted in hearing them pronounce the names of objects. When my 1-year-old daughter pointed to a truck she said ” Lorry”. That really surprised me but I quickly remembered that her alphabet picture book was from England and that the English call their trucks “lorries”.
The enriched environment must also have good role models. A child will want to read if the child sees his/her parent reading. Today, most families take to television or the computer instead of reading. Parents need to take time to do this.
In Japan, storytelling is an art. Their children’s libraries have a cozy corner with comfortable throw pillows for the young and a chair for the storyteller. A candle is lighted as a prelude to this delightful session. If you like to be with children, if you like to see the love and innocence in their eyes, to hear their squeals of laughter and see them cry with you, be a storyteller to the young. You can find a good storybooks in any of our local bookstores. Better yet, but those written and illustrated by artist.
When young chidlren experience a love for reading early in life, they have a better future ahead of them. Through reading, they can travel far and wide, learn how things work, and imagine being in the “shoes” of other people. These you can’t accomplish by watching television or movies. Even a computer cannot feed and tickle your imagination as much as a book does.
Let’s give our young children these wonderful opportunities to listen to a story, hold a book, and even just pretend to read. Who knows, one day we will have hundreds of intelligent and critical thinking mind.
Another factor to keep in mind is that children have to work with concrete materials in order to learn. A teacher cannot simply describe how an orange smells. A child has to see, taste, and touch the fruit to know just what it is like. This lesson can be extended to planting an orange seed and seeing what happens.
The greater part of the preschool budget should go to materials. From paper to learning equipment, all these should help the child recreate what he sees and what he is learning. Sadly, however, there are many preschools that do not have these learning materials and rely solely on the more traditional workbooks, notebooks, crayons, and pencils. In addition, at such time when the child is still developing his eye and hand coordination skills, he is expected to already read and write beautifully.
Another important consideration, which differentiates the high from low quality preschool, is its physical plant. A good school should be safe with well-lighted and well-ventilated rooms, and sufficient number of toilets and wash basins for everyone..
Then there are the teachers who make the school. And the only way to find out how qualified they are is to visit the place on a regular school day.
Since preschool is the beginning and the foudation of your child’s learning, parents should certainly take time to find out which one is best for his or her child.
