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Preparing young children for school success
It's easier than you might think
When they are newborns, we worry about where our
children's height and weight fall on growth charts. As
they become toddlers, we compare notes with parents at
daycare or the play group about when their children took
their first steps. We consult parenting books and
magazines and check the checklists to ensure that our
children are growing just as they should in relation to
others their age.
As
children move into the preschool years, parents' worries
often shift to whether or not they are doing all they
should to help their children be successful once they
reach school age.
A quick
search on the Internet will produce a variety of lists
with very specific school readiness skills for young
children. These can run the gamut from the fairly simple
skill of counting from one to 10 to the sometimes
daunting ability to tie shoes unassisted or sit still
for lengths of time.
However,
early childhood experts, such as those with the National
Association for the Education of Young Children, as well
as preschool and kindergarten teachers say the skills
that help children do well in school are not necessarily
the ones that make the lists. They aren't even ones that
children achieve at the same rate or by the same age.
Instead, early childhood teachers say the best skills
are those that come naturally from children's daily
activities, such as going to the grocery store with
their own lists of items to shop for, mailing a drawing
they have made to grandma and grandpa or going for a
swim with a friend. These include:
Emotional development - which comes primarily
from the positive encouragement they receive from
parents and other important adults in their lives.
Strengthening of muscles in early childhood lead
to other refined motor skills, such as grasping and
pinching-skills needed to hold a crayon or pencil or
cut with scissors. They also allow children to hold
themselves upright, make eye contact and sit for
lengths of time when learning such skills as reading
and writing once they reach school age.
Social development-from playing with children
their own age.
Language
development-which
evolves when children use words to communicate, have
their needs met and enjoy themselves, such as with
reading.
An understanding of the world
in which they live.
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Below are some practical
ways families can enhance their children's learning
during the early childhood years that will lay the
groundwork for doing well in school. Chances are many of
these are the types of things you and your child are
already doing:
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Activities, such as preschool, daycare and trips
taken in the care of other nurturing adults. These
help provide children with the experience of being
cared for by and learning from adults other than
their parents.
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Limiting the amount of time
children spend watching television and videos or
playing computer games,
which are passive, isolating activities. Instead,
families should emphasize such activities as formal
and informal play groups, library story hours and
other activities that involve active learning and
put children in contact with their peers.
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Reading to your children every
day from the time
they are babies from both fiction and
age-appropriate, non-fiction picture books. Even
though very young children may not understand the
story or poem you are reading, they learn a lot
about language just from hearing your voice.
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Exposing your children to
language. Share
what you know, talk about what interests you, ask
your children to talk with you about what they are
interested in and why. Aside from helping form a
close relationship with your children, this type of
ongoing dialogue pays off once children enter
school. Children who have had a chance to develop a
large vocabulary are often capable of handling more
information than those with limited language skills.
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Drawing.
Children begin to draw and write very naturally.
Simply provide them with a comfortable space,
materials for writing (chunky pencils and markers
are ideal tools for little fingers to grasp), paper
and the freedom to experiment. Children's first
writing will likely look like squiggles, loops and
drawings. Over time (and with lots of encouragement
for their first efforts), children will begin to
incorporate some letter shapes. Though some children
show signs of recognizable writing in the years
before school, in others it is not until they are
school age that their writing evolves.
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Math.
Children who are encouraged to learn the many uses
for math in the "real world" are more likely to
enjoy math once in school. Clocks, telephones, road
signs, even price tags on canned goods at the
supermarket all involve number recognition. Make a
game out of counting all the dinosaurs in your
children's collection. Count out the number of
forks, spoons and napkins needed to set the table at
dinner. Many children's songs, rhymes and finger
plays include counting and other language associated
with math (think Five Little Monkeys or This Old
Man.) Each time you ask your children if they want
their sandwich cut in half or you count out loud as
you stack blocks on top of one another, you are
teaching them the words they will use to understand
math concepts. Expand your children's math
vocabulary by making a game out of coming up with
all the words that mean "big" (enormous, huge,
gigantic) or "little" (small, tiny, miniscule).
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Knowledge of the world.
Trips to the bank, playground, restaurants and other
parts of the neighborhood, town, state or country
provide wonderful opportunities for expanding
children's knowledge of the world beyond their
homes. As you travel about, talk informally about
what interests you and ask your children to do the
same. You can encourage children to think creatively
about what they are experiencing by asking
open-ended questions such as "Why do you think there
is a rainbow in the puddle?" or "Where do you think
that ant is going with that piece of grain?" Let
your children's curiosity fill in the blanks.
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Getting plenty of physical
activity. To learn
to control and coordinate the muscles in their arms
and legs, children need to throw and catch balls,
run, jump, climb and dance to music. These types of
activities give them the strength to hold their arms
steady and in a proper position for writing and
their upper bodies upright in order to sit for
lengths of time (an ability that becomes important
once they reach school age.) To learn to control and
coordinate the smaller muscles in hands and fingers,
children need to color, put together objects like
puzzles, use child-safe scissors, practice zipping
their jackets and pick up small objects like cereal
pieces, dried fruit or cotton balls.
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Be
realistic about your children's abilities and
interests. So your child is set to enter
kindergarten in the fall and hasn't yet begun to
write her name? Relax, she will. Young children
often learn at dramatically different rates from the
preschool years through age eight. While most
children can learn to decode (figure out how letters
sound when combined in words) at age six, it is also
normal for children to learn to do this as early as
age four or as old as seven. This age range is also
true of drawing, writing letters and numbers,
counting, speaking articulately and following
multiple directions.
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Playdough- it's more than child's play
Young children love to
play with playdough and teachers of young children love
them to play with it. Playdough is a very tactile
material that helps develop children's senses, as well
as the large and fine motor skills they need to button,
snap and tie shoe laces, grasp a pencil, write and cut
once they are school age. Flattening playdough on a
table with the palms of the hand increases wrist
stability and upper-arm muscle strength; pinching pieces
off, rolling it into balls, cutting it with cookie
cutters and squeezing strengthens the ability to use
fingers to grasp and pinch.
Though pre-made versions
are readily available, here is a recipe for playdough
that you and your children can make together. This
project is a wonderful introduction to measuring (a
basic math skill) and following simple directions.
What you'll need:
2 cups flour
2 cups water
1 cup salt
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
4 teaspoons cream of tartar
Food coloring (use as many drops of single or combined
colors as necessary for desired effect)
Food
extract, such as peppermint or vanilla (optional)
Medium-sized saucepan
Directions:
1. Add the food coloring
to the water.
2. Mix all of the other
ingredients together in the pan.
3. Cook over medium heat,
stirring constantly until the mixture forms into a soft
ball (for safety reasons, this is an adult-only step).
4. Let the mixture cool,
knead slightly and, if you choose, add a few drops of
food extract to scent the dough.
5. Store playdough in
air-tight containers or zip-lock baggies when not in
use. Playdough will keep four to six weeks.
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