Preschool is the foundation

prudent choice

If we look at the beginning of any skill that we have learnt and trace it’s origin, we find that the roots for these skills lie in our early years. Knowing this helps us plan for providing the best possible environment for children to grow up in.

A play home or a preschool is the first step for the child outside of his sheltered home environment, where s/he starts truly functioning as an individual rather than just as a part of the Mother-Child dyad. Thus, pre-school education has to be planned out carefully and appropriately.

Preschool education is any structured programme offered for early childhood education. There are several methods and pedagogies available today such as Montessori, Waldorf, play way, Nursery, Kindergarten. They may be offered through private preschools or government-run Anganwadis.

Conducive environment

Whatever the methodology the preschool follows, there are certain basic things that a
preschool programme has to follow. The basic purpose of any preschool education is to
provide an environment that is conducive to overall development.

By this we mean all activities, experiences and materials have to focus on development of good health, physical fitness and motor skills, positive emotional and social health, good communication skills, intellectual curiosity and exploration, independence and self-expression.

There are certain methods that are required to be used for achieving these purposes. While achieving these, its important to keep in mind the child’s readiness to learn. Hence their growth, maturity and development should determine what the next lesson is going to be, not the curriculum. Forcing the child to learn things s/he is not ready for is the pathway to surface and short-term learning gains only. The results of this kind of incomplete learning in preschool years is definitely going to tell in the later years.

Just as we cannot hurry the child, we should not hold back them either. Young children have an innate need and inclination towards learning something new and progress at varying speeds. They also learn in different ways.

Some need to see things and learn, some listen and learn, some touch and learn, and some others learn through movement. Many will also learn using more than one method. Any good preschool system has to cater not only to the varying needs of the children but also the varying modalities of learning.

Children also learn by doing. They have to explore the environment, do things and learn. The chalk-and-talk method would work in higher grades, but is not much use during preschool years. For this reason, all activities have to be meaningful and hands-on for the child — whether it is counting or learning the alphabet.

To ensure that the learning lasts a lifetime, they need to be taught experientially. In this context, repetition has it’s own role to play in concretising concepts. If a child insists on repeating activities of a particular nature, they should to be allowed to do so.

Playing: the main vehicle
Preschool systems need to build in maximum play into their daily routines. These children are full of energy and imagination.

Play is the main vehicle for their growth, development and learning. Through play, they can learn motor skills, social skills, develop positive personality traits, benefit intellectually and build their language repertoire among others. In fact, research now points out that children who have adequate opportunities to play in early childhood perform significantly better in later academics and have better life skills.

A child is like a sponge. The sponge will absorb whatever kind of water it is dipped into. As the child will absorb everything from their environment as is, just as the sponge, it’s important for the preschool education has to ensure a positive environment at any cost.

Ignite love for learning

There has to be an environment that is stimulating and rich. A positive, warm and caring environment and a presence of an adult in the preschool will make a vast difference to the children’s learning capacities and skills. It will also ignite a zest for and love of learning in the child, which will yield many positive results in later life.

The most important thing to keep in mind while planning for preschool education is the    curriculum’s content. Not only does it have to be developmentally appropriate, it has to connect meaningfully with the child in real-life terms.

The child has to make a meaning out of any preschool activity and connect it to real life. Otherwise, there is no assurance that whatever has been taught will stay for any significant period of time. This is particularly true about the teaching of languages.

Children will struggle to learn reading and writing if we are not able to connect the skills to real life instead of teaching them as rote memorisation and mechanical hand activities respectively.

If we start teaching things from what is known to the child, s/he immediately makes meaning out of it, connects to the activities and gets maximum benefit out of the experience. So, be judicious with your selection for your little one.