What can we teach in a preschool?

We know that all children are born with the natural drive and the zest to learn, and recent research has thrown open to the world the truly amazing extent of a young child’s capacity to learn, and the importance of early learning and development. The fact that much of this development has far-reaching impact in later life and is very largely dependent on the inputs from the environment compels us to pay very close attention to what we are teaching children in preschool today. As with most areas of life, there is a fierce rush to arrive or go somewhere. This pressure has reached the preschool child also. As a result, we have a preschooler, who has to ace almost every facet of life as early as she can!

This begs the question - is it working in the long run? The simple answer would be - no! Whenever we plan an educational curriculum, there are certain principles, which if we do not keep in mind, leads to an ineffective curriculum. This, in turn, pressurises the children and makes them depend more and more on rote and surface learning.

As we know, early childhood education sets the foundation for all later academic achievements, thus, ‘miseducation’ (as David Elkind calls it in his book of the same name) can ensure long-lasting, irreversible damage to the child’s intellect as well as psyche , leading not just to difficulties in academics, but also in social and emotional spheres of life.

Clearly then, there are certain principles which we need to know in order to understand what the course content should be, which is optimally beneficial for a preschool child. It should be:

Age-appropriate
What does this mean? It means the skills and concepts that we teach the child have to be developmentally appropriate for the level of the child. It should build upon the child’s existing skills and not include things which are beyond the reach of the child’s comprehension and ability.

Active
This is the age when children learn by doing. Thus, the curriculum has to include enough opportunities for hands-on learning and movement. The concepts taught should be concrete, functional and applicable in the child’s life right then.

Rooted in context
There is a surge of ‘international’ preschool curricula in our country. An effective curriculum has to keep in mind the child’s social and cultural context and lean heavily on local language, traditions, skills and know-how. Otherwise, the curriculum fails to be active and functional, and therefore, will not be useful to the child.

Holistic
A good curriculum will include all areas of development. How do we expect children to enjoy preschool and learn well without creating a good socio-emotional atmosphere and encouraging social skills?

The contents of the curriculum can be categorised at a broad level into several domains. 
The primary area that needs to be paid attention to is the development of physical and motor skills. This includes integration of the senses and the motor activities of control, coordination, balance, and movement of the large and small muscles. Without the development of gross and fine motor skills, a large part of learning and writing will suffer.

Another important part of preschool learning is language skills. The curriculum should include all the components of language learning, not restricted to just memorisation of the components of language. It should lay equal stress on expression as well as understanding of language (comprehension) and include components of listening, speaking, reading and writing in a sequence.

A strong component of language development in the mother tongue is highly recommended by experts and scholars.

Human beings learn by social interaction, and do so optimally when the emotional state of the person is positive. Social and emotional skills too have to be a large part of the early years’ curriculum. This can include awareness and skills to engage with others as well as emotional self-regulation and expression.

The preschool curriculum should always have strong components of thinking, planning and creativity. Awareness of the environment around us, general knowledge, ability to evaluate objects etc are strong components of a preschool curriculum.  In addition to this, by the end of the three years of preschool, children have to be prepared with skills required for formal academics - i.e. preparation for reading, writing and handling mathematics.

There are specific teaching techniques for each of the skills required which fall into the broad categories of play, individual activities, art and craft, group activities, music, movement, dance and drama, scientific enquiry, simple experimentation and questioning, and above all, the usage of good language.

For children of such a young age to be able to acquire so many skills is not a mean task, and has to be carried out by a well thought-out sequence of activities and events. And that is the prime reason why a preschool curriculum has to be carefully planned and implemented.