Activities to encourage early learning |
Being a good parent is a skill that we learn over time. It is all too easy to assume that good parents are born that way - they are not. It needs time, ability, enthusiasm and a willingness to learn from our mistakes. However, an optimistic view on life is a great start for any parents. |
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Your glass can be half full or half empty and children learn best when we look on the positive side of things rather than the negative side. Your child will learn how to react to different situations from the way you react so try to be aware that every situation is a learning opportunity. |
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Reading |
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Recent research has found that if children do not hear and learn Nursery Rhymes as very young children, their language and reading development often develops more slowly. The link between the amount of time toddlers spend watching television compared to the small amount of time spent learning nursery rhymes has mirrored the increase in the number of children who are having difficulty learning to read. The research evidence now shows that those children who cannot pick out rhyming and non-rhyming words as young children tend to become poor readers. Many professionals now recognise that if a child does not know any nursery rhymes by the age of 4 they have a higher likelihood of academic difficulties when they are at school. |
Parents can use nursery rhymes to help their children to |
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Learn to count or remember the letters of the alphabet e.g. |
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One Two buckle my shoeˇK |
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Listen, join-in and take turns. A very important set of skills which all children need to acquire before they start school. |
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Give children experience of the rhythms and rhymes which often encourages children to play with sounds. Hearing the same words over and over again can help children to recognise those sounds more quickly. This is the key to later spelling skills. |
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Learn how to remember sequences of information and predict what will happen next. |
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Read to your child as much as you can. Be as expressive as possible when you read and try to make the whole experience fun. Your child will learn to concentrate, to understand the story and realise that reading is important. Playing with words and sounds is a vital step in learning to read and spell, so encourage it as much as possible. Ask your child questions about the story you have read, what will happen next and encourage them to ask questions if there is anything they do not understand. Try to get them to tell you the story or to make their own up. |
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Use plastic letters to encourage your child to match and sort letters, play games with the letters and just let your child get used to them. In no time your child will be recognising letters they have seen before. Once they can remember the sounds for the letters, they are well on the way to developing reading skills. Try playing rhyming games and silly games such as making up nonsense words. The more fun your child has the more they will remember. |
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Number skills |
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Rhymes and counting games are the best way to introduce your child to number skills. Try to invent games which will encourage your child to copy you using one hand, two hands etc. To help try |
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Playing lots of board games using counters so that your child has to learn to move three spaces etc. |
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Playing shop - making the shop is ideal. Use simple prices and dots to show how many pence things cost e.g. 5p = ***** |
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Play measuring and weighing games. Cooking is an ideal way to teach number skills - putting in 3 spoonfuls of sugar etc. |
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Real shopping takes longer with your child but will be an excellent source of number experiences e.g. Please get me 3 tins of beans |
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Play telling time games - there are several available in the shops and some of the computer games include them too. |
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Writing Drawing and Fine Motor Skills |
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Eye-hand co-ordination is vital to the normal development of a child and remains important throughout life. Fortunately children love to play with materials like sand, water or playdoh and this encourages the tremendous development in the arm and hand muscles that lead on to the basic co-ordination the skills of feeding, dressing, drawing, writing etc. |
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From 12 to 18 months of age, children develop the ability to pick up small objects such as raisins using the index finger and thumb. This is soon followed by holding a crayon to try scribbling, holding a spoon etc. Try to provide plenty of opportunities to use |
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Finger paints, playdoh, bricks, hammering pegs, sand and water play |
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Toys that stack, nest, screw or fit together |
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Inset boards, first puzzle and lift the flap books |
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Felt pens to encourage early scribbles (they are easier for young children to make marks with than crayons). |
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From 2 to 3 years of age most children begin to develop hand preference. They start to use a pencil more accurately to scribble lines, loops and circles. Eating with a spoon becomes more fluent and many children learn how to snip with scissors, wash/dry their hands and throw a ball with some precision. To help encourage this development you can provide:- |
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Constructional toys, tool kits, threading, cooking and all types of make-believe toys such as dressing up clothes. |
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Games and jigsaws, books and toy musical instruments. |
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Early experience of cutting, sticking, painting and colouring. |
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From 3 to 4 years of age children learn to carry out controlled tasks such as cutting or drawing for longer without tiring. They need to practice threading beads accurately, colouring pictures to stay inside the lines, copying lines, circles and crosses. Take care to "see" that your child's squiggles are "a horse in a field" if that is what your child says they are. Try hard to avoid telling your child that it should look like thisˇK Your child is engaged in imaginative drawing not lifelike drawing. To help try:- |
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Offering your child a range of pencils and pens of different thicknesses to chose from. |
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To encourage her to use a pencil grip if she finds it hard to hold the pencil comfortably. |
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To provide stencils or templates e.g. playtray pieces or pastry cutters so that the child can make her own pictures. |
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To share craft activities such as drawing on paper with a wax candle then painting over it to get a good effect or making collages. |
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From the age of 4 to 5 years many children are still equally happy using both hands though most will have demonstrated a clear preference by this stage. Children carry on improving up to the age of 6 but after this there is little more development of their hand skill. |
You can help to encourage their drawing skills by: |
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Encouraging them to draw in sand. |
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Playing copying games so that they practice copying simple shapes you have drawn. |
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Helping your child to complete a drawing that you have started for them. |
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Show your child how to draw the difficult bits then encourage them to try. |
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To help improve a child's writing you can encourage them to write on a blackboard to improve their arm position and ensure that they develop a relaxed grip. |
To help improve a child's general eye-hand co-ordination skills you can: |
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Play ball games and action games |
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Use computer games which require the child to move objects around on the screen or follow a pattern on the screen |
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Strengthen fingers and improve finger control by playing the piano or using a computer keyboard in programmes such which require children to use more than one finger at a time. |
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