How Children Learn in Preschool

Children are learning every minute of the day. They learn from the way we organize the classroom, from the daily schedule, from activities, and when they play outdoors.

The Classroom

Our classroom is set up for learning. Children have many opportunities to make choices, come up with ideas, experiment, and take responsibility for their work. Here's what you'll see when you visit.

The Daily Schedule

We want your child to feel secure and independent, to move from one activity to another as easily and confidently as possible. And we want to provide a variety of learning experiences for a well-rounded education. So we plan a daily schedule with these goals in mind. We follow this same schedule day after day. A picture schedule like the one below helps children feel secure because they know what comes next. This schedule works well for us. After a few months, children are amazingly independent. They tell us what they are supposed to do next!

Classroom Activities

When you visit your child's classroom, you see a room full of children playing. You may wonder what we are doing to help children learn. As children play, we watch how they use materials. We listen. We talk with them to find out what they are thinking and trying to do. We help children become aware of their actions, offer suggestions, and think about what materials to offer next. Then we challenge them to think further. This is how we encourage the development of skills children will need in elementary school. Here are some examples.

Outdoors

The time children spend outdoors every day is just as important to their learning as the time they spend in the classroom. Unless the weather is severe, we take children outdoors every day, often more than once.

Large muscle activities are essential for children's health and well-being. Too many children today are overweight. One reason is they don't get the large muscle activity essential for healthy development. Children need time each day to run, leap, hop, jump, slide, climb, and throw and catch a ball. These activities build strong muscles and a sense of pride. They are important for another reason as well. Brain research shows that physical activity actually wakes up the brain for learning.

The outdoors greatly increases our learning environment. is a natural setting for scientific investigations. Children find and study bugs and butterflies, plant seeds and watch them grow, and compare the feel of the bark on different trees. In some climates they notice the leaves change color and fall to the ground and learn about ice and snow. In other climates they learn how plants survive on almost no water. We talk with children about their discoveries and encourage them to continue investigating what they find outdoors.

Preschoolers can come up with some pretty wacky ideas, but according to the experts that's all part of growing up. It's important as a parent to know what a child is capable of understanding, so that you can form reasonable expectations. Every child grows at his own rate, but there are physical changes that make mental leaps possible.

Jean Piaget, the psychologist credited with forming the theory of cognitive development in the late 1920s, created a list of what kids at each stage are capable of, and what they are not quite ready to do yet. Here's what he found for preschoolers:

• A preschooler can speak in complex sentences. But his thought process won't always seem logical to outsiders. For example he may say, “If an apple is red, then a green fruit is not an apple.”

• Once a preschooler has come to a conclusion, it is difficult to reverse his thinking. Preschoolers are not yet capable of easily going backwards through each step to see if it makes sense. They do not yet completely understand cause and effect.

• Preschoolers are egocentric, they believe everyone sees the world as they sees it.

• Preschoolers often pay attention to one aspect of an event and ignore other details. For example, if a child goes to a birthday party he might give a detailed description of the cake, but not any of the party games.

• Preschoolers believe inanimate objects are alive. It's perfectly common for a preschooler to believe a stuffed bear has feelings.

• It's challenging for a preschooler to gage amounts. She won't know that if you put the same amount of pennies in a big jar or in a small jar,the amount of pennies are still equal.

So, what are preschoolers capable of learning? For that, we turn to 1950s psychologist Benjamin Bloom. He led a team of researchers to create a cognitive learning guide which points to how different ages process new information. The guide shows at what stage your child understands a concept. Each level is based on the one in front of it, similar to a staircase. The levels of learning are:

• Level 1: Knowledge. This is when your child has already been taught the concept and just needs to remember it. This is the level used to retell a story.

• Level 2: Comprehension. Your child understands what the concept means. She can tell you the main point of the story.

• Level 3: Application. At this point your child can come up with examples of how the concept can be used. She can draw lessons from the story and determine how they can be utilized in real life.

• Level 4: Analysis. Your child can break down each idea and think of it in ways that weren't introduced. At this level your child can figure out what something does. For example, your child might think about the details of different lessons in the story and how they form a main point.

• Level 5: Synthesis. At this stage your child will be able to apply the concept to new situations. For example, when he's faced with a challenge, he recalls the lesson from the story and acts according to its moral.

• Level 6: Evaluation. At this point your child judges what she's been taught and thinks over the pros and cons to decides whether it's a good or bad idea. For example, a child might judge the story and decide if they liked it and if the lesson’s useful. If not, she might draw an alternate conclusion, based on another story she read which she preferred.

Most preschoolers will be comfortable in the areas of knowledge, comprehension, and application, but not quite at the stage of levels 4-6. That's perfectly normal.

When you introduce your child to a new concept, keep the stages in mind and ask questions. Listen to the response and use it to guide the child to the next plateau. For example, if you know that your son can analyze the problem but not quite synthesize it, help him collect the facts. Guide him towards coming up with a theory. With your help, he can learn to weigh the information and draw conclusions from it. Help him progress faster by asking a question that requires evaluation, such as what he would have done if he faced the situation in the story. This encourages him to decide if the character’s actions were good or bad.

Parents struggle every year to decide if their child is ready to take that first big step into formal education. Even in this day and age, when many children get their feet wet in preschool, not all kids are prepared for kindergarten. True, they may be able to do some basic reading and writing, but kindergarten is about much more than academics.

Before sending your child off on the school bus, lunchbox in hand, think about what they’ll need to be successful. It’s not just about knowing their alphabet or being able to write their name. Age, social, motor, and academic skills should all play a part in your decision.

As a parent, you’re the best judge of whether or not your child is ready. Here are a few questions to ask yourself before signing your child’s name on the dotted line:

• Age: When is your son's or daughter’s birthday in relation to the school’s cutoff date? Will they be the youngest or the oldest in the class? Being the oldest is often seen as a positive because a child will be more mature both physically and mentally – potentially more prepared to read, more coordinated in sports and other physical activities, and more able to excel. This can enhance their self-esteem, confidence level, and allow them to be a leader. Being the youngest can have benefits, especially for gifted children, but otherwise, it can be overwhelming. Younger children may appear immature and be unprepared to tackle tasks that their significantly older classmates find challenging and intriguing.
• Social Skills: Does your child use words when angry instead of being physical? Can he follow simple one- or two-step directions? Can she express her feelings and needs? Does she ask questions about the world around her? Can he play well with other children including sharing and taking turns? These qualities are all essential for children entering kindergarten. The ratio of students to teachers is lower than in preschool, so kids need to be able to properly communicate, without the one-on-one guidance and intervention preschool often provides.
• Motor Skills: Can your child hold scissors properly? Hold a pencil correctly? Put a puzzle together? Can he run, skip, and jump? Can she button/unbutton her clothes? Can he throw a ball and pedal a bike? Gross motor skills have to do with big muscles – the ones that help kids on the playground. Fine motor skills are small muscle movements of the fingers that eventually translate into the ability to do school readiness activities. If your child can’t do these fine motor tasks, it means that they may have a harder time with the activities that typically occur in kindergarten classrooms – like art projects and learning to write.
• Academic Skills: Does your child tell stories? Can she count to 10 and recite some of the alphabet? Does he speak in sentences of five words or more? Can he retell the general storyline of a book that has been read to him? Can she recognizefive colors? Can she write her name? Kindergarten will build upon these skills, but a child should enter with some of them already in place.

Of course, no child is perfect at all things. And everyone develops at their own pace. But all of these issues play a part in kindergarten readiness. Ask yourself the questions and be honest with your answers.

Still on the fence? Talk to someone! Many schools are more than willing to talk to you about your soon-to-be student – some even do readiness checks before school begins.

Literacy Milestones From Birth to Age Six

Author: Andrea DeBruin-Parecki|Kathryn Perkinson|Lance Ferderer
Source: U.S. Department of Education

Most children learn to read by age 7. Learning to read is built on a foundation of communicatin skills that children start learning at birth-a process that is both complicated and amazing.

Most children develop certain communication skills as they move through the early stages of learning language. The following list of such accomplishments is based on current research in the field, where studies continue and there is still much to learn. As you look over the list, keep in mind that children vary a great deal in how they develop and learn.

If you have questions or concerns about your child's progress, talk with your child's doctor, teacher, or a speech and language therapist. For children with any kind of disability or learning problem, the sooner they can get the special help they need, the easier it will be for them to learn.

From birth to age 3, most babies and toddlers become able to:

• Make sounds that imitate the tones and rhythms that adults use when talking.
• Respond to gestures and facial expressions.
• Begin to associate words they hear frequently with what the words mean.
• Make cooing, babbling sounds in the crib, which gives way to enjoying rhyming and nonsense word games with a parent or caregiver.
• Play along in games such as "peek-a-boo" and "pat-a-cake."
• Handle objects such as board books and alphabet blocks in their play.
• Recognize certain books by their covers.
• Pretend to read books.
• Understand how books should be handled.
• Share books with an adult as a routine part of life.
• Name some objects in a book.
• Talk about characters in books.
• Look at pictures in books and realize they are symbols of real things.
• Listen to stories.
• Ask or demand that adults read or write with them.
• Begin to pay attention to specific print such as the first letters of their names.
• Scribble with a purpose (trying to write or draw something).
• Produce some letter-like forms and scribbles that resemble, in some way, writing.

From ages 3-4, most preschoolers become able to:

• Enjoy listening to and talking about storybooks.
• Understand that print carries a message.
• Make attempts to read and write.
• Identify familiar signs and labels.
• Participate in rhyming games.
• Identify some letters and make some letter-sound matches.
• Use known letters (or their best attempt to write the letters) to represent written language especially for meaningful words like their names or phrases such as "I love you."

At age 5, most kindergartners become able to:

• Sound as if they are reading when they pretend to read.
• Enjoy being read to.
• Retell simple stories.
• Use descriptive language to explain or to ask questions.
• Recognize letters and letter-sound matches.
• Show familiarity with rhyming and beginning sounds.
• Understand that print is read left-to-right and top-to-bottom.
• Begin to match spoken words with written ones.
• Begin to write letters of the alphabet and some words they use and hear often.
• Begin to write stories with some readable parts.

At age 6, most first-graders can:

• Read and retell familiar stories.
• Use a variety of ways to help with reading a story such as rereading, predicting what will happen, asking questions, or using visual cues or pictures.
• Decide on their own to use reading and writing for different purposes.
• Read some things aloud with ease.
• Identify new words by using letter-sound matches, parts of words, and their understanding of the rest of a story or printed item.
• Identify an increasing number of words by sight.
• Sound out and represent major sounds in a word when trying to spell.
• Write about topics that mean a lot to them.
• Try to use some punctuation marks and capitalization.

AMERICA READS CHALLENGE: Read*Write*Now Partners Group (1997). Checkpoints for progress in reading and writing for families and communities. U.S. Department of Education, Washington, DC.

Play: It’s the Way Young Children Learn

A Special Supplement to the Children �� s Advocate, Based on a Policy Brief from the Bay Area Early Childhood Funders

Source: Action Alliance for Children

That’s why many parents, anxious for their children to succeed in school, want early care and education programs to have children sit at tables using work sheets, drills, and flash cards to learn letters and numbers and even starting to read, add, and subtract.

But preschoolers learn differently from school-age children: play is essential to early learning. Play is the main way children learn and develop ideas about the world. It helps them build the skills necessary for critical thinking and leadership. It’s how they learn to solve problems and to feel good about their ability to learn.

Children learn the most from play when they have skilled teachers who are well-trained in understanding how play contributes to learning.

Most child development experts agree that play is an essential part of a high-quality early learning program. Play is not a break from learning—it’s the way young children learn.

High-quality preschools provide lasting benefits

High-quality preschool and child care programs have lasting benefits. Three studies, which followed children for many years, showed that taxpayers saved at least $2.69 for every dollar spent on high-quality early learning programs, by reducing special education, law-enforcement, and other costs.

In all these programs, “child-initiated” activities were important—highly trained teachers used children’s interests and activities to guide learning. Kids got to choose from appropriate activities, rather than spending all their time following teachers’ instructions.

Several studies have shown that children learn more from educational activities that support their own interests and ideas. Some researchers have found evidence that too much teacher-directed activity undermines young children’s self-confidence and motivation to learn.

Play promotes school success in many ways

Researchers are finding more and more connections between children’s play and the learning and social development that helps them succeed in school. For example, pretend play helps children learn to think abstractly and to look at things from someone else’s perspective. Pretend play is also connected to early literacy, mathematical thinking, and problem-solving.

When children play:

• They test their developing ideas with objects, people, and situations—the key ability for academic learning

• They develop many kinds of skills together—physical, social, emotional, thinking, and language

• They are doing things they are interested in, so they have a natural motivation to learn

• They develop concepts and skills together. For example, as a child learns to write the letters in her name, she is also learning the concept that each letter represents a sound. And she is very motivated by the meaning—her own name! Children are more likely to remember skills and concepts they have learned by doing things that are meaningful to them

• They learn from other children and develop social skills by playing together

When children play, they learn skills that contribute to school success

Using one thing to represent another

Through pretend play, children learn to use their imaginations to represent objects, people, and ideas.

What you see:

• A toddler flaps her arms, pretending to be a butterfly

• Another picks up a banana, holds it to his ear like a telephone, and says, “Hello.”

• A preschooler builds a firehouse with blocks.

How it promotes school success:

If children can use one thing to represent something else, it’s easier for them to understand that letters represent sounds and numbers represent quantities. And later on they will be able to their imaginations to visualize historical events or scientific ideas.

Using language and telling stories

Through pretend play, children develop their skills in using language and in telling and understanding stories.

What you see:

• Children act out scenes in the housekeeping corner

• A child makes her stuffed animal “talk,” telling a story

How it promotes school success:

Oral language skills and storytelling are the building blocks of reading and writing, as well as subjects like social studies and science.

Using experimentation and logic

When children play with materials such as blocks, clay, sand, and water, they develop skills in logic. They experiment with cause and effect, with counting and sorting things and solving problems.

What you see:

• Children experiment with blocks to figure out how to build a stable structure

• Children count the number of cups needed for a “tea party”

• Children pour sand into different sized containers.

How it promotes school success:

This practice in experimenting, observing, comparing, and working with shapes, sizes, and quantities forms the basis for understanding math and science and for all higher-order thinking.

Developing self control and social skills

As children share materials and play together, they learn to cooperate, listen to others, stand up for their own ideas, handle frustration, and empathize.

What you see:

• Children negotiate over roles in dramatic play: “We can both be pilots if we have two seats.”

• One child cries and another says, “Don’t worry, your mom is coming soon.”

How it promotes school success:

Many studies have shown that kids with good social skills and emotional health do better in school and are more likely to avoid dangerous behavior as teenagers. Through play, children develop their ability to form relationships with other children and with teachers.

Learning to enjoy learning

When children do activities they have chosen, learning is enjoyable. It’s based on their own interests and gives them a sense of competence.

What you see:

• Classrooms organized with different activity centers (blocks, dramatic play, painting and drawing, reading, science, etc.)

• Children encouraged to choose their own activities.

How it promotes school success:

Studies show that children’s attitudes of curiosity, motivation, and competence are key to success in elementary school.

The teacher is key to play-based learning

Children learn more through play when they have well-trained teachers who know how to respond to, guide, and extend their play to increase learning—and how to assess their development by observing their play.

Teachers can:

Guide and extend play to help children learn more

• Respond to play: A teacher sees a child playing and builds vocabulary by providing new words: “That’s interesting. You’ve lined up the animals from tiny to gigantic.”

• Extend play: A teacher hears children making silly rhymes: “You’re juicy, goosey, foosey.” She extends this play by teaching songs that play with the sounds of language, such as “Apples and Bananas.” She knows that this helps children learn to recognize the separate sounds in words.

A teacher observes a child pretending a chair is a car and “driving.” She encourages imagination by asking “Where are you going? What do you see along the way?”

• Guide play: One week a teacher turns the dress-up area into a shoe store. Children practice language and social skills by acting out “customers” and “sales people.” They learn new vocabulary (canvas, boots). They use art to make signs for the store. Some older preschoolers may write letters and words for the signs, or practice simple math by making change for purchases.

Assess children’s development by watching them play

• Observe the child’s activities: Seeing a child line up toy dinosaurs by size shows her understanding of size comparisons and putting things in order.

• Listen to the child talk: Hearing a child talk about what letters “say” shows his understanding that letters represent words.

• Take photos: A series of photos of a child’s block structures over time shows that she is learning more about spatial relations.

Policy recommendations

Because play is so important to developing the skills, concepts, and approaches children will use throughout their lives, public policy should support early education that emphasizes play. Parents and child care providers can urge policymakers to:

• Adopt early childhood learning standards that identify play as the primary method for early learning.

• Require curricula and learning materials that emphasize play

• Fund in-depth training and ongoing education for early childhood educators, including elementary school teachers, about how to use play to promote learning

• Educate parents about the importance of play.

• Assess young children’s learning through observation, not formal tests.

Parents can

• Provide playthings that kids can use in a variety of ways: blocks, paper and crayons, dolls and toy animals, balls, playdough, etc.

• Encourage kids to play with ordinary household objects like pots and pans and outdoor materials like sticks and grass

• Provide simple playthings that encourage children to be active and use their imaginations, not to watch while the toy does tricks.

• Play with your children, ask them questions about their play (“What are those animals doing?”), and point out things you notice (“You used a lot of bright colors in that picture!”)

• Look for child care and preschool programs where children learn through play. Ask: How does this program use play to help children learn?

For more about play and learning

• Zero to Three has many brochures explaining the importance of play, with tips for understanding children’s play and ideas about how to make the most of play time. 202-638-1144, www.zerotothree.org

• National Association for the Education of Young Children publishes Early Years are Learning Years, short articles for parents and child care providers, including many on “play and learning.” 800-424-2460, http://www.naeyc.org/ece/eyly/

• “Time for Play Every Day: It’s Fun and Fundamental,” Alliance for Childhood, www.allianceforchildhood.net/projects/
  play/pdf_files/play_fact_sheet.pdf

• A Place of Our Own, a television show and web site with many ideas for activities, check your local PBS listings for show times, www.aplaceofourown.org

• Play at the Center of the Curriculum, by Van Hoorn, Nourot, Scales, and Alward, 4th edition, 2007, Merrill/Prentice Hall

• For parenting and child care education, contact your local First 5. Info from 916-263-1050, www.ccfc.ca.gov

• For the complete Early Childhood Funders policy brief including references, go to www.4children.org/play.htm

Thanks to the Bay Area Early Childhood Funders for their support for this special supplement.

Extra resources from the Children’s Advocate bulletin

• Coming soon! The policy brief that this supplement is based on will be available online at http://www.4children.org/play.htm

• The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, discusses why play is essential to child development and what factors have reduced play. Includes recommendations for promoting the importance of play with families and in communities. Online at http://www.aap.org/pressroom/
  playFINAL.pdf