Supporting Early Years Education: Part 1 - Why Should Rotarians Support Early Childhood Education?

Many Rotarians are eager to help a community develop a program for young children. They understand the importance of providing opportunities that enhance children’s learning, whether in their own community or in a community where they volunteer. This series of articles is intended to provide Rotarians with some guidance on early child development and why and how best to support early years education.

Research has shown that a baby’s brain is largely unformed at birth, but it grows dramatically in size, structure, and function during the first five to six years of life. These years become the ‘windows of opportunity.’  The playing field is fairly level at the very beginning of life, and a full-term baby is born with billions of unconnected neurons.  A child’s brain is primed to receive sensory input (nourishment, sound, textures, hugs, fresh air, laughter, …) and develop more advanced pathways in the brain. Once born, a baby’s neurons have to form quadrillions of connections that form neural pathways between and amongst the neurons - the brain connections. This brain-building slows substantially and, in some cases, irretrievably, once the window of opportunity closes. It is best developed when the brain receives stimuli through several pathways at once.  When well nurtured, the brain, from birth to about age 6, builds its capacity in important developmental areas. Conversely, inadequate stimulation can lead to underdevelopment of these parts of the brain and disadvantage the child’s learning.      

 

Young children experience great physical growth during this early developmental stage.  They develop large and small muscles and learn to coordinate their arms and legs, skills they need to use their muscles effectively and strategically for work and play.  Children are energetic and love to be active and curious. Instead of controlling and discouraging this, an adult should provide appropriate opportunities to use their large muscles and help children to regulate themselves to know and demonstrate appropriate levels of behavior.  This serves to encourage excitement about the movements while ensuring the child sustains them and chooses to explore and learn.  Activities provided should focus on large-muscle development needed for crawling, walking, running, climbing, etc., and on small-muscle development for controlling eating utensils, music makers, a paintbrush, a crayon, or a pencil.

 

Children have participated in a variety of experiences with family and friends before attending a preschool or kindergarten program. These experiences and interactions will be very different, but they will all influence how each child approaches this new setting.  Some children will have had few opportunities to engage with other children. A new setting with new adults and new friends may seem intimidating to some or quite exciting to others. Young children need opportunities to interact with peers in appropriate ways and to understand social cues (e.g., ways of demonstrating: "We could be sharing this," "Stop pinching me when we are playing," "Would you like to play with me?").   We use facial expressions, tone of voice, and words to express our thoughts and feelings, and young children learn this as they engage with others.  They learn through experience.  Developing ease with communication, choosing inclusive and kind words, and sharing material and ideas with others are a few ways that young children learn to interact appropriately with others and build the way they socialize going forward.

 

The early years are very important in developing self-control or self-regulation.  During these years, children can learn to handle emotions associated with challenges, confrontations, and excitement, and set patterns for the rest of their lives. This becomes automatic behavior when children are given the opportunity to think through the processes and consequences themselves with adult guidance.  How did you feel when your friend took the toy you wanted to play with? What could you say to her the next time this happens?  How will that make you both feel?  It is not the same as the adult regulating children’s behavior.  You took his toy. Give it back to him now! or Stop crying! That is not helping. When playing or working with others, children have opportunities to observe how others behave and to evaluate the consequences of their own behavior on themselves and others, which helps them regulate their own behavior. When acceptable behavior is self-regulated by the child, it is internalized and will be used with or without an adult present.

 

A young child’s brain is expanding and connecting at a very rapid rate.  Children will learn best when they are fully engaged, active, and able to participate in their learning.  Open-ended activities (those with no predetermined outcome or time limit) allow children to use the materials provided in unique and creative ways.  This allows the teacher to observe how the child integrates their skills and interests to use the material independently.  These open-ended activities allow children to challenge themselves and solve problems they may encounter.  Their products are usually at a higher level of skill development than when the planned activity required following the teacher's directions, and everyone’s work is the same. Deeper development occurs when the focus is placed on the process not the product – the skills the child brings together to complete the task, not the neatness or accuracy of the task. 

 

During this six-year developmental stage, children move from making a few sounds (crying, cooing) to expressing complete ideas orally.  It is remarkable progress and demonstrates the brain's rapid development during this phase.  However, children do not develop language skills in isolation.  From birth, they are surrounded by words in their environment as normal conversations take place around them.  Additionally, children thrive when they hear people talking, singing, reading, or expressing emotions directly to them.  The more language a young child hears, the more they are able to use and understand.