Page 11 - LESSION 13.pmd

How Children Learn (Early Learning and Teaching)

when they come in the morning or when they reach home. They must be
encouraged to speak without too much correction. If children’s sentences are
incorrect, they should not be immediately stopped, Repetition or rephrasing keep
Notes
children confident. Sharing stories as daily schedule of the ECCE programme
helps build communication. Stories need to be short, age appropriate and be
narrated with both facial and voice expressions.

Development of Reading and Writing Readiness: Readiness is a stage when
children are mature and ready to learn something without any stress. Reading
and writing readiness refers to the ability of children to profit from any reading
and writing instruction. Some amount of visual and discrimination activities
are conducted with children right from three years onwards. More systematic
focus on specific activities for reading and writing readiness is needed by the
time the children are four-and-half to five years and ready for these activities.
Activities like identification of sound in the environment, discriminating sound
in the environment, identification of beginning sounds, rhyming words, antakshari,
matching, odd-man-out, spotting the difference, classifying objects/pictures of
objects beginning with a given sound, matching pictures with verbal words, etc.
support in developing reading and writing readiness. Five to six year old children
are normally in Class I of primary school. If, they are in ECCE centres, they
can be given some exposure to the letters of the alphabet and small words.
Children at early primary classes can match the sound with letters of the alphabet,
match pictures of an object with the initial letter of the name of the object and
match pictures with words.
Writing readiness requires activities for small muscle development, eye-hand
coordination, handling of writing material and for letter perception. It is not
advisable to introduce formal writing since children are at a developmental
level when their fingers and eye muscles still need strengthening and coordination.

13.6.4 Cognitive Development

Cognition refers to
the process of
knowing and
understanding the
environment
around us.
Cognitive
development is the
development of
observation, Fig. 13.3 Activities–Cognitive Development
classification,
sequential thinking, problem solving and reasoning which are basic to get to know
the environment. Providing mediation with dialogue, action and direction by adults

70 EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION