Teaching Our Youngest

Everyone who interacts with a young child is a teacher. As preschool teachers and child-care and after school providers, you have both the wonderful opportunity and the important responsibility to teach and nurture our youngest children.

The years from birth through age five are a time of extraordinary growth and change. It is in these years that children develop the basic knowledge, understandings, and interests they need to reach the goal of being successful learners, readers, and writers.

All young children deserve experiences that will help them to achieve this goal. You play an important role in ensuring that “no child is left behind.” You spend many hours with children, and the right kind of activities can help them tremendously.  You can be especially helpful to those children who have limited learning experiences at home.

The series of our postings recently draws from scientifically based research about what you can do to help children to develop their language abilities, increase their knowledge, become familiar with books and other printed materials, learn letters and sounds, recognize numbers, and learn to count.

Many examples of strategies you can use for teaching these skills have been discussed here.  Also discussed were examples of ways to create an environment in your preschool classrooms that will nurture children’s natural curiosity and their zest for learning.  Throughout our many postings you will find sections titled Teacher Talk.  These are examples of conversations teachers have with children to enhance their learning during everyday activities.

Remember, you hold the key to the future academic success of the young children in your care.

Have a pleasant holiday and don’t forget to keep checking back for more tips, discoveries, and solutions to much of nagging educational challenges in our subsequent posts.

©Enchanted Learning Ltd 2015