BABY LEARNS ALL THE TIME: FINDING
AND OPTIMISING TEACHABLE MOMENTS
It is important for all parents to know and understand
how their infants and toddlers grow and develop. Recent
decade on brain research indicates the importance of
the early years and the implications for care arrangements
and how to provide an optimal learning environment.
Infants and toddlers constantly learn by taking in,
finding out, discovering, integrating, and organizing
the real world around them. It is crucial that parents
and caregivers are sensitive to their needs and provide
the necessary attention to their physical and psychological
needs and help them build a relationship with someone
they can trust and respect. As parents, knowledge of
infants and toddler development will bring us a long
way to support them in their development in a safe,
healthy and a developmentally appropriate environment.
HOW CHILDREN
LEARN
"Children learn a great deal before they can read,
and much of that is good, solid information. The fact
that they learn it by seeing, hearing, touching, tasting
and smelling does not make the learning and information
gathered less accurate, or the learning style less valid".
The Learning Child - Dorothy H. Cohen
Very different modes of learning can
enhance intellectual development, and all who have taken
the trouble to study young children have found that
the most significant intellectual learning at that stage
occurs in action and through the senses. Given the nature
of childhood and based on the knowledge of the learning
process we should then be concerned about the approaches
in the care and practices we adhere to in the early
years.
This talk will address some basic fundamentals in understanding
how child grow and develop and how the home environment
and the pre-school environment can be supportive of
the child's learning. Drawings on the findings of psychologists
like Piaget, this talk seeks to explore the crucial
links between learning and the successive stages of
childhood and help parents to turn child's natural instinct
for inquiry into a meaningful journey for life-long
learning.
ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
INFANTS AND TODDLERS: THEIR GROWING AND DEVELOPING YEARS
It is important for parents to know and understand how
their infants and toddlers grow and develop. Recent
decade on brain research indicates the importance of
the early years and the implications for care arrangements
and how to provide an optimal learning environment.
Infants and toddlers constantly learn by taking in,
finding out, discovering, integrating, and organizing
the real world around them. It is crucial that parents
and caregivers are sensitive to their needs and provide
the necessary attention to their physical and psychological
needs and help them build a relationship with someone
they can trust and respect. As parents, knowledge of
infants and toddler development will bring us a long
way to support them in their development in a safe,
healthy and a developmentally appropriate environment.
CRITICAL PERIODS OF EARLY DEVELOPMENT:
IMPLICATIONS FOR INFANT AND TODDLER CARE ARRANGEMENTS
Recent research about how rapidly babies' brains grow
and develop underscores the importance of the first
three years for getting your baby off to a good start.
Early nurturing experiences are important in the way
they impact baby's brain development and well being.
Today in Singapore many of our infants and toddlers
are spending time each day in some type of care setting.
All children especially infants and toddlers need a
care setting where they can thrive with caregivers who
understand how to promote their healthy growth and development.
The way children are treated in their earliest years
of life by important adults shape their future successes
or failures, it is crucial that all caregivers provide
a healthy setting that encourages appropriate emotional,
social and intellectual growth. This talk seeks to address
the importance of the early years' development and the
implications for early care arrangements.
