Stress Free Learning
1. As a parent, guardian or a professional associated
with toddlers/pre-schoolers(2 to 4 yrs), you must have
found yourself already or increasingly becomimg tuned
towards observing, noting & finding children at various
levels of knowledge of skills acquired. And you can't
help asking WHY SO? How come one child knows so much
about colors/cars/animals/birds/flowers or sings, dances
so well & the other ones doesn't.
2. Talk to them or /their parents or observe the
situation closely and you will find that the child
learnt/gained by just growing up in that particular
environment,. e.g. say a mother with green fingers will
naturally be relaxed in the garden & will talk generally
in a simplified manner about flora & fauna and the child
picks up the concept of colors, names of the flowers,
importance of watering plants & becomes sensitive
towards nature and when a father cleans up his car on a
Sunday morning & engages his little one in a
conversation during it, the child picks up on the car-
its color, shape of wheels & steering and whatever else
he if fed with.
3. Let's note & pay attention that these children
picked up all these not from books but from life
situations. The books will take off from there. The
learning part is quicker & thorough if done in a
STRESS-FREE ENVIRONMENT, Learning should be fun.
4. Here are some of the important points we should
keep in mind to give stress free learning environment
while dealing with preschoolers to enhance their
readiness skills for learning.
- Make children generally OBSERVANT. Play observation
games with them. Talk of everyday life situation with
them. Life is an open book. Let them learn from it.
- TALK to them, give simple explanations, don't assume
they wouldn't understand. Enable them to broaden their
horizon.
- Make them INQUSITIVE. Ask questions, Invite answers,
welcome questions from them & accept their answers.
- Let them be IMAGINATIVE, let them think beyond
boundaries. Let them explore & think and read in between
the lines.
- Be a bit FLEXIBLE yourself. Accept that there are
shades of grey & not only black & white.
- Work upon & enhance their LISTENING SKILLS. Read out
stories to them.
Send them to a play school which focusses on learning
through play way methods, has a stimulating environment
& activity oriented approach to learning.
So dear parents, make a start now. I am sure you will
use all those available opportunities & turn them into
golden ones. GOOD LUCK !
POONAM SETHI
HEAD MISTRESS
SHEMROCK PRIDE, HARGOVIND ENCLAVE.
