The following report, Let the Children Play: Nature’s Answer to Early Learning was published in 2006 by the Early Childhood Learning Knowledge Centre, of the Canadian Council on Learning. It provides a comprehensive look at why play is essential for optimal development.
Over the past forty years, educators there have evolved a distinctive innovative approach that supports children’s well-being and fosters their intellectual development through a systematic focus on symbolic representation. Young children (from birth to age six) are encouraged to explore their environment and express themselves through many “languages,” or modes of expression, including words, movement, drawing, painting, sculpture, shadow play, collage, and music.
Hailed as the best pre-schools in the world by Newsweek magazine in 1991, the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education has attracted the worldwide attention of educators, researchers and just about anyone interested in early childhood education best practices. Today, the Reggio approach has been adopted in USA, UK, New Zealand, Australia and many other countries.
In 2007, the Council for Early Child Development published Early Years Study 2: Putting Science into Action, a report that focuses on the scientific evidence supporting the importance of early learning and care as it relates to childhood development. This report is a follow up to the 1999 Mustard/McCain Early Years Study, a groundbreaking report that recommended an integrated system of community-based early child development and parenting centres linked to the school system.
At each stage of development, the brain’s ability to gain new skills and process information is refined. As a leading researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, Marion Diamond has been a pioneer in this field of research. Now, Diamond and award-winning science writer Janet Hopson present a comprehensive enrichment program designed to help parents prepare their children for a lifetime of learning.
(Book description by publisher, Plume Books)
We come with all the instructions and raw material for building adult bodies – for example, growing full -sized and functioning ears and lungs – and also with the capacity to develop the complete set of abilities that has helped our species survive and evolve over two billion years. We are born with predispositions for everything from our sense of vision to language and social skills. It’s all in there, waiting to unfold.
This program explores the Swedish approach to nursery education. What is the secret to their success? What factors combine to help Swedish children perform so well in European literacy tables?
On the face of it, Sweden’s attitude to teaching nursery children is incredibly relaxed and informal. There is little structured learning, play is paramount, there are few locks or security coded gates and children are encouraged to help with cleaning and catering.
When a dozen or so educators from Indianapolis traveled to Reggio Emilia, Italy, several years ago to study the famous constructivist approach in that city’s preschools, they came back prepared for more than project-based teaching — they came ready to decorate. Last fall, the group offered elementary school teachers a classroom makeover in the Reggio Emilia style, and Sharon Olson, a teacher at Winding Ridge Elementary School, immediately volunteered. Their decor strategy was based on the idea that to take ownership of their learning, children must own their learning space.
On the face of it, Sweden’s attitude to teaching nursery children is incredibly relaxed and informal. Could the absence of testing, inspection and excessive paperwork, combined with a strong emphasis on play and relaxation, be the very secret of their success?
Watch a fascinating video report on the British Teachers TV website: [[http://www.teachers.tv/video/12090| Early Years Education in Sweden]]
