As a parent, you want the best for your child. Whether you are a working parent or not, there are many reasons to send your kid to an early learning centre instead of daycare. Many parents, who are familiar with the concept of daycare, wonder why these centres are recommended.
For most kids, such centres are their first experience in a structured learning environment, children their own age, and teachers. It is undoubtedly a great opportunity to learn to share, listen, and follow instructions. Interaction with peers is also an important learning lesson.
Reasons To Send Your Child To An Early Learning Centre
Social and emotional development: Good learning centres offer programs which help children develop trusting relationships with their peers and elders. Teachers here are trained to help in the development of emotional skills and arouse curiosity. This is done using “teachable moments” so that children learn to manage frustration and interact well with others.
Taking care of themselves and other people: As a child learns new tasks, they learn how to do things for themselves and offer the same to others. In the process, they develop a sense of responsibility, self-worth, and price. This is an important benefit as it introduces behaviours that help with forming bonds as they grow up.
Structure and fun: Children thrive in a structured environment as they learn, make friends, and play with others. It does not mean that the children are constantly monitored by the teacher and corrected. Children are coached patiently, and appropriate behaviours are taught and encouraged. This kind of coaching may be invisible, but the results are evident later in life.
Cognitive skills: Between 3 and 5 years of age, a child learns many new words and learns to construct complex sentences. Early learning centres expose children to new concepts and related vocabulary. Games involving conversation are encouraged and teachers help in forming new vocabulary with many questions. Children are encouraged to sing, tell their favourite stories, etc. Cognitive skills are also taught via activities to challenge their minds and prompt questions.
Math and reading: Children are like blank canvases and want to learn many things. Early learning centres prepare children for kindergarten by teaching them to read and do basic math with counting games. Activities such as telling time, dialling phone numbers, pay for candy at a store and get change are some ways they learn to count.
Encouraging curiosity: To instil and develop a child’s curiosity, teachers study a child’s natural interests and ideas and encourage activities that foster this curiosity. Occurrences like finding butterflies and pretty leaves on a playground can be used to teach children colours and telling stories.
Parents and teachers must collaborate and decide the best learning method for a child. Reports should be given to parents so that they can review their child’s progress. If a parent is interested and engaged in the learning process, the child’s experience will be a great one. There is a huge difference between a daycare centre and an early learning centre. What a parent does in the initial stages, will have a lasting impact on the future life of a child.
Author Bio: Kathleen Zara works as a freelancer and entrepreneur working from a start-up learning along the way about marketing, social and networking, creating web sites, and web content.