Promoting Development and Learning

Promoting development and learning in early childhood is extremely important. “Learning starts in infancy, long before formal education, and continues throughout life.” All parts of the environment and everything or everyone a child comes in contact with will have an impact on their cognitive, emotional, and social development.
In our early childhood programs, they use Developmentally Appropriate Practice to determine how and what to teach each individual child. This is a framework of principles and guidelines for best practice in the care of education of young children. (NAEYC) There are three components of developmentally appropriate practice. These are age appropriateness, individual appropriateness, and appropriateness to the social contexts of our children’s lives. As a teacher, it is important to assess the interest and abilities of the individual child regardless of the age.
Different schools have different ways to promote learning. Each school may use a different model of teaching. One of the models is the Montessori Method. This is a method of seeing children as they are and creating environments which will help them reach their highest potential. Another model is known as the Bank Street Model. This model improves children’s education through connecting learning to the outside world. There is also the High/Scope Model. This teaches children through hands on experiences. These are just a few of the many models used to teach children in early childhood education.
It is also said that there are different theories for learning. These theories are known as behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. Behaviorism says that learning is manifested by a change in behavior. It also says that the environment shapes behavior. Cognitivism says that the memory system is an active processor of information and prior knowledge plays in the learning process. Lastly, constructivism views learning as a process in which the learner constructs new ideas from current and past knowledge.
All of these theories and models help in the development and learning of early childhood education. As you can see, it is very important to begin learning at a very early age.
References:
http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/en-ca/importance-of-early-childhood -development/howimportant-is.it.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/learing_theory_(education)

References: http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/en-ca/importance-of-early-childhood -development/howimportant-is.it.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/learing_theory_(education)