Skill Development of Children 0-5 years
Skill development of Children 0-5 years
The word ‘Skill’ is going to be an essential ‘mantra’ in the future. We are living in an age where we have entered the long gates of the Pandora of a versatile learning process. In almost all the genres skill is going to be emphasized, whether it is bringing up children, giving basic education to children, having almost all the formal processes will have skill as an integral part.
In this article let us explore the importance of the concept of skill development for school children. Since a language is a precondition to acquire skills, we will also learn about language development, especially with learning English.
Categorisation of school children.
It is important to categorise children based on a group of age. This is due to their varied background and tendency or ability to understand. Adding to this their social economic and cultural background also plays a significant role. Children during their school years can be categorised as follow;
0-5 years
6-8 years
9-12 years
13-15 years
14-18 years
The purpose of breaking down these categorizations lies in the essentiality of each level. Children acquire a varied level of information that changes their situations depending on their socio economic patterns of their upbringing.
Skill that could be taught or emphasized during 0-5 years
During this period children are highly exposed to learning by observation. In fact a lot of mothers follow certain good habits in the mature stage of fetus or during the later stage of pregnancy such as reading books, listening to happy songs, doing yoga, and following healthy food habits. Because they believe that these healthy practices nurture a child who is inside the womb. Similarly when the child comes out of the womb it deciphers everything happening around it by way of observation and looks out to gather information That eventually changes its perception. Some of the skill development tips during this stage are as follows;
- Asking the child to repeat a word
- Displays of key information for the child to get exposure
- Assessing the child of it’s active information seeking and information retention capabilities.
- Making sure that the child is not left alone.
- Put the child in an encouraging atmosphere for it to learn
- Asking the children to form vocabularies and spelling for the language of one’s choice will definitely leverage the child in terms of it’s memory power and gasping capacity.
Therefore giving thrust in emphasizing vocabulary formation with exact spelling is the crucial skill that the children should be advised to develop during 0-5 years of age, as far as learning English is concerned.
Formal education like pre-school is next only to the above mentioned process. Our educational institutions give formal education. Class rooms are nothing but conditioned ways where even a child might get negative inputs. Informal places like families, society which are sort of unconditioned environments where a child even learns some of the positive aspects that ultimately affect their behavior.
Cognitive Development
Although cognitive development is the most important one in a child’s growth, foundation for the same has been laid in the infants initial stage of growth. The formal setting such as pre-schools or primary schools is mere advancement and amplifier. This is more strengthened as they grow from first year of development to the fifth year.
Wikipedia says that there are four stages to cognitive development, they are as follows;
Reasoning
Intelligence
Language
Memory
Children should not be exposed to only memorising contents. Language development and proficiency in mother tongue is the the basic step. Once this is ensured concretely then the child’s growth in other fronts are easier.
The intelligence and reasoning capabilities of a child comparatively relied on how they are better positioned in learning their mother tongue first. Basically a language proficiency will help the children to have clarity of thought and vision. Because, it is only with the language that the children understand other branch of studies. Here, learning English along with age related skills play a vital role.