From Marianne

Dear Parents,

An article in the New York Times a while ago made the point that many young children are working with pediatric occupational therapists to improve fine motor skills. Why? Children may have trouble holding a pencil with the correct grip, and then they have trouble writing and drawing because their hands get strained and tired. The competitive private school application process in New York City makes it necessary for children to be able to do these tasks early in life, sometimes even before kindergarten. Children in elementary school have trouble if they can’t write fast enough, or if the teachers can’t read their handwriting.

Nursery school teachers know the answer is to help children strengthen their fine motor skills early on. Parents may enter a classroom and think, “Not play dough again!’ But there is method to our madness. Play dough helps a child squeeze, pinch, and pound – and firm up those little hands. Clay is even better because it is harder to manipulate. Coloring with crayons requires more hand strength than using markers which are easier to push; crayons are more conducive to developing control.

The sensory table in the classroom and the sandbox out in the play yard are areas where children seem to be “just playing,” but they offer other important opportunities to move those fingers and hands. Packing sand into a pail or digging with hand or shovel help too. These are important activities whose value should not be underestimated. Pushing pegs into tight holes and then removing them are also fine motor exercises that children enjoy. Cutting with scissors is a skill that takes a lot of practice to master. Luckily most children are motivated to do it and, with teacher help, are willing to put in the time.

Outdoor time in general is essential for children, who need to develop both small and large muscles. When I watch children running in the play yard, picking up stones or berries off a bush, climbing our “hill” or pushing a full wheelbarrow, I know they are developing all kinds of strengths. The Times article implies that weak motor skills may be a result of too much time in front of a television or computer screen and not enough vigorous free play outside.

Holding a pencil or crayon with the correct grip enables the child to exert the correct amount of pressure and control without straining. Then he can begin to practice writing letters. In our Connecting classes many of the children are writing their names and other words. In Pre K, some children can write upper and lower case letters with precision. They are learning to write smaller-sized letters and keep the letters of individual words together. All that play dough in previous years is paying off.

Marianne

Dear Parents,

Some of you may have seen an opinion piece that appeared in the New York Times this past August entitled, “Your Baby Is Smarter Than You Think.” Written by Alison Gopnik, a professor of psychology at Berkeley and author of The Philosophical Baby, this article reinforced what we have seen at PIFS about the way young children learn.

Children under 5 years of age learn in very different ways from older children and adults. You have all heard of “hands on” learning, the need of young children to learn by doing, through active play and exploration, rather than by rote or drilling. The article described recent experiments in which babies were shown to understand probabilities and cause-and-effect by observing and playing with different toys.

Parents reading this may conclude that they should purchase programs and products designed to make their babies even smarter. They may sign up for enrichment programs, buy educational DVDs and even flashcards. However, young children do not need these products because they cannot focus and plan to acquire specific skills as elementary school-age children do. Very young children have trouble focusing on just one event and shutting off all distractions. Young children are interested in unexpected events, rather than predictable ones. They explore all the possibilities rather than try to learn one skill. They become increasingly imaginative and are able to see alternative possibilities, rather than the most likely one that an adult or older child will invariably choose.

“The learning that babies and young children do on their own, when they carefully watch an unexpected outcome and draw new conclusions from it, ceaselessly manipulate a new toy or imagine different ways that the world might be, is very different from schoolwork. Babies and young children can learn about the world around them through all sorts of real-world-objects and safe replicas…. Parents and other caregivers teach young children by paying attention and interacting with them naturally, and, most of all, by just allowing them to play.”

One truism in early childhood education is the phrase, “Play is children’s work.” Through observation and free play with interesting items, from sand and water, art and sensory materials, the world of nature, replicas of the adult world, and beyond, children explore possibilities, draw conclusions, test and re-test their theories and gain knowledge of the world. The job of the early childhood teacher and the parent, is to provide interesting materials, provoke with questions, provide support when needed, add depth and complexity when the child is ready. This is what our teachers strive to do every day, and what we want for each child at PIFS.

Marianne

From Marianne

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