Why is Early Learning Important for Your Child?

“Alex just spoke his first words,” gushed a happy Lily to her mother over a call. She was thrilled to share her child’s milestone with the world. Her bundle of joy was growing. As parents, she and her husband were keen about seeing Alex achieve his milestones and be at ease about him growing and learning as per his age. 

Isn’t that what as a parent, you too, are excited about? Reading, conversing, deliberating about early learning and the best practices for nurturing your child, these become a part of your life as a parent. Watching your child meet every one of his age-appropriate milestones is a gratifying experience. Your child’s milestones and their development go hand-in-hand. Research suggests that 80 per cent of the child’s development happens between infancy and age five. And, you, as a parent, can help your child meet their milestones through early learning practices. 

Importance of Early Learning
Early learning is crucial in helping a child become a more responsible, capable and caring individual. The practice of early learning or early childhood education is not limited to preparing a child for preschool. It serves a broader purpose of perpetuating holistic growth and development of a child’s cognitive, physical, language and speech, and social-emotional milestones.
In the first five years, a child builds a plethora of skills. The brain of preschoolers, babies and toddlers grows rapidly. A child learns to think for themself and starts developing language skills. The child also starts having meaningful interactions with other people as their social and emotional skills develop.

How does Early Learning influence each of these milestones?
Early learning practices are heavily based on play as a child learns best during play.

Physical Milestones
Implementing early learning practices in the form of getting your child to play with toys, building blocks and hop on the spot strengthens their muscle movement and coordination. In turn, this helps them reach their physical milestones.

Cognitive Milestones
Thinking, processing and understanding the world around them is what encompasses the cognitive milestones of the child. Grouping objects are a few things that early learning brings together for the child in an age-appropriate manner. For instance, tasks like identifying colours in a crayon box, putting together pieces of a puzzle will help in a child’s cognitive development.

Language and Speech Milestones
Communication is also a part of the primary development of a child. The language and speech milestones indicate that they can speak their thoughts and share what’s on their mind. Bringing early learning practices into play through sing-along songs and rhymes helps them learn words, sounds, phonetics, and pronunciations.

Social-Emotional Milestones
A child experiences a vast range of emotions that they can’t place. Bringing in play the early learning activities that make a child aware of their feelings and foster connections between peers, family and other individuals. They learn how to handle emotions and work on their relationships with the people around them.

Why practice Early Learning?
Education of the child remains a priority for every parent. The investment in an early learning education helps the child reach their developmental goals and empowers them to perform better at a later stage. It allows them to be active learners and encourages them to keep learning. The milestone for you as being a caring parent for your child is giving them a safe environment and the courage to learn, make mistakes and enliven their curious minds.

Reference

Early childhood brain development has lifelong impact. (2019, July 12). Arizona PBS.