... From the UNESCO report on How Children Learn
The last two principles of the UNESCO report on How Children Learn [2002] are really about tailoring learning to the individual child’s abilities, interests and tastes and what motivates or inspires them. Principle 11 is about a child’s individuality. Research shows that there are significant developmental differences in the way children learn. Children learn best when their individual differences are taken into consideration.
“Developmental psychologist, Howard Gardner has argued that there are many dimensions of human intelligence other than the logical and linguistic skills that are usually valued in most school environments. Some children are gifted in music, others have exceptional spatial skills (required, for example, by architects and artists), or bodily/kinaesthetic abilities (required by athletes), or abilities to relate to other people”.
...UNESCO report on How Children Learn [2002]
It is important to expose children to a wide variety of activities and ways of learning to assess what they naturally gravitate towards. While language and mathematics will be core for everyone, thereafter children will have different interests and innate skills. As parents we ought to balance what children need to know with what they want to learn about and do. We must also discover the ways they learn best but keep in mind that as they grow, they may change or adapt these mechanisms.
Action:
Obviously many parents seek to introduce their children to a variety of early learning activities but it is harder perhaps to think of our children as having preferences or innate skills early in their lives. It seems that they do and so we should seek to understand what they like, are attracted to and good at. They may also respond better to one form of learning mechanism than another. It is important to have a mix of both subject areas and media types to assess the right blend for each child, recognising that what works for one may not work entirely for another. Create circumstances for students to interact with people in the community, and particularly with adults who are knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the kinds of things that are of interest to them. Note also the concept of “intense interests” or Extreme Intense Interests (EII) may be a factor here for many children where they become very focused on a particular subject, often vehicles. This can be leveraged for learning, [see our blog post on Extreme Intense Interests (EII)].
Well-structured and diverse educational video channels can assist with rapid exposure to topics and also show children real world situations in which their learning and favourite topics can be contextualised. They also offer a mix of instruction, real world video clips, cartoon abstractions music, songs, science and story-telling. Interactive aps can offer an opportunity to try things out and conduct exercises. Furthermore, getting out and about into your local environment can stimulate children and give signals of what works for them. Bottom-line is to try many things.
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