importance of problem solving skills in early childhood

Importance of Problem Solving Skills  and How to Nurture them in your Child

We all face problems on a daily basis. You, me—our kids aren’t even exempted. Across all different age groups, there rarely is a day when we don’t experience them.

Teaching our kids to develop resilience can help as they face these challenges. Practical problem solving skills are just as necessary to teach our kids. The methods needed to resolve problems may require other skills such as creativity, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, teamwork, decision making, etc.

Unlike with math problems, life doesn’t just come with one formula or guidebook that’s applicable to solve every little problem we face. Being adaptable to various situations is important. So is nurturing problem solving skills in your child. 

Here we’ll take a look at the importance of problem solving skills and some ways to nurture them in your child. 

Why do we need problem-solving skills?

One thing that always comes up when we speak of problem-solving skills are the benefits for one’s mental health .

Problems are often complex. This means that problem solving skills aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution to all problems.

Strengthening and nurturing this set of skills helps children cope with challenges as they come. They can face and resolve a wider variety of problems with efficiency and without resulting in a breakdown.

This will help develop your child’s independence, allowing for them to grow into confident, responsible adults. 

Another importance of problem-solving skills is its impact on relationships . Whether they be friendships, family, or business relationships, poor problem solving skills may result in relationships breaking apart.

Being able to get to the bottom of a problem and find solutions together, with all the parties involved, helps keep relationships intact and eliminate conflicts as they arise. Being adept at this skill may even help strengthen and deepen relationships.

What steps can you take to nurture your child’s problem-solving skills?

Nurturing problem-solving skills in your child requires more than just focusing on the big picture and laying out steps to resolve problems. It requires that you teach them to find and focus on a problem’s essential components.

This may challenge your child’s critical thinking and creativity, among other things. 

Critical Thinking

This refers to the ability of breaking down a complex problem and analyzing its component parts.

The ability to do that will make it easier to come up with logical solutions to almost any problem. Being able to sort through and organize that pile of smaller chunks of information helps them face problems with ease. It also prevents your child from feeling overwhelmed when a huge barrier is laid out in front of them. 

Help your child practice critical thinking by asking them questions. Open-ended questions specifically help them think outside the box and analyze the situation.

Teach them to look into possible reasons why something is the way it is. Why is the sky blue? Why are plants green? Encourage them to be curious and ask questions themselves. 

Creative thinking is being able to look at different possible reasons and solutions in the context of problem-solving. It’s coming up with ideas and finding new ways of getting around a problem. Or being open to different ways of looking at an object or scenario.

Creative thinking is best nurtured with activities that involve reflection.

Try getting your child’s viewpoint on topics that may have different answers or reasons for taking place. Get them in the habit of brainstorming ideas, doing story-telling activities, and reading books. All of these help broaden a person’s thinking and flex their creative muscles.

Encourage Independence 

It’s important to retain your role as an observer, supporter, or facilitator. Step back and let your kids try out their own solutions. Watch what happens while ensuring their safety and well-being.

As an observer, you encourage independence by stepping back and watching how your child resolves the problem in their own way. It may take longer than it would if you jumped in, but leaving them to their own devices can do a lot for nurturing their skills at problem solving. 

Support your child by appreciating and acknowledging their efforts. Create a space where they can freely and effectively express their ideas without fear of judgement. Present them with opportunities to play and solve problems on their own. Encourage them to express themselves by brainstorming activities that they might want to do instead of telling them what to do.

These simple steps of overseeing your child can help them become more independent and be resilient enough to tackle problems on their own. 

Here at Early Childhood University , we value the importance of enhancing problem solving skills, creativity and critical thinking. Send your little ones to a school that focuses on a child’s holistic development. Give us a call for more information. 

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Introduction

Nature of learning and play, categories of play, object play, physical, locomotor, or rough-and-tumble play, outdoor play, social or pretend play alone or with others, development of play, effects on brain structure and functioning, benefits of play, benefits to adults of playing with children, implications for preschool education, modern challenges, role of media in children’s play, barriers to play, role of pediatricians, conclusions, lead authors, contributor, committee on psychosocial aspects of child and family health, 2017–2018, council on communications and media, 2017–2018, the power of play: a pediatric role in enhancing development in young children.

POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors have indicated they have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: The authors have indicated they have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.

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Michael Yogman , Andrew Garner , Jeffrey Hutchinson , Kathy Hirsh-Pasek , Roberta Michnick Golinkoff , COMMITTEE ON PSYCHOSOCIAL ASPECTS OF CHILD AND FAMILY HEALTH , COUNCIL ON COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA , Rebecca Baum , Thresia Gambon , Arthur Lavin , Gerri Mattson , Lawrence Wissow , David L. Hill , Nusheen Ameenuddin , Yolanda (Linda) Reid Chassiakos , Corinn Cross , Rhea Boyd , Robert Mendelson , Megan A. Moreno , MSEd , Jenny Radesky , Wendy Sue Swanson , MBE , Jeffrey Hutchinson , Justin Smith; The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children. Pediatrics September 2018; 142 (3): e20182058. 10.1542/peds.2018-2058

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Children need to develop a variety of skill sets to optimize their development and manage toxic stress. Research demonstrates that developmentally appropriate play with parents and peers is a singular opportunity to promote the social-emotional, cognitive, language, and self-regulation skills that build executive function and a prosocial brain. Furthermore, play supports the formation of the safe, stable, and nurturing relationships with all caregivers that children need to thrive.

Play is not frivolous: it enhances brain structure and function and promotes executive function (ie, the process of learning, rather than the content), which allow us to pursue goals and ignore distractions.

When play and safe, stable, nurturing relationships are missing in a child’s life, toxic stress can disrupt the development of executive function and the learning of prosocial behavior; in the presence of childhood adversity, play becomes even more important. The mutual joy and shared communication and attunement (harmonious serve and return interactions) that parents and children can experience during play regulate the body’s stress response. This clinical report provides pediatric providers with the information they need to promote the benefits of play and and to write a prescription for play at well visits to complement reach out and read. At a time when early childhood programs are pressured to add more didactic components and less playful learning, pediatricians can play an important role in emphasizing the role of a balanced curriculum that includes the importance of playful learning for the promotion of healthy child development.

Since the publication of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Clinical Reports on the importance of play in 2007, 1 , 2 newer research has provided additional evidence of the critical importance of play in facilitating parent engagement; promoting safe, stable, and nurturing relationships; encouraging the development of numerous competencies, including executive functioning skills; and improving life course trajectories. 3 , – 5 An increasing societal focus on academic readiness (promulgated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001) has led to a focus on structured activities that are designed to promote academic results as early as preschool, with a corresponding decrease in playful learning. Social skills, which are part of playful learning, enable children to listen to directions, pay attention, solve disputes with words, and focus on tasks without constant supervision. 6 By contrast, a recent trial of an early mathematics intervention in preschool showed almost no gains in math achievement in later elementary school. 7 Despite criticism from early childhood experts, the 2003 Head Start Act reauthorization ended the program evaluation of social emotional skills and was focused almost exclusively on preliteracy and premath skills. 8 The AAP report on school readiness includes an emphasis on the importance of whole child readiness (including social–emotional, attentional, and cognitive skills). 9 Without that emphasis, children’s ability to pay attention and behave appropriately in the classroom is disadvantaged.

The definition of play is elusive. However, there is a growing consensus that it is an activity that is intrinsically motivated, entails active engagement, and results in joyful discovery. Play is voluntary and often has no extrinsic goals; it is fun and often spontaneous. Children are often seen actively engaged in and passionately engrossed in play; this builds executive functioning skills and contributes to school readiness (bored children will not learn well). 10 Play often creates an imaginative private reality, contains elements of make believe, and is nonliteral.

Depending on the culture of the adults in their world, children learn different skills through play. Sociodramatic play is when children act out the roles of adulthood from having observed the activities of their elders. Extensive studies of animal play suggest that the function of play is to build a prosocial brain that can interact effectively with others. 11  

Play is fundamentally important for learning 21st century skills, such as problem solving, collaboration, and creativity, which require the executive functioning skills that are critical for adult success. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has enshrined the right to engage in play that is appropriate to the age of the child in Article 21. 12 In its 2012 exhibit “The Century of the Child: 1900–2000,” the Museum of Modern Art noted, “Play is to the 21st century what work was to industrialization. It demonstrates a way of knowing, doing, and creating value.” 13 Resnick 14 has described 4 guiding principles to support creative learning in children: projects, passion, peers, and play. Play is not just about having fun but about taking risks, experimenting, and testing boundaries. Pediatricians can be influential advocates by encouraging parents and child care providers to play with children and to allow children to have unstructured time to play as well as by encouraging educators to recognize playful learning as an important complement to didactic learning. Some studies 15 , – 18 note that the new information economy, as opposed to the older industrial 1, demands more innovation and less imitation, more creativity and less conformity. Research on children’s learning indicates that learning thrives when children are given some agency (control of their own actions) to play a role in their own learning. 19 The demands of today’s world require that the teaching methods of the past 2 centuries, such as memorization, be replaced by innovation, application, and transfer. 18  

Bruner et al 20 stressed the fact that play is typically buffered from real-life consequences. Play is part of our evolutionary heritage, occurs in a wide spectrum of species, is fundamental to health, and gives us opportunities to practice and hone the skills needed to live in a complex world. 21 Although play is present in a large swath of species within the animal kingdom, from invertebrates (such as the octopus, lizard, turtle, and honey bee) to mammals (such as rats, monkeys, and humans), 22 social play is more prominent in animals with a large neocortex. 23 Studies of animal behavior suggests that play provides animals and humans with skills that will help them with survival and reproduction. 24 Locomotor skills learned through rough-and-tumble play enables escape from predators. However, animals play even when it puts them at risk of predation. 25 It is also suggested that play teaches young animals what they can and cannot do at times when they are relatively free from the survival pressures of adult life. 26 Play and learning are inextricably linked. 27 A Russian psychologist recognized that learning occurs when children actively engage in practical activities within a supportive social context. The accumulation of new knowledge is built on previous learning, but the acquisition of new skills is facilitated by social and often playful interactions. He was interested in what he called the “zone of proximal development,” which consists of mastering skills that a child could not do alone but could be developed with minimal assistance. 28 Within the zone of proximal development, the “how” of learning occurs through a reiterative process called scaffolding, in which new skills are built on previous skills and are facilitated by a supportive social environment. The construct of scaffolding has been extrapolated to younger children. Consider how a social smile at 6 to 8 weeks of age invites cooing conversations, which leads to the reciprocal dance of social communication even before language emerges, followed by social referencing (the reading of a parent’s face for nonverbal emotional content). The balance between facilitating unstructured playtime for children and encouraging adult scaffolding of play will vary depending on the competing needs in individual families, but the “serve-and-return” aspect of play requires caregiver engagement. 29  

Early learning and play are fundamentally social activities 30 and fuel the development of language and thought. Early learning also combines playful discovery with the development of social–emotional skills. It has been demonstrated that children playing with toys act like scientists and learn by looking and listening to those around them. 15 , – 17 However, explicit instructions limit a child’s creativity; it is argued that we should let children learn through observation and active engagement rather than passive memorization or direct instruction. Preschool children do benefit from learning content, but programs have many more didactic components than they did 20 years ago. 31 Successful programs are those that encourage playful learning in which children are actively engaged in meaningful discovery. 32 To encourage learning, we need to talk to children, let them play, and let them watch what we do as we go about our everyday lives. These opportunities foster the development of executive functioning skills that are critically important for the development of 21st century skills, such as collaboration, problem solving, and creativity, according to the 2010 IBM’s Global CEO Study. 33  

Play has been categorized in a variety of ways, each with its own developmental sequence. 32 , 34  

This type of play occurs when an infant or child explores an object and learns about its properties. Object play progresses from early sensorimotor explorations, including the use of the mouth, to the use of symbolic objects (eg, when a child uses a banana as a telephone) for communication, language, and abstract thought.

This type of play progresses from pat-a-cake games in infants to the acquisition of foundational motor skills in toddlers 35 and the free play seen at school recess. The development of foundational motor skills in childhood is essential to promoting an active lifestyle and the prevention of obesity. 36 , – 39 Learning to cooperate and negotiate promotes critical social skills. Extrapolation from animal data suggests that guided competition in the guise of rough-and-tumble play allows all participants to occasionally win and learn how to lose graciously. 40 Rough-and-tumble play, which is akin to the play seen in animals, enables children to take risks in a relatively safe environment, which fosters the acquisition of skills needed for communication, negotiation, and emotional balance and encourages the development of emotional intelligence. It enables risk taking and encourages the development of empathy because children are guided not to inflict harm on others. 25 , 30 , 40 The United Kingdom has modified its guidelines on play, arguing that the culture has gone too far by leaching healthy risks out of childhood: new guidelines on play by the national commission state, “The goal is not to eliminate risk.” 41  

Outdoor play provides the opportunity to improve sensory integration skills. 36 , 37 , 39 These activities involve the child as an active participant and address motor, cognitive, social, and linguistic domains. Viewed in this light, school recess becomes an essential part of a child’s day. 42 It is not surprising that countries that offer more recess to young children see greater academic success among the children as they mature. 42 , 43 Supporting and implementing recess not only sends a message that exercise is fundamentally important for physical health but likely brings together children from diverse backgrounds to develop friendships as they learn and grow. 42  

This type of play occurs when children experiment with different social roles in a nonliteral fashion. Play with other children enables them to negotiate “the rules” and learn to cooperate. Play with adults often involves scaffolding, as when an adult rotates a puzzle to help the child place a piece. Smiling and vocal attunement, in which infants learn turn taking, is the earliest example of social play. Older children can develop games and activities through which they negotiate relationships and guidelines with other players. Dress up, make believe, and imaginary play encourage the use of more sophisticated language to communicate with playmates and develop common rule-bound scenarios (eg, “You be the teacher, and I will be the student”).

Play has also been grouped as self-directed versus adult guided. Self-directed play, or free play, is crucial to children’s exploration of the world and understanding of their preferences and interests. 19 , 32 , 44 Guided play retains the child agency, such that the child initiates the play, but it occurs either in a setting that an adult carefully constructs with a learning goal in mind (eg, a children’s museum exhibit or a Montessori task) or in an environment where adults supplement the child-led exploration with questions or comments that subtly guide the child toward a goal. Board games that have well-defined goals also fit into this category. 45 For example, if teachers want children to improve executive functioning skills (see the “Tools of the Mind” curriculum), 46 they could create drum-circle games, in which children coregulate their behavior. Familiar games such as “Simon Says” or “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” ask children to control their individual actions or impulses and have been shown to improve executive functioning skills. 47 Guided play has been defined as a child-led, joyful activity in which adults craft the environment to optimize learning. 4 , 48 This approach harkens back to Vygotsky 28 and the zone of proximal development, which represents the skills that children are unable to master on their own but are able to master in the context of a safe, stable, and nurturing relationship with an adult. The guidance and dialogue provided by the adult allow the child to master skills that would take longer to master alone and help children focus on the elements of the activity to guide learning. One way to think about guided play is as “constrained tinkering.” 14 , 48 This logic also characterizes Italy’s Emilio Reggio approach, which emphasizes the importance of teaching children to listen and look.

According to Vygotsky, 28 the most efficient learning occurs in a social context, where learning is scaffolded by the teacher into meaningful contexts that resonate with children’s active engagement and previous experiences. Scaffolding is a part of guided play; caregivers are needed to provide the appropriate amount of input and guidance for children to develop optimal skills.

How does play develop? Play progresses from social smiling to reciprocal serve-and-return interactions; the development of babbling; games, such as “peek-a-boo”; hopping, jumping, skipping, and running; and fantasy or rough-and-tumble play. The human infant is born immature compared with infants of other species, with substantial brain development occurring after birth. Infants are entirely dependent on parents to regulate sleep–wake rhythms, feeding cycles, and many social interactions. Play facilitates the progression from dependence to independence and from parental regulation to self-regulation. It promotes a sense of agency in the child. This evolution begins in the first 3 months of life, when parents (both mothers and fathers) interact reciprocally with their infants by reading their nonverbal cues in a responsive, contingent manner. 49 Caregiver–infant interaction is the earliest form of play, known as attunement, 50 but it is quickly followed by other activities that also involve the taking of turns. These serve-and-return behaviors promote self-regulation and impulse control in children and form a strong foundation for understanding their interaction with adults. The back-and-forth episodes also feed into the development of language.

Reciprocal games occur with both mothers and fathers 51 and often begin in earnest with the emergence of social smiles at 6 weeks of age. Parents mimic their infant’s “ooh” and “ah” in back-and-forth verbal games, which progress into conversations in which the parents utter pleasantries (“Oh, you had a good lunch!”), and the child responds by vocalizing back. Uncontrollable crying as a response to stress in a 1-year-old is replaced as the child reaches 2 to 3 years of age with the use of words to self-soothe, building on caregivers scaffolding their emotional responses. Already by 6 months of age, the introduction of solid foods requires the giving and receiving of reciprocal signals and communicative cues. During these activities, analyses of physiologic heart rate rhythms of infants with both their mothers and fathers have shown synchrony. 49 , 52  

By 9 months of age, mutual regulation is manifested in the way infants use their parents for social referencing. 53 , 54 In the classic visual cliff experiment, it was demonstrated that an infant will crawl across a Plexiglas dropoff to explore if the mother encourages the infant but not if she frowns. Nonverbal communication slowly leads to formal verbal language skills through which emotions such as happiness, sadness, and anger are identified for the child via words. Uncontrollable crying in the 1-year-old then becomes whining in the 2-year-old and verbal requests for assistance in the 3-year-old as parents scaffold the child’s emotional responses and help him or her develop alternative, more adaptive behaviors. Repetitive games, such as peek-a-boo and “this little piggy,” offer children the joy of being able to predict what is about to happen, and these games also enhance the infants’ ability to solicit social stimulation.

By 12 months of age, a child’s experiences are helping to lay the foundation for the ongoing development of social skills. The expression of true joy and mastery on children’s faces when they take their first step is truly a magical moment that all parents remember. Infant memory, in Piagetian terms, develops as infants develop object permanence through visible and invisible displacements, such as repetitive games like peek-a-boo. With the advent of locomotor skills, rough-and-tumble play becomes increasingly available. During the second year, toddlers learn to explore their world, develop the beginnings of self-awareness, and use their parents as a home base (secure attachment), frequently checking to be sure that the world they are exploring is safe. 55 As children become independent, their ability to socially self-regulate becomes apparent: they can focus their attention and solve problems efficiently, they are less impulsive, and they can better manage the stress of strong emotions. 56 With increased executive functioning skills, they can begin to reflect on how they should respond to a situation rather than reacting impulsively. With the development of language and symbolic functioning, pretend play now becomes more prominent. 57 Fantasy play, dress up, and fort building now join the emotional and social repertoire of older children just as playground activities, tag, and hide and seek develop motor skills. In play, children are also solving problems and learning to focus attention, all of which promote the growth of executive functioning skills.

Play is not frivolous; it is brain building. Play has been shown to have both direct and indirect effects on brain structure and functioning. Play leads to changes at the molecular (epigenetic), cellular (neuronal connectivity), and behavioral levels (socioemotional and executive functioning skills) that promote learning and adaptive and/or prosocial behavior. Most of this research on brain structure and functioning has been done with rats and cannot be directly extrapolated to humans.

Jaak Panksepp, 11 a neuroscientist and psychologist who has extensively studied the neurologic basis of emotion in animals, suggests that play is 1 of 7 innate emotional systems in the midbrain. 58 Rats love rough-and-tumble play and produce a distinctive sound that Panksepp labeled “rat laughter.” 42 , 59 , – 64 When rats are young, play appears to initiate lasting changes in areas of the brain that are used for thinking and processing social interaction.

The dendritic length, complexity, and spine density of the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) are refined by play. 64 , – 67 The brain-derived neurotrophic factor ( BDNF ) is a member of the neurotrophin family of growth factors that acts to support the survival of existing neurons and encourage the growth and differentiation of new neurons and synapses. It is known to be important for long-term memory and social learning. Play stimulates the production of BDNF in RNA in the amygdala, dorsolateral frontal cortex, hippocampus, and pons. 65 , 68 , – 70 Gene expression analyses indicate that the activities of approximately one-third of the 1200 genes in the frontal and posterior cortical regions were significantly modified by play within an hour after a 30-minute play session. 69 , 70 The gene that showed the largest effect was BDNF . Conversely, rat pup adversity, depression, and stress appear to result in the methylation and downregulation of the BDNF gene in the PFC. 71  

Two hours per day of play with objects predicted changes in brain weight and efficiency in experimental animals. 11 , 66 Rats that were deprived of play as pups (kept in sparse cages devoid of toys) not only were less competent at problem solving later on (negotiating mazes) but the medial PFC of the play-deprived rats was significantly more immature, suggesting that play deprivation interfered with the process of synaptogenesis and pruning. 72 Rat pups that were isolated during peak play periods after birth (weeks 4 and 5) are much less socially active when they encounter other rats later in life. 73 , 74  

Play-deprived rats also showed impaired problem-solving skills, suggesting that through play, animals learn to try new things and develop behavioral flexibility. 73 Socially reared rats with damage to their PFC mimic the social deficiencies of rats with intact brains but who were deprived of play as juveniles. 66 The absence of the play experience leads to anatomically measurable changes in the neurons of the PFC. By refining the functional organization of the PFC, play enhances the executive functioning skills derived from this part of the brain. 66 Whether these effects are specific to play deprivation or merely reflect the generic effect of a lack of stimulation requires further study. Rats that were raised in experimental toy-filled cages had bigger brains and thicker cerebral cortices and completed mazes more quickly. 67 , 75  

Brain neurotransmitters, such as dopamine made by cells in the substantia nigra and ventral tegmentum, are also related to the reward quality of play: drugs that activate dopamine receptors increase play behavior in rats. 76  

Play and stress are closely linked. High amounts of play are associated with low levels of cortisol, suggesting either that play reduces stress or that unstressed animals play more. 23 Play also activates norepinephrine, which facilitates learning at synapses and improves brain plasticity. Play, especially when accompanied by nurturing caregiving, may indirectly affect brain functioning by modulating or buffering adversity and by reducing toxic stress to levels that are more compatible with coping and resilience. 77 , 78  

In human children, play usually enhances curiosity, which facilitates memory and learning. During states of high curiosity, functional MRI results showed enhanced activity in healthy humans in their early 20s in the midbrain and nucleus accumbens and functional connectivity to the hippocampus, which solidifies connections between intrinsic motivation and hippocampus-dependent learning. 79 Play helps children deal with stress, such as life transitions. When 3- to 4-year-old children who were anxious about entering preschool were randomly assigned to play with toys or peers for 15 minutes compared with listening to a teacher reading a story, the play group showed a twofold decrease in anxiety after the intervention. 24 , 80 In another study, preschool children with disruptive behavior who engaged with teachers in a yearlong 1-to-1 play session designed to foster warm, caring relationships (allowing children to lead, narrating the children’s behavior out loud, and discussing the children’s emotions as they played) showed reduced salivary cortisol stress levels during the day and improved behavior compared with children in the control group. 81 The notable exception is with increased stress experienced by children with autism spectrum disorders in new or social circumstances. 82 Animal studies suggest the role of play as a social buffer. Rats that were previously induced to be anxious became relaxed and calm after rough-and-tumble play with a nonanxious playful rat. 83 Extrapolating from these animal studies, one can suggest that play may serve as an effective buffer for toxic stress.

The benefits of play are extensive and well documented and include improvements in executive functioning, language, early math skills (numerosity and spatial concepts), social development, peer relations, physical development and health, and enhanced sense of agency. 13 , 32 , 56 , 57 , 84 , – 88 The opposite is also likely true; Panksepp 89 suggested that play deprivation is associated with the increasing prevalence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. 90  

Executive functioning, which is described as the process of how we learn over the content of what we learn, is a core benefit of play and can be characterized by 3 dimensions: cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory. Collectively, these dimensions allow for sustained attention, the filtering of distracting details, improved self-regulation and self-control, better problem solving, and mental flexibility. Executive functioning helps children switch gears and transition from drawing with crayons to getting dressed for school. The development of the PFC and executive functioning balances and moderates the impulsiveness, emotionality, and aggression of the amygdala. In the presence of childhood adversity, the role of play becomes even more important in that the mutual joy and shared attunement that parents and children can experience during play downregulates the body’s stress response. 91 , – 94 Hence, play may be an effective antidote to the changes in amygdala size, impulsivity, aggression, and uncontrolled emotion that result from significant childhood adversity and toxic stress. Future research is needed to clarify this association.

Opportunities for peer engagement through play cultivate the ability to negotiate. Peer play usually involves problem solving about the rules of the game, which requires negotiation and cooperation. Through these encounters, children learn to use more sophisticated language when playing with peers. 95 , 96  

Play in a variety of forms (active physical play, pretend play, and play with traditional toys and shape sorters [rather than digital toys]) improves children’s skills. When children were given blocks to play with at home with minimal adult direction, preschool children showed improvements in language acquisition at a 6-month follow-up, particularly low-income children. The authors suggest that the benefits of Reach Out and Play may promote development just as Reach Out and Read does. 97 When playing with objects under minimal adult direction, preschool children named an average of 3 times as many nonstandard uses for an object compared with children who were given specific instructions. 98 In Jamaica, toddlers with growth retardation who were given weekly play sessions to improve mother–child interactions for 2 years were followed to adulthood and showed better educational attainment, less depression, and less violent behavior. 3  

Children who were in active play for 1 hour per day were better able to think creatively and multitask. 22 Randomized trials of physical play in 7- to 9-year-olds revealed enhanced attentional inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and brain functioning that were indicative of enhanced executive control. 99 Play with traditional toys was associated with an increased quality and quantity of language compared with play with electronic toys, 100 particularly if the video toys did not encourage interaction. 101 Indeed, it has been shown that play with digital shape sorters rather than traditional shape sorters stunted the parent’s use of spatial language. 102 Pretend play encourages self-regulation because children must collaborate on the imaginary environment and agree about pretending and conforming to roles, which improves their ability to reason about hypothetical events. 56 , 57 , 103 , – 105 Social–emotional skills are increasingly viewed as related to academic and economic success. 106 Third-grade prosocial behavior correlated with eighth-grade reading and math better than with third-grade reading and math. 17 , 107  

The health benefits of play involving physical activity are many. Exercise not only promotes healthy weight and cardiovascular fitness but also can enhance the efficacy of the immune, endocrine, and cardiovascular systems. 37 Outdoor playtime for children in Head Start programs has been associated with decreased BMI. 39 Physical activity is associated with decreases in concurrent depressive symptoms. 108 Play decreases stress, fatigue, injury, and depression and increases range of motion, agility, coordination, balance, and flexibility. 109 Children pay more attention to class lessons after free play at recess than they do after physical education programs, which are more structured. 43 Perhaps they are more active during free play.

Play also reflects and transmits cultural values. In fact, recess began in the United States as a way to socially integrate immigrant children. Parents in the United States encourage children to play with toys and/or objects alone, which is typical of communities that emphasize the development of independence. Conversely, in Japan, peer social play with dolls is encouraged, which is typical of cultures that emphasize interdependence. 110  

Playing with children adds value not only for children but also for adult caregivers, who can reexperience or reawaken the joy of their own childhood and rejuvenate themselves. Through play and rereading their favorite childhood books, parents learn to see the world from their child’s perspective and are likely to communicate more effectively with their child, even appreciating and sharing their child’s sense of humor and individuality. Play enables children and adults to be passionately and totally immersed in an activity of their choice and to experience intense joy, much as athletes do when they are engaging in their optimal performance. Discovering their true passions is another critical strategy for helping both children and adults cope with adversity. One study documented that positive parenting activities, such as playing and shared reading, result in decreases in parental experiences of stress and enhancement in the parent–child relationship, and these effects mediate relations between the activities and social–emotional development. 111 , – 113  

Most importantly, play is an opportunity for parents to engage with their children by observing and understanding nonverbal behavior in young infants, participating in serve-andreturn exchanges, or sharing the joy and witnessing the blossoming of the passions in each of their children.

Play not only provides opportunities for fostering children’s curiosity, 14 self-regulation skills, 46 language development, and imagination but also promotes the dyadic reciprocal interactions between children and parents, which is a crucial element of healthy relationships. 114 Through the buffering capacity of caregivers, play can serve as an antidote to toxic stress, allowing the physiologic stress response to return to baseline. 77 Adult success in later life can be related to the experience of childhood play that cultivated creativity, problem solving, teamwork, flexibility, and innovations. 18 , 52 , 115  

Successful scaffolding (new skills built on previous skills facilitated by a supportive social environment) can be contrasted with interactions in which adults direct children’s play. It has been shown that if a caregiver instructs a child in how a toy works, the child is less likely to discover other attributes of the toy in contrast to a child being left to explore the toy without direct input. 38 , 116 , – 118 Adults who facilitate a child’s play without being intrusive can encourage the child’s independent exploration and learning.

Scaffolding play activities facilitated by adults enable children to work in groups: to share, negotiate, develop decision-making and problem-solving skills, and discover their own interests. Children learn to resolve conflicts and develop self-advocacy skills and their own sense of agency. The false dichotomy between play versus formal learning is now being challenged by educational reformers who acknowledge the value of playful learning or guided play, which captures the strengths of both approaches and may be essential to improving executive functioning. 18 , 19 , 34 , 119 Hirsh-Pasek et al 34 report a similar finding: children have been shown to discover causal mechanisms more quickly when they drive their learning as opposed to when adults display solutions for them.

Executive functioning skills are foundational for school readiness and academic success, mandating a frame shift with regard to early education. The goal today is to support interventions that cultivate a range of skills, such as executive functioning, in all children so that the children enter preschool and kindergarten curious and knowing how to learn. Kindergarten should provide children with an opportunity for playful collaboration and tinkering, 14 a different approach from the model that promotes more exclusive didactic learning at the expense of playful learning. The emerging alternative model is to prevent toxic stress and build resilience by developing executive functioning skills. Ideally, we want to protect the brain to enable it to learn new skills, and we want to focus on learning those skills that will be used to buffer the brain from any future adversity. 18 The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University offers an online resource on play and executive functioning with specific activities suggested for parents and children ( http://developingchild.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Enhancing-and-Practicing-Executive-Function-Skills-with-Children-from-Infancy-to-Adolescence-1.pdf ). 120  

Specific curricula have now been developed and tested in preschools to help children develop executive functioning skills. Many innovative programs are using either the Reggio Emilia philosophy or curricula such as Tools of the Mind (developed in California) 121 or Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies–Preschool and/or Kindergarten. 122 Caregivers need to provide the appropriate amount of input and guidance for children to develop optimal problem-solving skills through guided play and scaffolding. Optimal learning can be depicted by a bell-shaped curve, which illustrates the optimal zone of arousal and stress for complex learning. 123  

Scaffolding is extensively used to support skills such as buddy reading, in which children take turns being lips and ears and learn to read and listen to each other as an example of guided play. A growing body of research shows that this curriculum not only improves executive functioning skills but also shows improvement in brain functioning on functional MRI. 6 , 124 , – 126  

Focusing on cultivating executive functioning and other skills through playful learning in these early years is an alternative and innovative way of thinking about early childhood education. Instead of focusing solely on academic skills, such as reciting the alphabet, early literacy, using flash cards, engaging with computer toys, and teaching to tests (which has been overemphasized to promote improved test results), cultivating the joy of learning through play is likely to better encourage long-term academic success. Collaboration, negotiation, conflict resolution, self-advocacy, decision-making, a sense of agency, creativity, leadership, and increased physical activity are just some of the skills and benefits children gain through play.

For many families, there are risks in the current focus only on achievement, after-school enrichment programs, increased homework, concerns about test performance, and college acceptance. The stressful effects of this approach often result in the later development of anxiety and depression and a lack of creativity. Parental guilt has led to competition over who can schedule more “enrichment opportunities” for their children. As a result, there is little time left in the day for children’s free play, for parental reading to children, or for family meal times. Many schools have cut recess, physical education, art, and music to focus on preparing children for tests. Unsafe local neighborhoods and playgrounds have led to nature deficit disorder for many children. 127 A national survey of 8950 preschool children and parents found that only 51% of children went outside to walk or play once per day with either parent. 128 In part, this may reflect the local environment: 94% of parents have expressed safety concerns about outdoor play, and access may be limited. Only 20% of homes are located within a half-mile of a park. 129 , 130 Cultural changes have also jeopardized the opportunities children have to play. From 1981 to 1997, children’s playtime decreased by 25%. Children 3 to 11 years of age have lost 12 hours per week of free time. Because of increased academic pressure, 30% of US kindergarten children no longer have recess. 42 , 129 An innovative program begun in Philadelphia is using cities (on everyday walks and in everyday neighborhoods) as opportunities for creating learning landscapes that provide opportunities for parents and children to spark conversation and playful learning. 131 , 132 For example, Ridge et al 132 have placed conversational prompts throughout supermarkets and laundromats to promote language and lights at bus stops to project designs on the ground, enabling children to play a game of hopscotch that is specifically designed to foster impulse control. By promoting the learning of social and emotional skills, the development of emotional intelligence, and the enjoyment of active learning, protected time for free play and guided play can be used to help children improve their social skills, literacy, and school readiness. Children can then enter school with a stronger foundation for attentional disposition based on the skills and attitudes that are critical for academic success and the long-term enjoyment of learning and love of school.

Media (eg, television, video games, and smartphone and tablet applications) use often encourages passivity and the consumption of others’ creativity rather than active learning and socially interactive play. Most importantly, immersion in electronic media takes away time from real play, either outdoors or indoors. Real learning happens better in person-to-person exchanges rather than machine-to-person interactions. Most parents are eager to do the right thing for their children. However, advertisers and the media can mislead parents about how to best support and encourage their children’s growth and development as well as creativity. Parent surveys have revealed that many parents see media and technology as the best way to help their children learn. 133 However, researchers contradict this. Researchers have compared preschoolers playing with blocks independently with preschoolers watching Baby Einstein tapes and have shown that the children playing with blocks independently developed better language and cognitive skills than their peers watching videos. 34 , 134 Although active engagement with age-appropriate media, especially if supported by cowatching or coplay with peers or parents, may have some benefits, 135 real-time social interactions remain superior to digital media for home learning. 136  

It is important for parents to understand that media use often does not support their goals of encouraging curiosity and learning for their children. 137 , – 141 Despite research that reveals an association between television watching and a sedentary lifestyle and greater risks of obesity, the typical preschooler watches 4.5 hours of television per day, which displaces conversation with parents and the practice of joint attention (focus by the parent and child on a common object) as well as physical activity. For economically challenged families, competing pressures make it harder for parents to find the time to play with children. Encouraging outdoor exercise may be more difficult for such families given unsafe playgrounds. Easy access to electronic media can be difficult for parents to compete with.

In the 2015 symposium, 137 the AAP clarified recommendations acknowledging the ubiquity and transformation of media from primarily television to other modalities, including video chatting. In 2016, the AAP published 2 new policies on digital media affecting young children, school-aged children, and adolescents. These policies included recommendations for parents, pediatricians, and researchers to promote healthy media use. 139 , 140 The AAP has also launched a Family Media Use Plan to help parents and families create healthy guidelines for their children’s media use so as to avoid displacing activities such as active play, and guidelines can also be found on the HealthyChildren.org and Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.org) Web sites.

There are barriers to encouraging play. Our culture is preoccupied with marketing products to young children. 142 Parents of young children who cannot afford expensive toys may feel left out. 143 Parents who can afford expensive toys and electronic devices may think that allowing their children unfettered access to these objects is healthy and promotes learning. The reality is that children’s creativity and play is enhanced by many inexpensive toys (eg, wooden spoons, blocks, balls, puzzles, crayons, boxes, and simple available household objects) and by parents who engage with their children by reading, watching, playing alongside their children, and talking with and listening to their children. It is parents’ and caregivers’ presence and attention that enrich children, not elaborate electronic gadgets. One-on-one play is a time-tested way of being fully present. Low-income families may have less time to play with their children while working long hours to provide for their families, but a warm caregiver or extended family as well as a dynamic community program can help support parents’ efforts. 144 The importance of playtime with children cannot be overemphasized to parents as well as schools and community organizations. Many children do not have safe places to play. 145 Neighborhood threats, such as violence, guns, drugs, and traffic, pose safety concerns in many neighborhoods, particularly low-income areas. Children in low-income, urban neighborhoods also may have less access to quality public spaces and recreational facilities in their communities. 145 Parents who feel that their neighborhoods are unsafe may also not permit their children to play outdoors or independently.

Public health professionals are increasingly partnering with other sectors, such as parks and recreation, public safety, and community development, to advocate for safe play environments in all communities. This includes efforts to reduce community violence, improve physical neighborhood infrastructure, and support planning and design decisions that foster safe, clean, and accessible public spaces.

Pediatricians can advocate for the importance of all forms of play as well as for the role of play in the development of executive functioning, emotional intelligence, and social skills ( Table 1 ). Pediatricians have a critical role to play in protecting the integrity of childhood by advocating for all children to have the opportunity to express their innate curiosity in the world and their great capacity for imagination. For children with special needs, it is especially important to create safe opportunities for play. A children’s museum may offer special mornings when it is open only to children with special needs. Extra staffing enables these children and their siblings to play in a safe environment because they may not be able to participate during crowded routine hours.

Recommendations From Pediatricians to Parents

Adapted from pathways.org ( https://pathways.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/PlayBrochure_English_LEGAL_FOR-PRINT_2022.pdf ).

The AAP recommends that pediatricians:

Encourage parents to observe and respond to the nonverbal behavior of infants during their first few months of life (eg, responding to their children’s emerging social smile) to help them better understand this unique form of communication. For example, encouraging parents to recognize their children’s emerging social smile and to respond with a smile of their own is a form of play that also teaches the infants a critical social–emotional skill: “You can get my attention and a smile from me anytime you want just by smiling yourself.” By encouraging parents to observe the behavior of their children, pediatricians create opportunities to engage parents in discussions that are nonjudgmental and free from criticism (because they are grounded in the parents’ own observations and interpretations of how to promote early learning);

Advocate for the protection of children’s unstructured playtime because of its numerous benefits, including the development of foundational motor skills that may have lifelong benefits for the prevention of obesity, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes;

Advocate with preschool educators to do the following: focus on playful rather than didactic learning by letting children take the lead and follow their own curiosity; put a premium on building social–emotional and executive functioning skills throughout the school year; and protect time for recess and physical activity;

Emphasize the importance of playful learning in preschool curricula for fostering stronger caregiver–infant relationships and promoting executive functioning skills. Communicating this message to policy makers, legislators, and educational administrators as well as the broader public is equally important; and

Just as pediatricians support Reach Out and Read, encourage playful learning for parents and infants by writing a “prescription for play” at every well-child visit in the first 2 years of life.

A recent randomized controlled trial of the Video Interaction Project (an enhancement of Reach Out and Read) has demonstrated that the promotion of reading and play during pediatric visits leads to enhancements in social–emotional development. 112 In today’s world, many parents do not appreciate the importance of free play or guided play with their children and have come to think of worksheets and other highly structured activities as play. 146 Although many parents feel that they do not have time to play with their children, pediatricians can help parents understand that playful learning moments are everywhere, and even daily chores alongside parents can be turned into playful opportunities, especially if the children are actively interacting with parents and imitating chores. Young children typically seek more attention from parents. 46 Active play stimulates children’s curiosity and helps them develop the physical and social skills needed for school and later life. 32  

Cultural shifts, including less parent engagement because of parents working full-time, fewer safe places to play, and more digital distractions, have limited the opportunities for children to play. These factors may negatively affect school readiness, children’s healthy adjustment, and the development of important executive functioning skills;

Play is intrinsically motivated and leads to active engagement and joyful discovery. Although free play and recess need to remain integral aspects of a child’s day, the essential components of play can also be learned and adopted by parents, teachers, and other caregivers to promote healthy child development and enhance learning;

The optimal educational model for learning is for the teacher to engage the student in activities that promote skills within that child’s zone of proximal development, which is best accomplished through dialogue and guidance, not via drills and passive rote learning. There is a current debate, particularly about preschool curricula, between an emphasis on content and attempts to build skills by introducing seat work earlier versus seeking to encourage active engagement in learning through play. With our understanding of early brain development, we suggest that learning is better fueled by facilitating the child’s intrinsic motivation through play rather than extrinsic motivations, such as test scores;

An alternative model for learning is for teachers to develop a safe, stable, and nurturing relationship with the child to decrease stress, increase motivation, and ensure receptivity to activities that promote skills within each child’s zone of proximal development. The emphasis in this preventive and developmental model is to promote resilience in the presence of adversity by enhancing executive functioning skills with free play and guided play;

Play provides ample opportunities for adults to scaffold the foundational motor, social–emotional, language, executive functioning, math, and self-regulation skills needed to be successful in an increasingly complex and collaborative world. Play helps to build the skills required for our changing world; and

Play provides a singular opportunity to build the executive functioning that underlies adaptive behaviors at home; improve language and math skills in school; build the safe, stable, and nurturing relationships that buffer against toxic stress; and build social–emotional resilience.

For more information, see Kearney et al’s Using Joyful Activity To Build Resiliency in Children in Response to Toxic Stress . 147  

American Academy of Pediatrics

brain-derived neurotrophic factor

prefrontal cortex

Dr Yogman prepared the first draft of this report and took the lead in reconciling the numerous edits, contributions, and suggestions from the other authors; Drs Garner, Hutchinson, Hirsh-Pasek, and Golinkoff made significant contributions to the manuscript by revising multiple drafts and responding to all reviewer concerns; and all authors approved the final manuscript as submitted.

The opinions and assertions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Uniformed Services University or the Department of Defense.

FUNDING: No external funding.

This document is copyrighted and is property of the American Academy of Pediatrics and its Board of Directors. All authors have filed conflict of interest statements with the American Academy of Pediatrics. Any conflicts have been resolved through a process approved by the Board of Directors. The American Academy of Pediatrics has neither solicited nor accepted any commercial involvement in the development of the content of this publication.

Clinical reports from the American Academy of Pediatrics benefit from expertise and resources of liaisons and internal (AAP) and external reviewers. However, clinical reports from the American Academy of Pediatrics may not reflect the views of the liaisons or the organizations or government agencies that they represent.

The guidance in this report does not indicate an exclusive course of treatment or serve as a standard of medical care. Variations, taking into account individual circumstances, may be appropriate.

All clinical reports from the American Academy of Pediatrics automatically expire 5 years after publication unless reaffirmed, revised, or retired at or before that time.

Michael Yogman, MD, FAAP

Andrew Garner, MD, PhD, FAAP

Jeffrey Hutchinson, MD, FAAP

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, PhD

Roberta Golinkoff, PhD

Virginia Keane, MD, FAAP

Michael Yogman, MD, FAAP, Chairperson

Rebecca Baum, MD, FAAP

Thresia Gambon, MD, FAAP

Arthur Lavin, MD, FAAP

Gerri Mattson, MD, FAAP

Lawrence Wissow, MD, MPH, FAAP

Sharon Berry, PhD, LP – Society of Pediatric Psychology

Amy Starin, PhD, LCSW – National Association of Social Workers

Edward Christophersen, PhD, FAAP – Society of Pediatric Psychology

Norah Johnson, PhD, RN, CPNP-BC – National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners

Abigail Schlesinger, MD – American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Karen S. Smith

David L Hill, MD, FAAP, Chairperson

Nusheen Ameenuddin, MD, MPH, FAAP

Yolanda (Linda) Reid Chassiakos, MD, FAAP

Corinn Cross, MD, FAAP

Rhea Boyd, MD, FAAP

Robert Mendelson, MD, FAAP

Megan A Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH, FAAP

Jenny Radesky, MD, FAAP

Wendy Sue Swanson, MD, MBE, FAAP

Justin Smith, MD, FAAP

Kristopher Kaliebe, MD – American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Jennifer Pomeranz, JD, MPH – American Public Health Association Health Law Special Interest Group

Brian Wilcox, PhD – American Psychological Association

Thomas McPheron

Competing Interests

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Principles of Child Development and Learning and Implications That Inform Practice

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NAEYC’s guidelines and recommendations for developmentally appropriate practice are based on the following nine principles and their implications for early childhood education professional practice. These principles reflect an extensive research base that is only partially referenced here. 13  Because these principles are interrelated, this linear list does not fully represent their overall complexity.

Development and learning are dynamic processes that reflect the complex interplay between a child’s biological characteristics and the environment, each shaping the other as well as future patterns of growth.

Advances in neuroscience over the last two decades have provided new insights regarding the processes of early brain development and their long-term implications for development and learning. The findings provide robust evidence supporting the importance of high-quality early learning experiences for young children for promoting children’s lifelong success.

Neural connections in the brain—which are the basis for all thought, communication, and learning—are established most rapidly in early childhood. 14  The processes of forming new neural connections and pruning the neural connections that are not used continue throughout a person’s lifespan but are most consequential in the first three years. 15  When adults are sensitive and respond to an infant’s babble, cry, or gesture, they directly support the development of neural connections that lay the foundation for children’s communication and social skills, including self-regulation. These “serve and return” interactions shape the brain’s architecture. 16  They also help educators and others “tune in” to the infant and better respond to the infant’s wants and needs.

The interplay of biology and environment, present at birth, continues through the preschool years and primary grades (kindergarten through grade 3). This has particular implications for children who experience adversity. In infancy, for example, a persistent lack of responsive care results in the infant experiencing chronic stress that may negatively impact brain development and may delay or impair the development of essential systems and abilities, including thinking, learning, and memory, as well as the immune system and the ability to cope with stress. 17  Living in persistent poverty can also generate chronic stress that negatively affects the development of brain areas associated with cognitive and self-regulatory functions. 18

No group is monolithic, and data specific to communities provides a deeper understanding of children’s experiences and outcomes. It is important to recognize that although children of all races and ethnicities experience poverty and other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), Black and Latino/a children, as well as children in refugee and immigrant families, children in some Asian-American families, and children in Native American families, have been found to be more likely to experience ACEs than White non-Latino/a and other Asian-American populations of children, 19  reflecting a history of systemic inequities. 20  Moreover, racism itself must be recognized not only for its immediate and obvious impacts on children, but also for its long-term negative impacts, in which the repetitive trauma created by racism can predispose individuals to chronic disease. 21  It should be noted that these stressors and trauma affect adults as well as children, including family members and early childhood educators themselves, who, despite their skills and importance, often earn wages that place them into poverty.

Some children appear to be more susceptible than others to the effects of environmental influence—both positive and negative—reflecting individual differences at play. For children facing adverse circumstances, including trauma, the buffering effects of caring, consistent relationships—with family and other community members but also in high-quality early childhood programs—are also important to note. 22  This emerging science emphasizes the critical importance of early childhood educators in providing consistent, responsive, sensitive care and education to promote children’s development and learning across the full birth-through-8 age span. The negative impacts of chronic stress and other adverse experiences can be overcome. High-quality early childhood education contributes substantially to children’s resilience and healthy development.

All domains of child development—physical development, cognitive development, social and emotional development, and linguistic development (including bilingual or multilingual development), as well as approaches to learning—are important; each domain both supports and is supported by the others.

Early childhood educators are responsible for fostering children’s development and learning in all these domains as well as in general learning competencies and executive functioning, which include attention, working memory, self-regulation, reasoning, problem solving, and approaches to learning. There is considerable overlap and interaction across these domains and competencies. For example, sound nutrition, physical activity, and sufficient sleep all promote children’s abilities to engage in social interactions that, in turn, stimulate cognitive growth. Children who experience predictable, responsive relationships and responsive interactions with adults also tend to demonstrate improved general learning competencies and executive functioning. 23

Changes in one domain often impact other areas and highlight each area’s importance. For example, as children begin to crawl or walk, they gain new possibilities for exploring the world. This mobility in turn affects both their cognitive development and their ability to satisfy their curiosity, underscoring the importance of adaptations for children with disabilities that limit their mobility. Likewise, language development influences a child’s ability to participate in social interaction with adults and other children; such interactions, in turn, support further language development as well as further social, emotional, and cognitive development. Science is clear that children can learn multiple languages as easily as one, given adequate exposure and practice, and this process brings cognitive advantages. 24  In groups in which children speak different home languages, educators may not be able to speak each language, but they can value and support maintaining all languages. 25

A growing body of work demonstrates relationships between social, emotional, executive function, and cognitive competencies 26  as well as the importance of movement and physical activity. 27  These areas of learning are mutually reinforcing and all are critical in educating young children across birth through age 8. Intentional teaching strategies, including, and particularly, play (both self-directed and guided), address each domain. Kindergartens and grades 1-3 tend to be considered elementary or primary education, and, as such, may have increasingly prioritized cognitive learning at the expense of physical, social, emotional, and linguistic development. But integrating cognitive, emotional, social, interpersonal skills and self-regulatory competencies better prepares children for more challenging academic content and learning experiences. 28  In brief, the knowledge base documents the importance of a comprehensive curriculum and the interrelatedness of the developmental domains for all young children’s well-being and success.

Play promotes joyful learning that fosters self-regulation, language, cognitive and social competencies as well as content knowledge across disciplines. Play is essential for all children, birth through age 8.

Play (e.g., self-directed, guided, solitary, parallel, social, cooperative, onlooker, object, fantasy, physical, constructive, and games with rules) is the central teaching practice that facilitates young children’s development and learning. Play develops young children’s symbolic and imaginative thinking, peer relationships, language (English and/or additional languages), physical development, and problem-solving skills. All young children need daily, sustained opportunities for play, both indoors and outdoors. Play helps children develop large-motor and fine-motor physical competence, explore and make sense of their world, interact with others, express and control their emotions, develop symbolic and problem-solving abilities, and practice emerging skills. Consistently, studies find clear links between play and foundational capacities such as working memory, self-regulation, oral language abilities, social skills, and success in school. 29

Indeed, play embodies the characteristics of effective development and learning described in principles 4 and 5—active, meaningful engagement driven by children’s choices. Researchers studying the pedagogy of play have identified three key components: choice (the children’s decisions to engage in play, as well as decisions about its direction and its continuation), wonder (children’s continued engagement as they explore, gather information, test hypotheses, and make meaning), and delight (the joy and laughter associated with the pleasure of the activity, making discoveries, and achieving new things). 30  Play also typically involves social interaction with peers and/or adults.

Although adults can be play partners (for example, playing peekaboo with an infant) or play facilitators (by making a suggestion to extend the activity in a certain way), the more that the adult directs an activity or interaction, the less likely it will be perceived as play by the child. When planning learning environments and activities, educators may find it helpful to consider a continuum ranging from children’s self-directed play to direct instruction. 31  Neither end of the continuum is effective by itself in creating a high-quality early childhood program. Effective, developmentally-appropriate practice does not mean simply letting children play in the absence of a planned learning environment, nor does it mean predominantly offering direct instruction. In the middle of the continuum is guided play. Educators create learning environments that reflect children’s interests; they provide sustained time and opportunities for children to engage in self-directed play (individually and in small groups). Educators also strategically make comments and suggestions and ask questions to help move children toward a learning goal, even as children continue to lead the activity. 32

Guided play gives educators opportunities to use children’s interests and creations to introduce new vocabulary and concepts, model complex language, and provide children with multiple opportunities to use words in context in children’s home languages as well as in English. These meaningful and engaging experiences help children—including those in kindergarten and the primary grades—build knowledge and vocabulary across subject areas and in purposeful contexts (which is more effective than memorization of word lists). 33

Despite evidence that supports the value of play, not all children are afforded the opportunity to play, a reality which disproportionately affects Black and Latino/a children. 34  Play is often viewed as being at odds with the demands of formal schooling, especially for children growing up in under-resourced communities. 35  In fact, the highly didactic, highly controlling curriculum found in many kindergarten and primary grades, with its narrow focus on test-focused skill development, is unlikely to be engaging or meaningful for children; it is also unlikely to build the broad knowledge and vocabulary needed for reading comprehension in later grades. Instead, the lesson children are likely to learn is that they are not valued thinkers or successful learners in school. For example, studies suggest that students who are taught math primarily through memorization and rote learning are more than a year behind those who have been taught by relating math concepts to their existing knowledge and reflecting on their own understanding. 36

Even if not called play, cross-curricular and collaborative approaches such as project-based learning, inquiry learning, or making and tinkering share characteristics of playful learning. 37  Giving children autonomy and agency in how they approach problems, make hypotheses, and explore potential solutions with others promotes deeper learning and improves executive functioning. 38  In sum, self-directed play, guided play, and playful learning, skillfully supported by early childhood educators, build academic language, deepen conceptual development, and support reflective and intentional approaches to learning—all of which add up to effective strategies for long-term success.

Although general progressions of development and learning can be identified, variations due to cultural contexts, experiences, and individual differences must also be considered.

A pervasive characteristic of development is that children’s functioning, including their play, becomes increasingly complex—in language, cognition, social interaction, physical movement, problem solving, and virtually every other aspect. Increased organization and memory capacity of the developing brain make it possible for children to combine simple routines into more complex strategies with age. 39  Despite these predictable changes in all domains, the ways that these changes are demonstrated and the meanings attached to them will vary in different cultural and linguistic contexts. For example, in some cultures, children may be encouraged to satisfy their growing curiosity by moving independently to explore the environment; in other cultures, children may be socialized to seek answers to queries within structured activities created for them by adults. 40  In addition, all children learn language through their social interactions, but there are important distinctions in the process for monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual children. 41  Rather than assuming that the process typical of monolingual children is the norm against which others ought to be judged, it is important for educators to recognize the differences as variations in strengths (rather than deficits) and to support them appropriately. 42

Development and learning also occur at varying rates from child to child and at uneven rates across different areas for each child. Children’s demonstrated abilities and skills are often fluid and may vary from day to day based on individual or contextual factors. For example, because children are still developing the ability to direct their attention, a distraction in the environment may result in a child successfully completing a puzzle one day but not the next. In addition, some regression in observed skills is common before new developments are fully achieved. 43  For all of these reasons, the notion of “stages” of development has limited utility; a more helpful concept may be to think of waves of development that allow for considerable overlap without rigid boundaries. 44

Children are active learners from birth, constantly taking in and organizing information to create meaning through their relationships, their interactions with their environment, and their overall experiences.

Even as infants, children are capable of highly complex thinking. 45  Using information they gather through their interactions with people and things as well as their observations of the world around them, they quickly create sophisticated theories to build their conceptual understanding. They recognize patterns and make predictions that they then apply to new situations. Infants appear particularly attuned to adults as sources of information, underscoring the importance of consistent, responsive caregiving to support the formation of relationships. 46  Cultural variations can be seen in these interactions, with implications for later development and learning. For example, in some cultures, children are socialized to quietly observe members of the adult community and to learn by pitching in (often through mimicking the adults’ behaviors). 47  In other cultures, adults make a point of getting a child’s attention to encourage one-on-one interactions. Children socialized to learn through observing may quietly watch others without asking for help, while those socialized to expect direct interaction may find it difficult to maintain focus without frequent adult engagement.

Throughout the early childhood years, young children continue to construct knowledge and make meaning through their interactions with adults and peers, through active exploration and play, and through their observations of people and things in the world around them. Educators recognize the importance of their role in creating a rich, play-based learning environment that encourages the development of knowledge (including vocabulary) and skills across all domains. Educators understand that children’s current abilities are largely the result of the experiences—the opportunities to learn—that children have had. As such, children with disabilities (or with the potential for a disability) have capacity to learn; they need educators who do not label them or isolate them from their peers and who are prepared to work with them and their families to develop that potential.

In addition to learning language and concepts about the physical phenomena in the world around them, children learn powerful lessons about social dynamics as they observe the interactions that educators have with them and other children as well as peer interactions. Well before age 5, most young children have rudimentary definitions of their own and others’ social identities that can include awareness of and biases regarding gender and race. 48

Early childhood educators need to understand the importance of creating a learning environment that helps children develop social identities which do not privilege one group over another. They must also be aware of the potential for implicit bias that may prejudice their interactions with children of various social identities. 49  Educators must also recognize that their nonverbal signals may influence children’s attitudes toward their peers. For example, one recent study found that children will think a child who receives more positive nonverbal signals from a teacher is perceived as a “better” or “smarter” reader than a child who receives more negative nonverbal signals, regardless of that child’s actual reading performance. 50

Children’s motivation to learn is increased when their learning environment fosters their sense of belonging, purpose, and agency. Curricula and teaching methods build on each child’s assets by connecting their experiences in the school or learning environment to their home and community settings.

This principle is drawn from the influential report How People Learn II and is supported by a growing body of research that affirms principles espoused more than 100 years ago by John Dewey. 51  The sense of belonging requires both physical and psychological safety. Seeing connections with home and community can be a powerful signal for children’s establishing psychological safety; conversely, when there are few signs of connection for children, their psychological safety is jeopardized. It is important for children to see people who look like them across levels of authority, to hear and see their home language in the learning environment, and to have learning experiences that are both culturally and linguistically affirming and responsive. 52

Equally important is encouraging each child’s sense of agency. Opportunities for agency—that is, the ability to make and act upon choices about what activities one will engage in and how those activities will proceed—must be widely available for all children, not limited as a reward after completing other tasks or only offered to high-achieving students. Ultimately, motivation is a personal decision based on the learner’s determination of meaningfulness, interest, and engagement. 53  Educators can promote children’s agency and help them feel motivated by engaging them in challenging yet achievable tasks that build on their interests and that they recognize as meaningful and purposeful to their lives. Studies have found that some children are denied opportunities to exercise agency because they are mistakenly deemed unable to do so. 54  For educators, supporting a child’s agency can be especially challenging when they do not speak the same language as the child or are not able to understand a child’s attempts to express solutions or preferences. In these cases, nonverbal cues and/or technology-assistive tools may be helpful as the educator also works to address the communication barrier.

As noted earlier regarding brain development, children’s feelings of safety and security are essential for the development of higher-order thinking skills, so fostering that sense of belonging is essentially a brain-building activity. Beginning in infancy, educators who follow children’s lead in noticing their interests and responding with an appropriate action and conversation (including noting when interest wanes) are helping children develop self-confidence and an understanding that their actions make a difference. Educators can involve children in choosing or creating learning experiences that are meaningful to them, helping them establish and achieve challenging goals, and reflecting on their experiences and their learning. Educators can also intentionally build bridges between children’s interests and the subject matter knowledge that will serve as the foundation for learning in later grades.

Children learn in an integrated fashion that cuts across academic disciplines or subject areas. Because the foundations of subject area knowledge are established in early childhood, educators need subject-area knowledge, an understanding of the learning progressions within each subject area, and pedagogical knowledge about teaching each subject area’s content effectively.

Based on their knowledge of what is meaningful and engaging to each child, educators design the learning environment and its activities to promote subject area knowledge across all content areas as well as across all domains of development. Educators use their knowledge of learning progressions for different subjects, their understanding of common conceptions and misconceptions at different points on the progressions, and their pedagogical knowledge about each subject area to develop learning activities that offer challenging but achievable goals for children that are also meaningful and engaging. These activities will look very different for infants and toddlers than for second- and third-graders and from one community of learners to another, given variations in culture and context. Across all levels and settings, educators can help children observe and, over time, reflect about phenomena in the world around them, gain vocabulary, and build their conceptual understanding of the content of subjects across all disciplines.

Recognizing the value of the academic disciplines, an interdisciplinary approach that considers multiple areas together is typically more meaningful than teaching content areas separately. This requires going beyond superficial connections. It means “making rich connections among domain and subject areas, but allowing each to retain its core conceptual, procedural, and epistemological structures.” 55  It is, therefore, important that educators have a good understanding of the core structures (concepts and language) for all the academic subject areas so that they can communicate them in appropriate ways to children.

Educators shape children’s conceptual development through their use of language. For example, labeling objects helps young children form conceptual categories; statements conveyed as generic descriptions about a category are especially salient to young children and, once learned, can be resistant to change. 56  It is also important for educators to monitor their language for potential bias. For example, educators who frequently refer to “boys” and “girls” rather than “children” emphasize binary gender distinctions that exclude some children. Educators can also encourage children’s continued exploration and discovery through the words they use. For example, when given an object, children are more likely to engage in creative explorations of that object when they are provided with more open-ended guidance versus when they are given specific information about what the object was designed to do.

From infancy through age 8, proactively building children’s conceptual and factual knowledge, including academic vocabulary, is essential because knowledge is the primary driver of comprehension. The more children (and adults) know, the better their listening comprehension and, later, reading comprehension. By building knowledge of the world in early childhood, educators are laying the foundation that is critical for all future learning. 57  All subject matter can be taught in ways that are meaningful and engaging for each child. 58  The notion that young children are not ready for academic subject matter is a misunderstanding of developmentally appropriate practice.

Development and learning advance when children are challenged to achieve at a level just beyond their current mastery and when they have many opportunities to reflect on and practice newly acquired skills.

Human beings, especially young children, are motivated to understand or do what is just beyond their current understanding or mastery. Drawing upon the strengths and resources each child and family brings, early childhood educators create a rich learning environment that stimulates that motivation and helps to extend each child’s current skills, abilities, and interests. They make use of strategies to promote children’s undertaking and mastering of new and progressively more advanced challenges. They also recognize the potential for implicit bias to lead to lowered expectations, especially for children of color, 59  and actively work to avoid such bias.

Educators contribute significantly to the child’s development by providing the support or assistance that allows the child to succeed at a task that is just beyond their current level of skill or understanding. This includes emotional support as well as strategies such as pointing out salient details or providing other cues that can help children make connections to previous knowledge and experiences. 60  As children make this stretch to a new level in a supportive context, they can go on to use the skill independently and in a variety of contexts, laying the foundation for the next challenge. Provision of such support, or scaffolding, is a key feature of effective teaching. Pairing children can be an effective way to support peer learning in which children with different abilities can scaffold each other. 61

Children need to feel successful in new tasks a significant proportion of the time to promote their motivation and persistence. 62  Confronted by repeated failure, most children will simply stop trying. Repeated opportunities to practice and consolidate new skills and concepts are also essential for children to reach the threshold of mastery at which they can go on to use this knowledge or skill, applying it in new situations. Play (especially in intentionally designed environments with carefully selected materials) provides young children with opportunities to engage in this type of practice.

Educators foster learning for a group of children by setting challenging, achievable goals for each child, building on the combined funds of knowledge and cultural assets of the children in the group. Providing the right amount and type of scaffolding requires general knowledge of child development and learning, including familiarity with the paths and sequences that children are known to follow in specific skills, concepts, and abilities. Also essential is deep knowledge of each child, based on what the teacher has learned from close observation and from the family about the individual child’s interests, skills, and abilities and about practices of importance to the family. Both sets of knowledge are critical to matching curriculum and teaching experiences to each child’s emerging competencies in ways that are challenging but not frustrating.

Encouraging children to reflect on their experiences and learning and to revisit concepts over time is also an important strategy for educators. The curriculum should provide both breadth and depth with multiple opportunities to revisit concepts and experiences, rather than rapidly progressing through a wide but shallow set of experiences. Picture books and other learning materials that depict communities and situations relevant to children’s lives can be useful starting points for such reflection. Group projects with documentation, including photos, videos, child artwork and representations, child dictations, and/or children’s writing, are also important tools for encouraging reflection and for revisiting concepts over time. 63

Tiered intervention approaches can be helpful in identifying children who might benefit from additional instruction or support. 64  These approaches, often in collaboration with early childhood special educators and early interventionists, are most effective when they are implemented in a way that is continuous, flexible, dynamic, and focused on the range of critical skills and proficiencies children need to develop and to enable their full participation in the classroom/group community.

Used responsibly and intentionally, technology and interactive media can be valuable tools for supporting children’s development and learning.

Young children live in a digital era in which technology and interactive media are pervasive. Given rapid changes in the types and uses of new media, the knowledge base of their effects on children’s development and learning continues to grow and shift. Emerging evidence suggests a number of cautions, including concerns about negative associations between excessive screen time and childhood obesity as well as negative impacts on toddlers’ performance on measures of fine motor, communication, and social skills. 65  There is no evidence that development is enhanced when children younger than age 2 independently use devices with screen media. 66  Keeping these cautions in mind, technology and interactive media can help to support developmentally appropriate practice. For example, technology and interactive media can facilitate communication between families, children, and teachers. It can also support learning, comprehension, and communication across language differences and provide adaptations that support inclusion of children with disabilities. The use of digital media can facilitate reflection through documentation and formative assessment by children, educators, and families. The use of media can also provide isolated children (for example, children with health problems that prevent them from participating in group settings or those with less well-developed social skills) with opportunities to engage effectively with peers. 67

Effective uses of technology and media by children are active, hands-on, engaging, and empowering; give children control; provide adaptive scaffolds to help each child progress in skills development at their individual pace; and are used as one of many options to support children’s learning. Technology and interactive media should expand children’s access to new content and new skills; they should not replace opportunities for real, hands-on experiences. 68  When truly integrated, uses of technology and media become normal and transparent—the child or the educator is focused on the activity or exploration itself, not the technology. Readers are encouraged to review the NAEYC/Fred Rogers Center  position statement on the use of technology  for more information on this topic.

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Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) Position Statement

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Mathematical Problem Solving in the Early Years: Developing Opportunities, Strategies and Confidence

• familiar contexts
• meaningful purposes
• mathematical complexity.

• which they understand - in familiar contexts,
• where the outcomes matter to them - even if imaginary,
• where they have control of the process,
• involving mathematics with which they are confident.
• taking some from one doll and giving to another, in several moves,
• starting again and dealing, either in ones or twos,
• taking two from each original doll and giving to the new doll,
• collecting the biscuits and crumbling them into a heap, then sharing out handfuls of crumbs.

• brute force: trying to hammer bits so that they fit,
• local correction: adjusting one part, often creating a different problem,
• dismantling: starting all over again,
• holistic review: considering multiple relations or simultaneous adjustments e.g. repairing by insertion and reversal.
• getting a feel for the problem, looking at it holistically, checking they have understood e.g. talking it through or asking questions;
• planning, preparing and predicting outcomes e.g. gathering blocks together before building;
• monitoring progress towards the goal e.g. checking that the bears will fit the houses;
• being systematic, trying possibilities methodically without repetition, rather than at random, e.g. separating shapes tried from those not tried in a puzzle;
• trying alternative approaches and evaluating strategies e.g. trying different positions for shapes;
• refining and improving solutions e.g. solving a puzzle again in fewer moves (Gifford, 2005: 153).
• Getting to grips:     What are we trying to do?    
• Connecting to previous experience:  Have we done anything like this before?
• Planning:      What do we need?
• Considering alternative methods:   Is there another way?
• Monitoring progress:    How does it look so far?
• Evaluating solutions:    Does it work?  How can we check?  Could we make it even better?

• Construction - finding shapes which fit together or balance
• Pattern-making - creating a rule to create a repeating pattern
• Shape pictures - selecting shapes with properties to represent something
• Puzzles - finding ways of fitting shapes to fit a puzzle
• Role-play areas - working out how much to pay in a shop
• Measuring tools - finding out how different kinds of scales work
• Nesting, posting, ordering - especially if they are not obvious
• Robots - e.g. beebots: directing and making routes
• preparing, getting the right number e.g. scissors, paper for creative activities
• sharing equal amounts e.g. at snack time
• tidying up, checking nothing is lost
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• games, developing rules, variations and scoring
• PE: organising in groups, timing and recording

• Decision making - what shall we call the new guinea pig?
• Parties, picnics and trips e.g. how much lemonade shall we make?
• Design Projects - the role play area, new outdoor gardens or circuits
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Early Years Careers

How to promote problem solving in the early years

5th November 2015 by Kelly Leave a Comment

Ways to incorporate problem solving in the Early Years

Developing problem solving skills is an area of development early years ’ practitioners are familiar with, and the importance of developing these problem solving skills is well known, but what exactly are problem solving skills? And how do we encourage children to develop these?

Within the Early Years Foundation Stage, problem solving comes under the category Mathematical Development, however this does not limit problem solving to just mathematical circumstances! There are opportunities for children in early years to explore problem solving every day, within all aspects of their development. Children are natural problem solvers from birth, all the way from learning to communicate problems through crying, through learning to talk and learning to walk. They develop a natural problem solving process through trial and error, for example, an infant will fall down many times before taking their first steps, but it’s the process of getting back up and trying again which helps them to achieve their goal.

Although problem solving can occur naturally, practitioners should still encourage children to recognise the process of problem solving and become familiar with it.

Shape sorters are a great activity for younger children to explore problem solving through trial and error. The children can get a feel of the shapes and see the holes, but will not yet have the knowledge of shapes to place the correct shape in the correct hole, they will attempt to fit shapes into holes, and when they realise it will not fit, they move onto the next hole. As the children get older, they can apply their knowledge and learning to this activity, understanding that the square shape will fit with the square hole, thus overcoming a problem. Jigsaws are another effective way of children developing problem solving skills in the early years. With younger children larger puzzle pieces can be used made out of tactile materials and they can attempt to solve the jigsaw through trial and error again. Slightly older children can expand onto smaller puzzle pieces, once they have mastered more simple jigsaws. Practitioners should take note of the different strategies children use in order to fit different puzzle pieces together and offer directional help such as matching the colours of pieces together should a child become frustrated.

Early Years practitioners can help children apply problem solving skills to real life situations as well as various activities. For example, practitioners can encourage children to help set up at meal times, but pose them with a problem of not having enough cutlery for each child. Children could be able to recognise this problem, or be guided by the practitioners to realise that not enough cutlery could pose a problem. Practitioners can then encourage and support the children to think of a solution to this problem. Allow children to use their imagination to solve problems, the sky is the limit! If they suggest sharing cutlery or even crafting their own cutlery out of different items, then this is all part of the problem solving process! They are recognising a problem and attempting a solution.

Overall, there are many activities and real life scenarios practitioners can implement in order to help children explore problem solving skills and guide them to create a solution. Using numbers and mathematics are not the only methods of developing problem solving skills as seen from above, but they can be an effective way to develop learning numeracy skills which can help in later life.

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Why Is STEM Important in Early Childhood Education? Understanding Child Development and Learning

The rise of the digital age has made science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education more critical than ever. Early STEM education can promote ongoing academic success, and children who learn STEM concepts throughout their education are better prepared to meet increasingly technology-focused professional requirements.

Though there is little disagreement about the importance of STEM education among educators and lawmakers, US schools continue to face challenges related to providing adequate STEM training, particularly to very young students, and many misconceptions about teaching STEM persist.

Misconceptions About STEM Education

STEM education is not limited to building science and math knowledge. At its core, STEM concepts help children develop new ways of thinking, encouraging curiosity and analysis. Establishing these at an early age (infancy through third grade), when young minds are most malleable, establishes lifelong thinking skills. To understand the benefits of STEM education, it helps to dispel some of the myths surrounding it:

Myth: STEM Emphasis Comes at the Expense of Non-STEM Subjects

In fact, STEM is inextricably linked to other fields of study, and STEM training can enhance learning in other disciplines. For example, research has shown a link exists between science instruction and improvement in literacy, language learning, and executive functioning.

Myth: STEM Equals More Computers in the Classroom

Technology is a component of STEM, and students who engage with STEM subjects gain skills that better prepare them for technology-focused roles; but STEM education is not dependent on digital technology, particularly when teaching young children. Block play, gardening, and puzzles are examples of STEM education, as are visits to museums. It can be done anytime with minimal resources. In many classrooms, a STEM curriculum and play are already present, they just need to be emphasized.

Myth: STEM Training Only Happens in the Classroom

Parents who are aware of the benefits of a STEM curriculum are more likely to be supportive of STEM education and encourage activities in the home that develop STEM concepts. Tools available to parents include mobile apps designed to introduce children to STEM and literacy concepts at an early age. Through the Ready to Learn Initiative, a US Department of Education–funded program, PBS has developed games and apps to help children ages two to eight build literacy and science skills.

Myth: STEM Curriculums Are Only for Certain Students

STEM initiatives still face challenges from outmoded ideas held by some policymakers, parents, and teachers concerning gender and race as they relate to aptitude for subjects such as mathematics. In addition, the belief that STEM is for older students has contributed to funding being concentrated in higher grade levels.

STEM vs. STEAM

Although the importance of STEM education is widely accepted, the growing emphasis on STEM curriculum has generated debate. Concerns that STEM does not adequately encourage creativity and innovation has led some educators to push for a broader approach. Embracing many of the concepts championed by STEM advocates — experiential learning, inquiry, problem solving, process-based learning — STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) proponents argue that arts education is just as necessary as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to fully educate students and prepare them for their professional lives.

While there are disagreements over the most effective way to emphasize and integrate individual subjects and concepts, educators on both sides of the STEM vs. STEAM debate share a common goal: moving away from rote memorization and siloed subjects towards a more holistic, project-based curriculum that sparks students’ imagination and develops their real-world skills.

Lifelong Benefits of Early STEM Education

Measuring the impact of a STEM curriculum on early development is difficult, but STEM education has been shown to be a predictor of future academic achievement. For example, a study by researchers at the University of California Irvine found that early math skills were the most consistently predictive measure of future academic success among kindergarten to fifth grade students.

The benefits of STEM education are not limited to a student’s academic career, however. Efforts in the US to improve STEM education have largely been driven by demand from the private sector, where employers have complained about a lack of qualified candidates for technology-focused jobs. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects 5 percent growth in non-STEM occupations between 2018 and 2028, while the number of STEM-related jobs will grow almost 9 percent, expanding by 10.6 million positions.

Barriers to Better Early STEM Programs

Efforts to improve STEM education in US schools face challenges inside and outside of the classroom. A real or perceived lack of STEM resources along with inadequate training in children’s developmental learning progressions as they relate to STEM can leave teachers feeling anxious or uncertain about their role. STEM programs are less likely to be successful if they lack clear expectations, methods for measuring progress, or cooperation across grade levels.

Linking preschool programs to kindergarten through 12th grade curriculums is a particular challenge in early childhood education. A lack of alignment between preschool and first grade STEM curriculums results in some children being left behind while others repeat material during a crucial period of learning development. Adequate training of preschool educators in teaching STEM concepts is critical, but another discrepancy between preschool institutions and kindergarten through 12th grade schools remains a barrier: compensation. Consider the median annual pay for US teachers as reported by the BLS:

• High school teachers: $60,320
• Kindergarten and elementary school teachers: $57,980
• Preschool teachers: $29,780

Such a pay gap has made attracting and retaining highly trained teachers a perennial challenge in preschool education.

Steps Forward

The responsibility to improve STEM fluency does not lie solely with teachers. Administrators and other educators in leadership positions can advocate for STEM resources in the classroom and guide public policy. Steps that policymakers can take to address the STEM challenge include funding new STEM programs, grants, and advisory councils that promote STEM curriculums. Lawmakers in some states have also tried to address problems facing teachers, providing professional development, salary increases, and incentives for specializing in STEM fields. However, STEM education program funding remains concentrated in kindergarten through 12th grade programs, and particularly in middle schools and high schools, according to the National Conference of State Legislators.

Expanding STEM Expertise

Teaching STEM is not as simple as having knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics concepts. Educators must understand how to create lessons that integrate underlying STEM concepts into activities appropriate and effective for specific age groups and development levels, a particular challenge when addressing the needs of very young learners.

Educators interested in STEM preparation, staff development, and continuing education can hone their skills through a program such as American University’s online Master of Arts in Teaching program, which focuses on the STEM skills necessary for tomorrow’s most exciting careers. The school’s online Master of Education in Education Policy and Leadership can also be beneficial to educators looking to shape and promote STEM-related policy. Discover other benefits of the programs by requesting information about American University’s MAT degree and MEd in Education Policy and Leadership degree.

EdD vs. PhD in Education: Requirements, Career Outlook, and Salary

Elementary School Leadership: Guiding Early Education

Helping Girls Succeed in STEM

American University School of Education, “STEM vs. STEAM: Why One Letter Matters”

Center for Childhood Creativity, “The Roots of STEM Success”

The Hechinger Report, “Eight Ways to Introduce Kids to STEM at an Early Age”

Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM, “What is STEAM Education?”

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center, “STEM Starts Early: Grounding Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education in Early Childhood”

National Conference of State Legislatures, Early STEM Education

UCI News, Kids Skilled Early in Math Do Better in School

US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment in STEM Occupations

US Bureau of Labor Statistics, High School Teachers

US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Kindergarten and Elementary School Teachers

US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Preschool Teachers

US Department of Education, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, Including Computer Science

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10 Ways to Strengthen Your Preschooler’s Problem-Solving Skills

As an adult, you make many decisions throughout your day without even thinking twice about some– from setting up the coffee machine at home to avoiding the long line at the drive-thru that can make you late to work to having a difficult but necessary conversation with your partner about finances. These are just a few examples of problem-solving skills and how you adapt to the situations around you and use your skills to exist on personal, professional, and social levels. 

While some problem-solving skills are innate, your ability to access a situation and take a course of action is based on the fact that when you were a child, the adults around you taught you problem-solving skills. Our Raleigh early-childhood development center is sharing our best advice for anyone looking to strengthen their pre-schoolers problem-solving skills. 

What is Problem Solving in Early Childhood?

Problem-solving refers to the ability to find a solution to a problem. For preschool-aged children, this can be difficult to learn if not modeled for them through the appropriate ways to react to the issues they face. 

For instance, if two children are playing with a toy and one pushes the other in an effort to take the toy, this is clearly an inappropriate way to react to the problem. Furthermore, screaming or yelling for the child to give them the toy is also not a proper way to solve the issue. To model mature and proper problem-solving skills, adults around the child should be practicing the concept of sharing, patience, and communication while avoiding physical and emotional reactions when they don’t get what they want.

When the child learns that they can ask the other child, “Can I play with the toy next?” or understand the concept that another child was playing with the toy first, they are exhibiting the ability to problem solve. 

Why is it Important to Develop Problem Solving Skills in Early Childhood?

Children aged 3 to 5 are developmentally experiencing growth in the following areas: 

• Cognitive 
• Emotional 
• Language 
• Sensory 
• Motor 

Because this time for preschoolers is so substantial to their intellectual, emotional, and social development, the world around them can seem overwhelming, unfair, intimidating, and even confusing. By modeling and teaching problem-solving skills to preschoolers , they can learn how to react logically, think creatively, communicate their needs, and assess how best to react to a situation at hand. 

How Can You Teach Problem Solving Skills to Your Children?

It is the responsibility of the adults who raise and teach children to provide kids with opportunities to strengthen their problem-solving skills in early childhood. If you are a parent, guardian, childcare provider, or early-childhood educator, it’s important to consider the best strategies for helping little ones adapt to the world around them and learn problem-solving skills. And remember, it can be frustrating when things do not work out as expected for anyone at any age, particularly for preschool-aged children who are just learning to adapt to their surroundings. 

When teaching your preschool-aged child how to problem solve, consider these four steps that are used in early-childhood classrooms : 

• Identify the problem
• Brainstorm solutions to the problem
• Choose and implement one of the solutions
• Evaluate how that solution resolved the problem

Following this four-step guideline can help the adults in a preschooler’s life address how a child acquires problem-solving techniques to help them navigate through the difficult and everyday situations that arise. 

When teaching problem-solving, focus on developing these key skills that relate to problem-solving: 

• Lateral thinking
• Decision-making
• Communication
• Persistence
• Negotiation
• Logical thinking
• Analytical thinking

10 Problem-Solving Activities for Preschoolers

You know that you want to guide your child through developing and strengthening strategies for problem-solving, but where do you begin? Our early-childhood development school is sharing some of our favorite ways to incorporate problem-solving activities into your life so that you can teach your child to grow on a personal and social level. 

#1 – Use Everyday Moments

You do not need a textbook or outline of how to teach your preschooler problem-solving. Simply using everyday moments to demonstrate problem-solving techniques is more useful than any “how to” book or homework assignment can teach your child. 

Going to the grocery store, driving in the car, making dinner at home, and cleaning the house are all everyday opportunities to present your child with decisions related to problem-solving. Having your child put ingredients away in the pantry while you cook, asking your child what aisle at the supermarket they think you can find a particular item, or seeing that there is a mess of toys and supplies and directing the child to initiate where they should be placed prior to starting a new activity are ways to integrate problem-solving into everyday moments. 

#2 – Look to the Child for the Solution

As your child grows up, they will not always have you by their side to solve each and every problem that arises. From issues with friends, future relationships, and future careers, the child you raise will one day become an independent adult who needs to problem-solve on their own. 

Asking children to weigh in for solutions to problems as they arise is one way to get them thinking critically early on in life. When a child is taught to not only assess an obstacle but to trust their own decision-making abilities to resolve a problem, they will be better equipped for success as they get older. 

#3 – Solve Mathematical Problems

Mathematics is a great way to engage children at an early age in problem-solving and solution-making activities. Math is logical and non-emotional, having very clear set rules and boundaries with a single solution is one prime example of problem-solving. When children are given age-appropriate mathematical problems and math word problems, they are given opportunities to troubleshoot and follow an order of operation that leads to a solution.

#4 – Ask Open-Ended Questions

As adults, we often find that the most convenient way to get through the day when caring for a preschooler is to complete tasks for them so that we can get on with our busy day. However, it’s important to pause and present your child with the opportunity to find their own solutions to problems they are faced with by using open-ended questions. 

For instance, your child cannot find their favorite pair of shoes. Rather than tear the house apart on your own looking for them, present the child with a question: “Where did you last wear those shoes?” or “When did you last see your shoes?” This requires your child to consider where they last may have placed them. Additionally, a question like, “If we can’t find those shoes right now, you’ll need to choose a different pair to wear so we aren’t late.” guides them toward finding an alternative solution to the problem. 

Giving children the opportunity to find their own solutions to issues that arise by asking open-ended questions equips them with problem-solving skills they will need throughout life when things do not always go as planned. 

#5 – Puzzles and Board Games

Puzzles and board games, much like math equations, allow children to use their cognitive problem-solving abilities to complete tasks in a fun and unique way. Pre-schoolers are often drawn to images and visual learning components as well as interactive play. Putting puzzles together allows for pattern recognition, while board games allow for interactive problem-solving techniques to be utilized through a set of rules. Incorporating puzzles and games into the lives of children are excellent ways to get them to think critically and find solutions that offer immediate results. 

#6 – Read Books and Tell Stories

Books and storytelling are always exceptional ways to build vocabulary and introduce kids to characters and situations outside of their own. When children are given the opportunity to relate to characters and situations, and then address how those characters can react and engage in their conflicts and interpersonal relationships, it not only fosters imagination and creativity but also problem-solving skills. 

#7 – Center Emotions

As adults we understand that while reacting emotionally to a situation is sometimes natural, it does not get us very far when it comes to solving a problem. Children should be taught how to center those emotions, without shame or guilt by providing an alternative to emotional responses. This is often in the form of learning communication and language. 

If your son’s best friend hurt his feelings, he should not be made to feel that he shouldn’t feel how he is feeling. Having your feelings hurt, particularly by a friend, is, well, hurtful, and there should be no shame attached to that feeling. However, when it comes to addressing those hurt feelings to the friend, it would be inappropriate to shout, “I hate you!” or “I don’t want to be your friend anymore!” Rather, providing your preschool-aged child with words and phrases for when their feelings are hurt is essential to emotional and social development. 

Teaching your son to tell his friend, “It hurts my feelings when you say that” or “I get sad when you are mean to me” are great ways to help children not only process their emotional feelings but express them in appropriate ways that lead to a resolution. 

#8 – Model Problem-Solving Behaviors

Children look to the adults in their lives for how to handle the problems they face in the world. If your child sees you politely ask a waiter to return a plate of food that was incorrectly served, they will learn that proper communication, respect, and patience lead to resolution. In contrast, if a child sees their parents speak rudely and blame a waiter for an incorrect order, they will learn that emotional reactions are the way to address problems. As a parent and caretaker, it is your responsibility to use mistakes, obstacles, and hardships as learning opportunities passed on to your preschool-aged children, demonstrating first-hand that non-emotional responses, kindness, and communication are the keys to getting most issues resolved. 

#9 – Break Down Problems into Chunks

As an adult, one of the ways to get through major projects at work is to set up a schedule that breaks down a large-scale project into smaller portions. Using this technique in childhood education and development is a successful way to teach children how doing one small task can lead to an overall greater, larger picture in the long run. Since a large task can seem overwhelming or even impossible, breaking it down into smaller, easily achievable pieces that will eventually lead to the full, complete picture is a wonderful way to help children of any age, but particularly preschool-aged, tackle large issues without feeling the weight of the big picture.

#10 – Utilize Natural Curiosities and Interests 

Using natural, organic opportunities for learning and problem-solving is always one of the best ways to foster creativity as well as logical and analytical thinking. All children are naturally drawn to some interest– whether it’s unicorns, dinosaurs, airplanes, trucks, or the color blue… every child has something that they become naturally drawn to, often to the surprise of their parents. 

For example, maybe every time your daughter sees the mailman drop off the mail, she is fascinated. Maybe her face lit up with interest and excitement to check what was left in the mailbox today. This is an opportunity to ask questions that lead to analytical thinking and problem-solving. Inquiring, “what does the mail carrier drop off at other houses?” or teaching the concept of writing a letter to grandma and how it goes through the mail can continue to foster interests while teaching logical steps, planning, and problem-solving techniques. 

Enroll Your Child in an Interactive Preschool Care System 

It’s no secret that when a child is at preschool age they are naturally curious and soak up all the information around them. By teaching your child problem-solving skills, they are better equipped to handle the everyday struggles the world has to face. However, the professionals at our preschool development center understand that busy working schedules, multiple children, and life’s responsibilities do not always make it easy for parents to dedicate time to fostering and strengthening problem-solving skills in their children. 

If you have a preschool-aged child who will benefit from emotional, social, and personal development related to problem-solving, contact Primary Beginnings to enroll your child in our 5-star preschool program in Raleigh. 

Contact us today at 919-790-6888 for our Spring Forest Rd. location or 919-785-0303 for our North Hills Dr. location, or fill out our contact form below. 

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RTI Press Research Brief [Internet]. Research Triangle Park (NC): RTI Press; 2014-. doi: 10.3768/rtipress.2021.rb.0027.2108

RTI Press Research Brief [Internet].

The multiple benefits of motor competence skills in early childhood.

Kesha N. Hudson and Michael T. Willoughby .

Published online: August 2021.

Recent findings from the Kids Activity and Learning Study complement North Carolina’s multidimensional approach to promoting school readiness by emphasizing the integrated nature of motor and cognitive development in early childhood. Children whose motor skills improved the most over the course of an academic year also tended to demonstrate the biggest gains in executive function and numeracy skills. Children who participated in adaptive, group-based motor skill activities demonstrated gains in motor competence, executive function, and numeracy skills. Incorporating motor activities into established classroom practices has the potential to facilitate multiple aspects of children’s development and promote school readiness. The brief includes specific recommendations for early childhood educators.

In 1995, the National Education Goals Panel identified a range of physical, social, emotional, language, and cognitive skills that collectively contribute to children’s school readiness. 1 These competencies were organized into five domains and are included in the early learning standards for many states, including North Carolina. Importantly, the National Education Goals Panel emphasized that early development is interdependent, so children’s progress or delays in one domain of development may influence their progress or delays in other domains. In this brief, we provide a selective overview of North Carolina’s early learning standards and highlight findings from recent empirical research that demonstrates how children’s motor skill development influences their cognitive development and early learning skills. We also consider the ways early childhood educators can use this new information in their classrooms to promote children’s overall physical, cognitive, and learning development.

Key Points.

• North Carolina Foundations for Early Learning and Development

The North Carolina Foundations for Early Learning and Development ( NC Foundations ) outlines North Carolina’s early learning standards for children between birth and age five. 2 The standards encompass five domains: Approaches to Play and Learning, Emotional and Social Development, Health and Physical Development, Language Development and Communication, and Cognitive Development. Each domain includes age-appropriate goals and developmental indicators. In Table 1 , we selectively present a subset of exemplar goals and developmental indicators for preschool-aged children from each domain. Table 1 is intended to illustrate that North Carolina’s early learning standards encompass a comprehensive set of skills related to multiple aspects of children’s early development.

North Carolina Foundations for Early Learning and Development.

A growing body of empirical research demonstrates that development across two domains of NC Foundations —(1) Health and Physical Development and (2) Approaches to Play and Learning—is interrelated. 3 Specifically, recent findings indicate that improvements in children’s motor skills, an aspect of physical development, are related to improvements in their executive function (EF) skills, which contribute to how children approach learning. In the following sections, we summarize key ideas from NC Foundations and the empirical literature for each of the two domains. Next, we describe recent research that considers how these two domains are related. We conclude by considering how early educators can make use of this new information in their classrooms.

The Health and Physical Development domain of NC Foundations emphasizes that children’s participation in physically active play provides an opportunity for improving their motor development. Although efforts to increase the amount of time that children spend in moderate to vigorous physical activity are encouraged, these efforts are primarily intended to give children opportunities to develop strength, flexibility, and motor coordination. Children’s ability to coordinate increasingly complex gross and fine motor movements improves rapidly during the preschool years. Gross motor skills involve controlling large muscles to obtain balance and coordinate movement of the upper and lower body, whereas fine motor skills involve controlling small muscle movements in the hands and hand-eye coordination that requires dexterity and precision. In addition to physically active play, research consistently shows motor development occurs more rapidly when specific skills are explicitly taught and intentionally practiced through planned, developmentally appropriate movement activities. 4

The Approaches to Play and Learning domain of NC Foundations refers to children’s motivational characteristics (e.g., differences in children’s willingness and ability to persist in the face of difficulty) and general learning skills that support planning and problem solving. These Approaches to Play and Learning competencies closely resemble EF skills. EF skills are cognitive processes that support goal-directed behavior and problem solving. 5 In early childhood, EF skills typically refer to working memory (i.e., the ability to hold and manipulate ideas in mind), inhibitory control (i.e., the suppression of routine behaviors), and cognitive flexibility (i.e., the ability to consider new ideas from multiple perspectives). EF skills support children’s ability to plan, monitor, and control their thoughts and actions and facilitate children’s “learning how to learn.” That is, working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility are useful for learning new content in many different domains. Importantly, EF skills develop rapidly in early childhood, and efforts to improve EF skills through interventions may be especially effective in early childhood. 6 The most-effective strategies for improving EF skills involve engaging children in authentic activities that are socially meaningful and cognitively challenging. 7

• The Motor-Cognition Link in Early Childhood

Developmental and educational scientists have long understood that children’s early motor skill development fosters early cognitive development. For example, the increasingly sophisticated development of motor skills in infancy and toddlerhood (e.g., sitting, reaching, walking, running) involves the integration of perceptions, intentions, and planning skills, all of which serve to organize early brain development. 8 , 9 Although much of the early work that linked physical to cognitive development focused on the infant and toddler periods, there is a growing awareness that motor and cognitive skills co-develop in early childhood. 3 Moreover, there is evidence that children’s fine motor, gross motor, and EF skills all contribute to children’s academic achievement, behavioral competence, and emerging peer relationships in elementary school. 10 , 11

In addition to evidence that motor and EF skills both contribute to important school-related outcomes, there is growing evidence that motor and EF skills are related to each other—children with better gross and fine motor skills tend to demonstrate better EF skills, including inhibitory control and working memory. 12 Moreover, children’s gross and fine motor skills at the beginning of the preschool year are predictive of their behavioral competencies (i.e., self-control, cooperation) and EF skills later in the year. 13 Although these studies suggest that efforts to improve children’s motor skills may result in corresponding improvements in children’s EF skills (both of which should benefit children’s school competencies), they do not support causal statements. Intervention studies provide a stronger test of whether efforts to improve children’s motor skills have direct benefits on EF skills and school competencies. We are aware of two recent studies, including our own study, designed to test whether motor skills interventions have corresponding benefits on children’s EF skills in preschool. In an evaluation of Successful Kinesthetic Instruction for Preschoolers (SKIP), a gross motor program targeting locomotor and object control skills, researchers reported that participating in SKIP led to greater improvements in children’s gross motor and behavioral inhibition skills than participating in typical recess activities. 14 Although the findings reported by Mulvey and colleagues 14 are promising, the exclusive focus on gross motor skills and the use of a motor-based assessment of EF are key limitations. We recently completed a motor skill intervention that targeted both gross and fine motor skills and examined the effects of the comprehensive program on a range of outcomes, including children’s performance on battery of computerized EF tasks and a standardized measure of early numeracy skills. In the following section, we summarize observational and experimental findings from the Kids Activity and Learning Study, a short-term longitudinal study funded by the Institute of Education Sciences.

• Kids Activity and Learning Study: Observational Evidence

We recruited 283 three- to five-year-old children from 13 preschools in central North Carolina to participate in an observational study that was designed to examine whether normative developmental changes in physical activity levels and motor development were related to corresponding improvements in EF and early numeracy skills. Assessments occurred over three 1-week periods in the fall, winter, and spring of an academic year. Participating children wore an accelerometer (Actigraph wGT3x-BT) on an elastic waistband to measure their physical activity levels and completed standardized assessments of their motor (Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency 2nd Edition), EF (EF Touch), and numeracy skills (Woodcock Johnson Tests of Achievement IV – Applied Problems subtest). In general, the amount of time children spend in moderate to vigorous physical activity during the day was consistently low across the school year. In contrast, children’s motor, EF, and numeracy skills showed clear improvements. Importantly, a positive relationship was observed between motor and EF skill development, indicating that children whose motor skills improved the most between fall and spring also tended to demonstrate the biggest gains in EF and early numeracy skills (see Figure 1 ) (for a complete description of this work, including a detailed analytic plan, see Willoughby et al. 15 ). These findings support the idea that motor skill development is an important feature of physical activity that facilitates cognitive development in early childhood.

Improvement in motor skills is associated with improvement in EF skills.

• Kids Activity and Learning Study: Experimental Evidence

To provide a stronger test of this association, we developed and implemented an 8-week gross and fine motor skills intervention that was designed to improve children’s motor skills through physically active games and activities. We combined two existing programs that individually focus on children’s gross or fine motor skills to create a comprehensive motor skills program. Activities were implemented in a small group setting and modified to be adaptive so children with varying motor abilities were continually challenged. We recruited 53 three- to five-year-old children from two preschools in central North Carolina. After completing pretest assessments of their motor, EF, and numeracy skills using the same standardized assessments identified above, children were randomly assigned to the intervention or waitlist control group. Children assigned to the intervention participated in the Kids Activity and Learning Study motor skills program for 30 minutes twice a week for 8 weeks. Each motor skill session targeted specific gross motor (e.g., locomotor, object control, stability) and fine motor (e.g., manual dexterity, visuo-motor integration) skills through game-based activities. At the end of the Kids Activity and Learning Study motor skill program, all children completed posttest assessments of their motor, EF, and numeracy skills. Children who participated in the intervention performed better than children in the waitlist control group on all outcomes (see Figure 2 ) (for a complete description of this work, including a detailed analytic plan, see Hudson et al. 16 ). Taken together, the observational and experimental evidence from Kids Activity and Learning Study improve our confidence in recommending motor-based activities to facilitate development across several of NC Foundation’s domains, including Physical Development, Approaches to Play and Learning, and Cognitive Development. 15 , 16

Group comparisons after the Kids Activity and Learning Study intervention.

• Implications for Educators

The early learning standards outlined in NC Foundations are organized across five domains and represent a commitment to promoting multiple aspects of children’s early development. We and others have begun to demonstrate that efforts to improve children’s physical development, particularly their motor skills, also have the potential to foster development across other domains of NC Foundations , including Approaches to Play and Learning (EF skills) and Cognitive Development (numeracy skills). Here, we consider three ways that early childhood educators might make use of this new information in their classrooms.

Integrate motor demands into routine classroom activities, including circle time, centers, outdoor time, and transitions. Circle time is an opportunity to introduce a “skill of the day” during whole-group instruction that can be practiced throughout the day. For example, educators could demonstrate locomotor skills such as jumping on two feet or hopping on one foot, and the class could practice jumping or hopping in place or moving forward, backward, or sideways. Opportunities to practice different styles of jumping and hopping could be offered during transitions as children wait in line. Fine motor activities that involve recreating patterns using connecting beads can be incorporated into centers to promote manual dexterity and visual motor integration.

Increase or decrease the complexity of motor activities to meet the needs of individual children with varying motor abilities, to the extent possible. Continually adapting and modifying the difficulty level of motor skills activities for individual children is essential if these motor activities are intended to support cognitive development. Motor skills activities that are either too easy or too difficult for individual children are unlikely to engage their EF skills. To accomplish this goal, educators can provide easy, standard, and hard versions of each activity. For example, a common fine motor activity involves using tracing paper to copy shapes. To decrease the difficulty of this activity, it may be helpful to decrease the complexity of the image by using basic shapes such as a triangle or square or simple letters and numbers (e.g., “L,” “V,” “7” or “4”). Another option is to increase the size of the lines to reduce the precision needed to replicate the image. To increase the difficulty, children can trace increasingly complex shapes, such as flowers or houses, or practice reproducing an image without tracing or creating the same shape but modifying the size (i.e., bigger or smaller). Similar modifications can be made during gross motor activities. For example, when practicing how to catch a ball, children may begin with a larger object, such as a beach ball, and progress over time to smaller objects, such as a tennis ball.

Emphasize fun group-based motor activities. In addition to varying the difficulty level of motor activities for individual children, another key idea is to deliver motor activities in socially meaningful activities. For example, group-based games or activities helps ensure that all children remain engaged. Encouraging children with more-advanced skills to support and assist children with less-advanced skills promotes positive peer interactions. Obstacle courses during outdoor time can reinforce multiple skills and allow children to practice completing activities as part of a team.

Early childhood educators are charged with facilitating multiple aspects of children’s development to ensure that children are physically, socially, cognitively, and academically ready for the transition to formal school. This puts tremendous pressure on early childcare programs and educators. Here, we have highlighted new research that emphasizes how efforts to enhance children’s motor skills have the potential to have unexpected benefits for children’s Approaches to Play and Learning and Cognitive outcomes. This new research is entirely consistent with ideas put forth more than 25 years ago by the National Education Goals Panel, which emphasized the interdependent nature of early development. We hope that this brief will encourage early childhood educators to consider how they can infuse motor activities into their classroom activities in ways that foster children’s physical, cognitive, academic, and potentially social development. Below, we list recommendations for supplementary reading for those who are interested in learning more about the Kids Activity and Learning Study. We also include additional resources that may support educators’ efforts to integrate motor skill activities into their classroom practices.

Additional Reading and Resources.

• Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences grant R305A160035. The views expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions and positions of the funders.

Kesha N. Hudson, PhD , is a postdoctoral fellow researcher in Research, Evaluation, and Equity in Education at RTI International.

Michael T. Willoughby, PhD , is a fellow and senior research public health analyst in Education and Workforce Development at RTI International.

RTI Press Associate Editor : Amber Gove

Suggested Citation : Hudson, K. N., and Willoughby, M. T. (2021). The Multiple Benefits of Motor Competence Skills in Early Childhood . RTI Press Publication No. RB-0027-2108. Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI Press. https://doi.org/10.3768/rtipress.2021.rb.0027.2108

This work is distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 license (CC BY-NC-ND), a copy of which is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

• Cite this Page Hudson KN, Willoughby MT. The Multiple Benefits of Motor Competence Skills in Early Childhood. 2021 Aug. In: RTI Press Research Brief [Internet]. Research Triangle Park (NC): RTI Press; 2014-. doi: 10.3768/rtipress.2021.rb.0027.2108
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• Short report: Improving motor competence skills in early childhood has corollary benefits for executive function and numeracy skills. [Dev Sci. 2021] Short report: Improving motor competence skills in early childhood has corollary benefits for executive function and numeracy skills. Hudson KN, Ballou HM, Willoughby MT. Dev Sci. 2021 Jul; 24(4):e13071. Epub 2020 Dec 28.
• Emerging School Readiness Profiles: Motor Skills Matter for Cognitive- and Non-cognitive First Grade School Outcomes. [Front Psychol. 2021] Emerging School Readiness Profiles: Motor Skills Matter for Cognitive- and Non-cognitive First Grade School Outcomes. Kamphorst E, Cantell M, Van Der Veer G, Minnaert A, Houwen S. Front Psychol. 2021; 12:759480. Epub 2021 Nov 23.
• Effects of Prekindergarten Curricula: Tools of the Mind as a Case Study. [Monogr Soc Res Child Dev. 2021] Effects of Prekindergarten Curricula: Tools of the Mind as a Case Study. Nesbitt KT, Farran DC. Monogr Soc Res Child Dev. 2021 Mar; 86(1):7-119.
• Review Promoting EF With Preschool Interventions: Lessons Learned From 15 Years of Conducting Large-Scale Studies. [Front Psychol. 2021] Review Promoting EF With Preschool Interventions: Lessons Learned From 15 Years of Conducting Large-Scale Studies. Mattera S, Rojas NM, Morris PA, Bierman K. Front Psychol. 2021; 12:640702. Epub 2021 Jun 24.
• Review The effects of motor skill and physical activity interventions on preschoolers' cognitive and academic skills: A systematic review. [Prev Med. 2022] Review The effects of motor skill and physical activity interventions on preschoolers' cognitive and academic skills: A systematic review. Jylänki P, Mbay T, Hakkarainen A, Sääkslahti A, Aunio P. Prev Med. 2022 Feb; 155:106948. Epub 2021 Dec 30.

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Ten of our favourite early years problem-solving activities

A lot of the time when we hear the term ‘problem-solving’, our brain jumps back to the tricky maths teasers from our school days, and we immediately recoil a little. However, problem-solving is much more than number conundrums.   

Problem-solving is a key part of early years development and can support learning across many of the My First Five Years streams. The skill of problem-solving starts developing very early in a child's life and stems from the knowledge of the world that they are constantly building.[1]. For instance, your baby may cry when hungry as they know that crying gets the attention of an adult who can feed them.   

Problem-solving is a part of everyday life for children, from being a baby through to their future adulthood. When children learn how to solve problems, it can support them in building resilience, self-confidence and self-esteem. Taking part in problem-solving activities with others can also help children develop social skills, communication and relationships.[2]   

Psychologist Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development also focuses on the importance of problem-solving for early childhood development. In each developmental stage of his theory, the psychologist emphasised the importance of play-based learning for young children when it comes to problem-solving, and in turn building skills across the spectrum.[3]    

Supporting problem-solving  

When thinking about problem-solving activities for your child, it can be difficult to know where to begin.   

To keep children engaged, enabling them to take the lead and follow their interests, is key. Play-based, hands-on learning makes acquiring new skills more interesting and memorable for young children.[4]    

Many activities can support children when developing their problem-solving abilities – the possibilities are wide open. When considering which problem-solving activities are the most effective, it is also important to consider how they can be adapted to multiple interests, abilities and how accessible they are when it comes to using resources and materials.   

To help you out, here are ten of My First Five Years’ favourite problem-solving activities that you can try with your child.   

1) Den-building

Den-building is brilliant for problem-solving as it requires creative and critical-thinking, foresight, and planning. It is also a wonderful way to promote sustained shared thinking with your child. Sustained shared thinking is a way of working together that encourages individuals to evaluate the problem that they are working on and is focused on collaboration, using experiences and prior knowledge.[5]  

When building a den with your child, encourage your child to take the lead. You could provide materials such as boxes and blankets, or you could even ask your child to decide what materials you need before starting, encouraging them to plan out their work. Den-building can also be done both indoors and outdoors and with children from a young age. You may find that people have already started creating these in your local woodland that you can add to, adapt, or just enjoy!  

2) Cooking and baking

Cooking and baking are not only fun activities, but they also focus on mathematical problem-solving. To bring problem-solving into a cooking and baking activity, you can ask your child to count out simple measurements, for instance, cups of flour or sugar. Activities like cooking or baking are great for children to be able to take ownership of what is happening; encourage them to choose what you will make and allow them to do all the elements themselves.   

What’s great about cooking is it really doesn't matter how it turns out! Problems can arise often in cooking or baking, for example, the mixture may turn out too dry, you may be an ingredient short, or your cakes might not rise how you expected them to. If this is the case, talk to your child about what might have gone wrong and how you can rectify it next time! Then when they come to do it again, they can use their prior knowledge to help them.   

3) Playing with patterns

Patterns are a great activity for mathematical problem-solving. You can create patterns of any objects that you can find! For example, with pieces of fruit, pebbles from the garden, building blocks or even snacks! You could encourage your child to continue patterns, fill in the missing pieces or even create their own for you to solve problems with as they grow more confident. 

4) Sorting and categorising

Sorting and categorising objects is an activity that supports children in mathematical problem - solving and can be easily adapted to individual children’s abilities . You could encourage your child to sort by shape, size, colour, or better yet , their interests . For example, if they are a dinosaur enthusiast, they could classify them by wh ich is their favourite or least favourite , or order them by the size of their feet. They may even find enjoyment in helping you with daily sorting such as recycling or washing!  

Puzzles are a fun resource that can be used with children from a very young age. There are a wide variety of puzzles for children to access , such as chunky wooden puzzles or traditional shape sorters. When playing with puzzles, children will have to use their prior knowledge and experience of shape, space and measure whil e also experimenting with different angles and placements. They will use trial and error to find the best way to complete the puzzle and then will use this knowledge in future attempts.  

6) Ice rescue

As well as being a great problem-solving activity, ice rescue enables children to explore seasonal changes, temperatures and develop their fine and gross motor skills using tools. To play ice rescue, freeze toys inside ice overnight. This could be in cake moulds or small bowls. Use toys that will motivate your child, for instance, their favourite small figurines.   

Once frozen, place your blocks of ice in a big bowl or tray, and encourage your child to think about how they can get the items out. You could provide tools, or even get your child to find tools themselves.  

7) Obstacle courses

Obstacle courses are versatile and can be made with a wide variety of resources. When setting up an obstacle course for your child, try to include sections where your child will have to stop and think about how they will have to adapt their body to move through it , for example, something that they must climb over or under, or a section where they have to move differently. You could even include them in trying to create the obstacle course and allow them to make it the most challenging they can.  

8) Filling, emptying and investigation

Many children enjoy filling and emptying during play. Investigating this way helps children to get a sense of size, capacity and explore predicting and estimation. For instance, if your child likes playing with sand, you could ask them to guess how many scoops they will need to fill a container, or if they like water play you could challenge them to find a way to move the water between two containers as quickly as possible , or from one tray to another.  

9) Story problems

Stories are an effective way of introducing problem-solving and they can be a highly engaging way to promote creative and critical-thinking. You could use familiar or traditional stories to help scaffold play opportunities for your child. For example, you could try building a house for the three little pigs that cannot be knocked over. You could test out different methods using materials that you can find around your home.   

If you are feeling creative, you could also make up a little story using your child’s favourite toys. An example of this could be figuring out how to share food between their favourite teddies during a picnic and making sure that everyone gets enough.   

10) Playing with loose parts or open-ended resources

Natural materials such as leaves, conkers, sticks, acorns, and pinecones are all brilliant open-ended play opportunities (if supervised). You can also use household objects like bottle caps, curtain rings, tubes, tins, boxes, buttons etcetera in this sort of play. All it requires is a tray of different objects that you've collected and time to explore them. Your child will have to think creatively about how to utilise the objects and in doing so will be challenging their cognitive capacity by problem-solving to achieve the desired outcomes.   

References 

[1]  Rachel Keen. (2011). The Development of Problem Solving in Young Children: A Critical Cognitive Skill. Available: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.psych.031809.130730#_i22 .  

[2] Sheila Ebbutt. (2009). EYFS best practice - All about ... problem-solving . Available: https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/features/article/eyfs-best-practice-all-about-problem-solving .  

[3] Piaget, J. (1983). Piaget's Theory. In P. Mussen (ed). Handbook of Child Psychology. 4th edition. Vol. 1. New York: Wiley.  

[4] Unicef. (2018). Learning Through Play. Available: https://www.unicef.org/sites/default/files/2018-12/UNICEF-Lego-Foundation-Learning-through-Play.pd .  

[5] Kathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Pam Sammons, Iram Siraj-Blatchford and Brenda Taggar. (2004). The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) Project: Findings from Pre-school to end of Key Stage1. Available: https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/8543/7/SSU-SF-2004-01.pdf .  

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Problem-Solving Skills, Memory Power, and Early Childhood Mathematics: Understanding the Significance of the Early Childhood Mathematics in an Individual’s Life

• Published: 09 January 2024

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• Wensheng Chen 1  

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Early childhood mathematics is the process of teaching mathematics and learning mathematics in a playful manner to the interests and questions of children. Early childhood mathematics includes counting and the application of counting, which includes mathematical activities such as sorting, matching, and pattern recognition. Deeper understanding of basic math concepts that include number sense, shapes and spatial awareness, measurement, patterns, and basic operations such as addition and subtraction. This study aims to investigate the relationship between children’s mathematical knowledge and skills developed in early stages and their later achievements in mathematics. Research data were collected from 53 children’s parents and 36 experts through telephonic interview questionnaire methods. The data collected was analyzed using SPSS software. The validity and reliability of the variables in the questionnaire have been tested. The results of this study reveal a significant positive correlation between children’s early mathematical knowledge and skills and later achievement in mathematics. Specifically, children who demonstrated higher levels of mathematical competencies during their early years exhibited greater success in later academic performance in mathematics. Additionally, the study identified several factors that influence this relationship, including parental involvement, socioeconomic status, and quality of early mathematics instruction. The novelty of this study is highlighting the importance of early math development; it leads to an understanding of educational practices that improve children’s math learning and promote future success in math. Based on the study findings, it is suggested that educators and policymakers emphasize the importance of early mathematical education and provide targeted interventions and support to enhance children’s mathematical knowledge and skills during their formative years.

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Chen, W. Problem-Solving Skills, Memory Power, and Early Childhood Mathematics: Understanding the Significance of the Early Childhood Mathematics in an Individual’s Life. J Knowl Econ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-023-01557-6

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Importance of Problem solving skills during the early childhood

Problems are a real test for anyone and individuals need some skills to tackle and overcome them. When it comes to young minds, you might come across new ways and actions to tackle those problems. It is one of the skills that are part of everyone’s life. However, different individuals carry it differently. A huge load of one’s problem-solving skills depends upon their learning and practices during childhood. It creates a base for all their cognitive abilities and thinking capabilities. The creative ways in which children tackle problems lead to their brainstorming and give them space to think out of the box with different things. Preschools try to teach problem-solving skills to each individual by getting them involved with several interactive activities. They have a variety in their games and activities as per the needs of different kinds of children and their personalities. Parents should start preschooling their kids at the right time for better results and encourage children to tackle problems as per their age.

Children can be benefited in the following ways if the parents work on their problem-solving skills from the beginning:

Identifying problems and tackling them

The basic aspect of tackling a problem is to identify whether it is a problem or not. Children should at least develop senses that allow them to understand what is right and what is wrong for them. Problems can be social, physical, or mental. Your child would not tell you about any mischief that happened with him/her if he/she doesn’t know it is a problem. If your child knows what a problem actually is, he/she would definitely react and look for help. There can be several practical activities that can lead a child towards such habits and allow them to identify the right ways of dealing with the problems.  

Brainstorming

It is an asset that can be utilized anywhere in life. Brainstorming helps a child come out of difficult situations and use their brains to their potential. Whenever a child solves any problem or difficult situation, he/she develops the habit of using the brain instead of worrying and getting blank. It later helps them in their games, activities, academics, and different extracurricular activities. Brainstorming is necessary to do anything in daily life. Being a child it is feasible to work on this skill because once a child develops and becomes an adult, it would take a lot to get better.  Preschools have such activities that can be utilized to develop healthy brainstorming in kids.

Better Academic Results

Academics are full of queries and demand excellent thinking capabilities to excel in it. The kids who develop problem-solving skills at the right time, develop a sense of curiosity and analyzing skills as well. This helps children to have a better understanding of the concepts and lessons that are presented during their academic sessions. Preschools have the responsibility of creating a base for the entire formal education that lies ahead for a kid. The interactive games and activities have their roles which are conducted by these nursery schools.

Builds Confidence  

It is natural to have high confidence when you come out solving problems and tackling them before they harm you. Kids who are good at solving different problems for themselves and their peers are confident and as a result successful as well. A confident child is happy and develops the capabilities he/she possesses and transforms into a confident adult as well. Preschools have the responsibility of preparing children who are confident and ready to step into the world of formal education. It states the importance of a preschool in the life of young ones. Parents should never neglect the importance and start preschooling the kids when needed.

Enhances Awareness  

When children tackle different kinds of problems they become aware of deciding what is right for them. They can even get positive towards their actions socially and react according to the different situations. Problem-Solving opens up the thinking capabilities of an individual and leads them towards maturity with age.

(Also, Read:  YOUR CHILD NEEDS A PRESCHOOL ADMISSION TO GROW AND GLOW )

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What Kids Learn in Preschool

A typical preschool curriculum covers concepts like colors, shapes, and letters, plus social and school-readiness skills such as how to take turns.

What Do Kids Learn in Preschool?

• Academic Concepts
• Motor Skills
• Social and School-Readiness Skills

How Preschool Curriculum Is Implemented

• What To Look for in a Preschool

From learning how to take turns to counting to 10, preschool is all about discovery. By the time your child graduates from pre-K, they will have learned a lot. The entire span of lessons and content that your child will be taught during preschool education is what's known as the preschool curriculum.

Depending on the type of preschool you choose and the early childhood education philosophy it follows, your child's preschool curriculum may explore a wide variety of academic, social, physical, and emotional lessons. In addition to academics and social skills, many preschools also work on critical speech and fine motor skills.

In some settings, preschools are also able to help children complete their toilet training. By the time they get to kindergarten, children who attend preschool should be ready to speak in longer phrases and sentences, use a pair of scissors, follow instructions, and kick a ball. Learn more about preschool curriculum and what kids learn in preschool.

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Preschools teach the basics to kids, giving them a strong foundation for the elementary years. This includes academic concepts of literacy and math, such as counting, coloring, letter recognition, and developing gross and fine motor skills , such as walking in a line and using a pencil. It also includes social and school-readiness skills, such as making friends, sharing, and taking turns.

Academic Concepts in Preschool Curriculum

The preschool curriculum offered at one child's preschool may vary significantly from what is offered at other schools. This is because preschools are not governed by the standards that apply to K–12 education.

Individual schools and groups of schools have the freedom to teach what they please in the manner they prefer. For example, preschools affiliated with religious institutions may include religious education in their curriculum. Montessori preschools use specific materials and activities to encourage children in hands-on learning.

Teachers may also adjust their educational approaches to suit the needs of individual children in their classrooms. While preschools don't all adhere to the same educational guidelines, they're intended to prepare students for kindergarten . That means most effective preschools work on key skill areas, which include math, science, and literacy skills.

Important concepts in the preschool curriculum include the following:

• Calendar, including the seasons, days of the week, and months of the year
• Cooperation
• Drawing and painting
• Physical activities like running, jumping, skipping, hopping on one foot, and using playground equipment and balls
• Sorting objects
• Taking turns
• Transitioning from one activity to another
• Writing letters and numbers

Motor Skills in Preschool Curriculum

Preschool-age children are learning to master both gross motor skills (which involve large physical movements) and fine motor skills (such as manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination). Many preschools spend time actively engaged in working on these developmental skills.

Fine motor activities, which are important for writing, grasping, and coordinating fine movements, include drawing, cutting, coloring, and gluing. Gross motor skills are often worked on during recess and may involve using playground equipment, running, skipping, jumping, and kicking or throwing a ball to a partner.

Social and School-Readiness Skills in Preschool Curriculum

Preschool also aims to teach kids social-emotional and school-readiness skills. These lessons include teaching kids how to function in a group setting , with an emphasis on behaviors like sharing, turn-taking, cooperative play, transitioning from one activity to the next, and following classroom rules. Preschool also helps kids learn self-care skills they will need in kindergarten, such as putting on their own shoes and coats, feeding themselves, and using the bathroom independently.

Most preschools have a set of goals and a philosophy to which each teacher must adhere. In some cases, teachers follow those general guidelines informally. In many cases, teachers use specific lesson plans and rubrics for assessing student progress.

Preschool curricula take into account the length of the preschool day. Some preschools run for only a few hours a day, while others (especially in public school settings) operate all day. Some even run longer than a typical school day to cover parents' work hours.

During any given day, preschoolers may take part in:

• Field trips designed to enhance a lesson, such as a trip to the post office to learn about mail or a visit to the grocery store to learn about choosing healthy foods
• Sessions with special guest speakers who are brought in to provide more details to a lesson, such as a firefighter to talk about fire safety or a dentist to discuss oral health
• Special activities taught either by the primary preschool teacher or a special art, music, library, or physical education teacher
• Specific activities, such as circle time, song time, calendar time, active playtime, storytime, and craft time
• Transitional periods that exist between activities like learning how to walk in a line with peers and how to clean up toys and supplies

A preschool curriculum can also encompass homework given to the child to reinforce what was learned in the classroom , but many educators also believe that homework is unnecessary at such a young age.

While it may look like a preschooler is simply playing in the preschool classroom all day, that's not the case. Play is so much more than a child having fun, though kids are certainly having lots of that. Especially when it involves interacting with other children, play teaches young children how to:

• Form friendships
• Learn how to cooperate
• Think creatively
• Try out different ways of problem-solving
• Use their imaginations

Different types of play , including structured and unstructured play, allow children to practice different skills in different ways.

What To Look for in a Preschool Curriculum

No matter which philosophy your preschool follows (Bank Street, Montessori, Reggio Emilia, and HighScope are common ones), the preschool curriculum should promote learning while helping children meet the various language, social, physical, and cognitive goals. In an ideal situation, a quality preschool curriculum will be taught by certified teachers and be based on the most up-to-date childhood education research.

Depending on the school and the school's philosophy, the preschool curriculum can be developed by administrators, teachers, and in some cases, even parents. If you ever have a question about the curriculum or anything that's going on at your child's preschool, reach out to the teacher or preschool administrator.

Early Learning . National Institute of Child Health and Human Development . 2021.

Montessori Early Childhood Programs . American Montessori Society . n.d.

About Early Learning . National Institute of Child Health and Human Development . 2021.

The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children .  Pediatrics . 2018.

Early Childhood Education . US Department of Education . 2014.

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It's a Big Problem! Teaching Children Problem-Solving Skills

In this webinar, presenters discuss ways to help children in the problem-solving process and support them in becoming independent problem-solvers. Learn about the steps to problem-solving and watch videos of teachers demonstrating strategies they use to help children in their classrooms.

Note: The evaluation, certificate, and engagement tools mentioned in the video were for the participants of the live webinar and are no longer available. For information about webinars that will be broadcast live soon, visit  Upcoming Events .

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From foundations to futures: Parenting strategies for early brain empowerment

Here's why it is important for parents to put an emphasis on kids' early brain development..

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The first eight years of a child's life are a marvel of nature, a period during which the cornerstone for all future learning and growth is meticulously laid. This transformative phase witnesses the rapid expansion of the brain, forging innumerable neural connections that shape a child's cognitive, social, and emotional capacities. As caregivers and parents, it becomes our paramount duty to cultivate an environment that fosters this pivotal stage of early brain development.

SCIENCE OF EARLY BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

Why every moment matters.

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Nearly a decade ago, I left what I thought would be a lifelong career as an educator after just a few years in the classroom. Although there was much I truly cherished about my career as a K-12 teacher, I didn’t find the professional respect, work-life balance, and compensation I needed to thrive both personally and professionally.

I’m hardly alone in this. Even veterans of the classroom with decades of experience are contemplating an early departure from the profession , driven not by a lack of love for teaching but by a system that fails to compensate them fairly, protect their well-being, or set reasonable expectations for employees. In recent years, stories of educators asked to clean school buildings or restrooms on their off days or being involuntarily reassigned mid-school year underline the profound disrespect many teachers face.

The lack of upward mobility or opportunities for advancement in the teaching profession can also contribute to teachers’ desire to leave the field. I pursued national-board certification and then found a ceiling—there was nowhere to go in the school system. For professionals like me who desire continual career growth, this ceiling can drive us to look outside the teaching profession.

The professional journey of a teacher often lacks the lateral mobility enjoyed in other professions. For those working in other industries, professional boredom or unhappiness may mean moving to a new company or taking on a new role altogether. They have opportunities to build new skills and populate a robust resume.

In contrast, career-advancement opportunities for K-12 teachers are limited, primarily confined to administrative roles that do not appeal to many teachers. Furthermore, these positions require a different skill set than classroom teaching.

This lack of mobility within the profession, coupled with inadequate exposure to the culture of job-getting outside the education sector, can leave teachers at a disadvantage. When teachers are unfamiliar in the art of negotiating positions or adapting to new office politics, they lose out on these fundamental elements of professional growth.

The world of teaching alone also leaves many teachers feeling pigeonholed, their years of dedication to education paradoxically becoming their biggest barrier to exploration beyond it.

Teachers are often told that leading a classroom is the world’s most challenging and complex profession, but that sentiment doesn’t help them translate their teaching experience beyond the classroom. Many find the skills that define them as educators do not neatly translate into the resume language valued in the corporate world. Their expertise in people management, data analysis, and problem-solving, honed over years of managing classrooms and nurturing young minds, seems lost in translation when it comes to the corporate job market.

Instead, a teacher’s resume often reads as a static record of their employment history, devoid of the dynamic skills and achievements that could make them attractive candidates in other sectors.

For me, transitioning out of teaching required me to learn new skills. I took on volunteer and freelance work to broaden my skill set. Those experiences working outside the education space also gave me the opportunity to interact with a broader set of professionals in new spaces and apply the skills I had cultivated in the classroom beyond teaching.

Yet, hope is not lost. The pathway out of the classroom and into new professional realms requires a paradigm shift in how teachers and employers view teachers’ skills. The journey involves reimagining the resume not as a mere record but as a strategic tool that highlights the transferability of teaching skills to a wide array of sectors.

In my work developing a platform to support teachers’ career transitions, I help them understand how to translate their teaching skills into the language of various industries. It’s about recognizing the value in the competencies developed in the classroom—competencies that are desperately needed in the broader professional world.

I myself initially assumed that the skills I honed in the classroom were irrelevant outside it. This mindset kept me confined to education-focused roles for years before I realized the transferability of my teaching expertise and learned how to talk about the value I would bring to an organization.

We must also make systemic changes beyond what is in any one teacher’s control. First, districts need to create pathways for growth as teacher-leaders or other roles within schools that help them build a diverse skill set—and resume. No worker’s trajectory should flatten once they enter their chosen profession.

Secondly, schools of education could better support the professional growth of teachers by preparing education degree-seekers for an array of roles beyond the classroom. They should make students aware of the teacher-turnover rates, provide direct instruction around how to build skills valued in the workplace more generally, and advise on how to talk about their capabilities.

By offering courses that expressly focus on building transferable skills and building awareness of the array of career options for educators, these institutions can better equip graduates for the reality of their career trajectories. Teachers who end up choosing to transition out of education need to see how to translate what they’ve learned on the job.

Teacher-preparation programs can also support students by establishing partnerships between schools, businesses, and industry associations. These efforts—such as industry-sponsored projects, mentorship programs, or even guest lectures—would provide teacher-candidates with essential networking and skill-building opportunities.

Experiential learning opportunities, too, such as job-shadowing programs and internships can expose prospective teachers to the culture of job-getting in other industries. Such collaborative initiatives can bridge the gap between teaching roles and the broader landscape of available jobs for education professionals.

Teachers aren’t stuck, but they do face a Herculean task when they want to make a career pivot. It’s time we better support those who raise their hands to do the complex work of teaching and advocate a system that values their professional growth. We must recognize their potential not only in the classroom but in the wider world.

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