Critical Period and Domains of Development

Critical Period and Domains of Developemnt  

Domains of Development

Physical and motor, socio-emotional, cognitive, linguistic and literacy, as well as creative art and aesthetic appreciation—these are the five crucial areas in a child's development. These five categories are indicators of a child's capacity for learning achievement that overlap and are linked. They are skills youngsters are acquiring simultaneously rather than chronological milestones. The domains also give preschool programs a mechanism to direct their curriculum toward age-appropriate growth and readiness for school.

Activities for Physical and Motor Development

            Preschoolers should have ample chances on a regular basis to engage in engaging outdoor play activities that build their larger muscles, such as catching, running, jumping, skipping, balancing, etc. In addition to time and opportunities for outdoor play, a preschool's daily schedule should include free indoor play with materials in activity areas including block play, manipulative play, and painting activities using paints, clay, brushes, crayons, etc. This offers chances for the growth of small muscles, fosters imagination and creativity, and improves eye-hand coordination.

Activities for Socio-Emotional Development

          During early childhood the foundations for social and emotional wellbeing are very important. Wellbeing means good physical and mental health. It is also a feeling of happiness and satisfaction. Warm, nurturing and supportive relationships with adults are important for development of emotional security, positive self-concept and respect for others.

            Free play activities provide opportunities for children to make choices and take decisions and also understand others’ rights and perspectives. In addition, they support the development of pro-social behaviour in children like waiting for one’s turn, sharing,

helping others, identifying one’s own emotions and experiencing compassion and empathy. Following, interest and choice enables children to develop skills of self regulation, perseverance on task and good work habits.

           Activities like meal time and toilet breaks allow for good health habits to be formed such as hand washing, eating nutritious food, eating slowly, drinking clean water, etc.

Activities for Creative Art and Expression

        Opportunities to develop imagination and creativity through music, art and craft help children develop self-expression, enjoyment and disposition for art, music and movement. When children view the work of other children they also learn to appreciate and respect differences in culture and viewpoint.

         Opportunities for creative expressions through scribbling, painting, drawing, music, movement, clay modeling provide children insight about the world around them, understand real life objects and events and also influence their competence as creative problem solvers. Such activities also give opportunities to exercise fine muscles which prepare them to write.

       A variety of concrete, process-oriented play experiences encourage children to experiment with new ideas and materials and use their imagination.

Activities for Language Development and Early Literacy

          India is a biggest democratic and multilingual country, we have a large number of children whose home language (mother tongue) is different from the medium of instruction in school. These include contexts such as that of tribal languages or dialects of regional languages and increasingly now English medium preschools where children in most cases come in with no or little familiarity with oral English.

           Starting children on reading and writing without ensuring their oral language base results in children learning to read mechanically through simple decoding, but without much comprehension. Since all school subjects are language mediated.

           This early learning gap inevitably has an adverse impact on children’s later performance in school. In addition to this challenge, we have a large number of children who are first generation learners who do not have a literacy environment at home.

         Children learn to communicate effectively if they are given ample opportunities to talk, listen, share, and narrate their experiences to other children and adults in a relaxed, non- critical and stress free environment.

         Provide opportunities such as story-telling, rhymes, role play and dramatization, etc. Ensuring a print rich environment in the class  in the form of captions, labels and instructions, and their own name tags will help children develop print awareness.

 

Activities for Environmental Awareness, Scientific Thinking and Mathematical Reasoning

           Children are born with natural curiosity and the innate science and math skills to interpret and respond to the world. A major goal of preschool education is therefore to help children move towards more logical thinking by helping them graduate from their perception-bound to more concept based understanding.

            This gets addressed by helping children form concepts related to the world around them through direct experience and interactions with the physical, social and natural environment. Children start distinguishing between colours, shapes, sizes, quantities, vegetables, fruits and soon as they experience each concept. This early learning is facilitated in communication with adults, as the child interacts with the environment. Language thus also plays a very important role in helping children form concepts.

          Cognitive development is thus closely related to perceptual categorisation– the development of categories based on perceptual similarities. Cognitive or mental skills like matching, seriation, or classification based on comparisons, help to refine concepts and help children form a sound foundation for higher order cognitive skills of critical thinking, reasoning, memory and problem solving which provides the basis of a scientific temper.