Early Childhood Education Time Frame

In basic terms, Early Childhood Education Karana is considered the official term for teaching young kids. In concrete terms, it refers to the formal and informal educational programs that guide the growth and development of children throughout their preschool years (birth to age five). 

It had been shown that children at these ages are entirely dependent on their adult caregivers, including parents, daycare providers, babysitters, extended family members and teachers.

Time frame

From the standpoint of child development time frame, early child education refers to the period of timefrom a child’s birth to the time when they enter kindergarten.

This is an important time in children’s lives because it is when they first learn how to interact with others, including peers, teachers and parents. This is also the time they begin to develop interests that will stay with them throughout their lives.

However, there is a misconception that early childhood education is only about learning basic skills. This is also the time when children learn critical social and emotional skills. This is when they formed partnership with their parents and teachers.

ECE (early childhood education)

Early childhood education covers a wide variety of activities designed to promote children’s cognitive and social development before entering kindergarten. Some programs are primarily focused on school and academic readiness. 

The others embrace a “whole child” approach that emphasizes mental and emotional preparedness.

ECE curriculums are set up to specifically encourage young students to learn about themselves and the world through their experiences. This includes indoor or outdoor play, cooperative or individual play, domestic play, sensory play and constructive play, to name just a few types.

The idea is that making something fun helps them absorb the lesson. Play really is everything to kids.

Importance of fun

From the outside, these activities often seem like merely fun and games, so it’s easy to overlook the importance of early childhood education. But educators know better.

Young children learn best through play, and starting early sets them up for success in life and school. In fact, children start learning from their parents and environment in utero, according to doctor-researchers in their study’searly childhood education at UMass Global.

Typical ECE program

Successful childhood learning programs are dynamic, challenging, enriching and carefully planned. A typical ECE curriculum might incorporate songs, books, art, games, toys, experiences and nature exploration into the daily lesson plans for a class or group.

According to the Learning Policy Institute (LPI), the most important elements of a quality ECE program that include sufficient learning time and small class sizes with low student-teacher ratios.

In addition, there are well-prepared teachers who provide engaging interactions and classroom environments that support learning. They follow the research-based developmentally appropriate early learning standards and curricula.

Learning standards

Moreover, the teacher’s assessments need to consider children’s academic, social-emotional and physical progress. To make these work, there is a need to have the ongoing support for teachers, including coaching and mentoring and a meaningful family engagement.

Experts also add that for any ECE curriculum to be truly relevant and effective, it should be informed by the child’s culture. They need to have some background knowledge that is saturated in their particular culture.

On their part, teachers should not think of it as a foreign or exotic thing that we don’t touch. Traditions, routines, communication styles, all of these are all steeped in culture.

However, all of these early childhood learning can be facilitated without homework or tests is still difficult for some adults to believe. An expert explains that there are always parents who don’t understand that children learn best when they have the option to do so in a manner that is pleasurable.

Purpose

Primarily, the purpose of early childhood educationis to provide children with strategies that help them develop the emotional, social and cognitive skills needed to become lifelong learners. 

The following skills are considered to be the most important for young learners to master:

Language and literacy:

Language provides the foundation for the development of literacy skills. Learning to communicate through gestures, sounds and words increases a child’s interest in books and reading, followed later by understanding.

Thinking

By nature, children are born with a need to understand how things work. In their everyday experiences, they use and develop an understanding of math concepts, such as counting and sorting, and problem-solving skills that they will need for school.

Self-control

This is a child’s ability to express and manage emotions in appropriate ways and is essential for success in school and healthy development overall. It helps children to cooperate with others, cope with frustration and resolve conflicts.

Self-confidence

When children feel competent and believe in themselves, they are more willing to take on new challenges. Self-confidence is also important in navigating social challenges, such as sharing, competition and making friends among their peers..

Young children have incredibly impressionable and elastic minds that are innately  andconstantly soaking up information from their surroundings and learning from interactions and experiences. 

Children are born to learn and hardwired to perceive, imitate, experiment and explore. This is one of the reasons why early childhood education is important. 

Importance 

A newborn baby’s brain is about a quarter of the size of an adult brain and incredibly double in size by the child’s first birthday. It will have completed 90 percent of its growth by age five. 

In the early childhood years, the brain is making millions of synapses every second. These neural connections allow us to move, think, communicate and comprehend the world around us. This actually is a critical window of development. 

A large body of research suggests that a high-quality ECE program can have a positive long-term effect on the lives of children. Research shows children who receive a high-quality education before they turn five enjoy significant medium- and long-term benefits.

Children that had been under early childhood education programs are less likely to repeat a grade, less likely to be identified as having special needs.

They are more prepared academically for later grades, more likely to graduate from high school and more likely to be higher earnersin the workforce later in their adult lives.