How do young children learn best?

Don't miss the fascinating Q & A over on our frizzle education blog with Dr. Tovah P. Klein, Director of Barnard College’s Center for Toddler Development.

For those involved in early education or with small children at home, it's a treasure trove of insights into how children learn and how we, as adults, can support their development.

Here's a short excerpt, but be sure to click through to read the full and much longer interview.

The more children use all of their senses, the more they will learn. This is what people forget. Let’s say you want kids to be able to hold a pencil and write. You don’t give them a pencil at age 3 or 4. You have them use their fingers, whether it’s by playing at a sand table, running their hands through fingerpaint or putting pegs on a pegboard. All those experiences are giving them fine motor skills. But you’re not sitting down and saying, “Right now is fine motor skill time.”

The idea that “play is learning” does not mean connecting a dot from point A to point B. It means that there are lots of modes of learning going on at the same time. By picking up a funnel and pouring sand through it, kids learn about gravity and their own power. Learning is happening at multiple levels, but not because the teacher is saying, “Learn.” It’s because the environment has been set up to support the child.