PROVIDING STIMULATION AND CHALLENGE TO YOUNG LEARNERS

BERNADETTE G. REGALIA

Providing stimulation and challenge to young learners is very essential in making them love learning and going to school every day.

A wide variety of open-ended, multi-sensory materials make a strong statement to children that you respect and appreciate their individual learning st yl es.

Keep in mind the need for materials that interest and inspire visual, auditory, and tactile/ kinesthetic learners.

“Change the variable” by adding just one material in a center periodically so that children have new items to experiment with and use. Centers can become too familiar and predictable. By adding just one new thing to a center, you can challenge children to think of new ways to work there.

It will also help if you add one piece of beauty every day to your classroom setting. Studies show that the aesthetics of color, beauty, and nature in the classroom have a strong, positive impact on children’s behavior.

Try creating a space for beauty in the room. Each day, provide beauty in the form of nature (a plant, leaf, flower) or art (a picture, photo, sculpture, quilt, box).

Keep clutter away. Children can be overstimulated by messy piles of papers, toys, and books. Teachers are the important ingredient in teaching a child to love learning. In fact, teachers are the cornerstone of the classroom environment. No matter if you are in a tiny basement classroom or a huge sunny space, it is your interactions with children that turn any place into a loving, learning lab.

Stimulating and challenging young learners to love learning involves observing children, encouraging them, interacting with them, modeling learning. Like the pure act of discovery, the teacher’s role is always changing.

— oOo— The author is from Tinajero Elementary School, Bacolor North District