Mike Smith:
Vicki Bentley, HSLDA’s program coordinator for parents of younger students, joins me today on the program. Vicki, parents of young children often face the question, when do we start? What is early learning, and when does it start? Can you help us with that?

Vicki Bentley:
Mike, I’ve had moms ask me, “How do I start? They don’t seem to even want to sit still and read a book. They just want to play with toys and pretend.” And I tell them, “They’re little; let them play with toys and pretend!”

But you pick the toys, so you shape the play. Their play is their work—their early learning. It might look easy to us, but it’s not all easy to them, and it’s developing their thinking and providing life experiences, sort of like hooks on which they can hang their future learning.

So provide them with stimulating, age-appropriate, developmental toys: Duplos or Legos or building blocks. And your everyday activities can be helpful for brain and skills development. For example, working puzzles is a pre-reading skill, helping Mom set the table is a math skill—that’s one-to-one correspondence. Helping them put away their toys in an orderly fashion is classification and organization, which is basic science, math, and English skills.

And because these are all things that happen in the context of everyday living and their everyday play, it’s much easier to move at the child’s natural pace and in his learning style.

Mike:
Well thank you, Vicki, for bringing our listeners this very helpful information! And until next time, I’m Mike Smith.