How are children prepared to read and write before the age of 6 years?

This is a day in the first forest school of Madrid"Many of the children labeled as lazy, in reality, have learning problems,""The children know to capture perfectly the messages contained classic fairy tales"

teachers of the second cycle of childhood —a period of education that ranges from three years to six— warn of the "pre-primarization" of this stage, to access many of the children in these days. "It is becoming in a high school to the elementary school, made very negative affects the cognitive development and socio-emotional development of the child", reported one of every three teachers in the study of opinion conducted by the World Association of early Childhood Educators AMEI-WAECE.

During this education period, "which is not mandatory in our country", remember from this institution, "many children of five years are required to know how to read, write dictation, and to do sums and subtractions, a sitaución very different to that of the nordic countries in the that we looked at, where they at that age are still playing and learning to interact with others, and it is not until much later when they begin making contact with the letters and numbers", explain.

Advancing stages

In Spain, however, with the continuation of the teacher's report, the demands of the curriculum, as well as the social and family makes it so that the teachers are forced to give priority to some areas versus others." In fact, according to the study, 83 percent claim to spend more time on the lectorescritura, logical-mathematical, and the learning of a second language, when in reality they claim to want (and not able) to focus on the emotional aspects and in values education.

Then, the curriculum of the child, what is realistic?Are the contents adequate? According to Pilu Hernandez Dopico, teacher, and preparer of teachers for oppositions, and founder of the Blog The desk of Pilu, "today, we have a curriculum, unreal and full of academic content and few parents that are looking for your child to be the smartest and the best. But you have to remember that the areas identified by Law are: self-knowledge and personal autonomy knowledge of the environment and languages, communication and representation. On the paper is very beautiful, the problem is when we only focus on academics , and require them to be sitting around for five hours, to be in silence, to recognize and pronounce the letters, copy words of two or three syllables... we are getting out of hand".

Trend school

The educational requirements, added from AMEI-WAECE, "make that the stage of childhood is an advancement of content to get to primary school with skills that do not take into account the pace or the developmental stage of the ages". So what substantiates the educational psychologist Yolanda Cortés, partner portal, let's Talk about Neuroscience, for whom there is a widespread belief socially, that the best educational strategy is to start as soon as certain apprenticeships. "The trend school is basically aimed at them for the next stage. But to write on a piece of paper, the children must be able to coordinate and control the movement of their fingers, and the brain's motor cortex, which controls the coordination of the hands and fingers, usually, is not developed at all, at least until five years of age. In fact, this development continues along the enseñana Primary".

Start later

there Will be children, continued Cortes, "that can't continue this fast pace, par alos that such approaches "the sooner the better" constitute a disservice: instead of going out empowered and self-confident, finish the stage with a budding sense of impontencia and, probably, categorized as problematic." These children, continued Cortes, "you need more of that push, since they may not be ready for reading comprehension when they begin to go to school. Maybe your brain develop more slowly. If these children are given another opportunity to learn to read at a later age, say at 7 years old, the thing can work."

In other countries, points to this educational psychologist, "as Denmark or Finland, children do not begin to go to school until 7 years old, which makes it easier for children who are not yet prepared, what they are and learn to read without pressure, without having to follow the tran tran the pace of others, with emotional blockages. There is not that much of a hurry. To them we are forced to grow up faster than they deserve. There are things that you just have to cook over a low heat so that the result is as expected, and becomes a process done naturally and calmly." To Pilu Hernandez Dopico, this results in a "call to authorities and families: more life lessons at this stage, more feelings, more cooperative play, more sand, and more jumping in the puddles and get dirty. In short, more children and less professors in early childhood education, which already will have time to get where you want ".

Respect the rhythms of the child

fortunately, points to the contributor to let's Talk about Neuroscience, "there are already pedagogies alternatives where the process of teaching and learning in the children respect the rhythm of each one of them, both with the student who was born in January, as the who has done in December, because of what it is to teach reading and writing in a manner as close and natural as possible." The most important thing, concludes this expert, "is always to respect the individuality of each child. If they receive respect of the adult, gain confidence in themselves, and that is more important than any other learning process. This does not mean that we can not bring the letters to the child, on the contrary.

the letters and numbers have to be present in the classroom, what we need to do is to take care of the way ".

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Date Of Update: 18 September 2019, 15:00