When Should Your Child Start School?

By Paul Nwosu

24 July 2020.

The statement that babies do not have sense is absurd and silly. Even babies in the womb are learning already. They are hungry to learn and the ages of 0-8 years are crucial learning windows for children. This post touches on the point why the human baby should be exposed to formal education early, and also at what point should the education begin.

S/he is just a baby?

Research into human development has broaden our understanding about the stages of learning. New born babies come to the world fully equipped with the most powerful biological learning machine humans have known – the brain. With this powerful tool, babies rapidly learn and develop within the first eight years of life.

However, adults look at these little bundle of learning beings as dumbs that do not know anything. Perhaps because little ones cannot speak, seems uninterested in lot things, cry a lot, need to be cared for, always hungry for food, and sleep most times. Nonetheless, it has been discovered that enormous learning take place at this period.

Babies in the womb learn and listen

Even while in the womb, babies are learning. They can differentiate various language sounds adults speak. They can recognize the voice of adults around them, and when they are born, they continue to learn.

Sense of hearing which is substantially developed while in the womb becomes mature within four weeks after birth. They can be played lullabies and rhymes during this period. They instinctively form bond and trust relationship with their mother through the acts of cuddling, feeding among other closeness relationships.

For the better development of such relationship between new born babies and their environment, conducive, warm, and supporting environment is important. Conducive environment fosters learning, growth and physical, emotional, and cognitive development.

A new born baby is hungry to learn

As I had pointed out above, the amount of learning babies experience is awesome. They use all their sense organs to absorb information from their environment, process it in the brain, and respond to the information accordingly. Sense of sight can now see things and transmit the images to the brain which identifies it and store it into its huge memory so that when next the child sees the same or similar image s/he can recollect it. At this period picture books, colorful toys and teddies, interactive plays should make up the child’s learning experience.

Parents don’t have to slow down to provide learning materials to their eager to learn babies. Age appropriate cartoons, games, musical songs, outdoor activities, should be provided. Routines like time to sleep and wake up, time to play, time to learn and study, should be set and consistently followed. Obviously kids learn more from their parents, so parents ought to set good examples that their kids can copy.

Thus, formal schooling begins from preparing infants and toddlers adequately from home or from well functioning crèche. Working parents can register their infants and toddlers in schools with professional and experienced educators, conducive and safe learning environment, with well designed education program, and learning and teaching materials. Such schools may necessarily not be expensive to be effective and functional.

However, serious financial involvement is needed for proper running of such institution. So parents have to take responsibility if they want their kids to learn in a quality environment.

It is a huge responsibility on the shoulder of parents to lay proper foundation for the the future generation. For the solid foundation to be laid, the quality of learning/teaching have to be high and well grounded for the development of the infants and toddlers into well-prepared future learners.

Ages 0-8 are crucial learning time for children.

This is the period when the brain undergoes intensive wiring. This is also the right time to vigorously expose children to various forms of learning that are high quality.

Children can learn so many great things ranging from academic knowledge to creative and expressive skills, to critical reasoning, to social, cultural, community knowledge. Given enough background knowledge and skills, children can easily develop the capacity to absorb complex knowledge and skills.

However, if they are not exposed to quality education early, it becomes hard to reach them. By the time their brain wiring is complete, the window of easy learning closes up and learning becomes harder which leaves them with low skills. Sadly, low skills relate to poverty and low income earning.

Don’t wait for your kids to grow before considering exposing them to well-structured learning school system. Put them to school as early as possible and provide adequate learning resources for them to play and learn with at home. Carefully monitor their progress and increase the complexity of their learning materials inline with their learning stage. A strong society begins with the quality of children’s education.

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