How we Motivate Children
Young children are generally motivated to learn about everything. Unless they have been made fun of regularly, when investigating or presenting their knowledge, they usually have a strong desire to find out and share information.
One of the best teaching methods is to motivate children by modeling enthusiasm and curiosity. Motivation comes from within (intrinsic) and from outside (extrinsic). Making too much fuss of any one child can result in a competitive attitude in the class. Model curiosity and asking questions about the topics studied.
Reinforce thinking processes rather than praising the child. Try, “That is an interesting way that you sorted your blocks. Tell me what you were thinking.” Then, “Sarah sorted her blocks in a different way. Both ways of sorting are interesting.”
Literacy
It is traditionally understood as the ability to read, write, and use arithmetic. The modern term's meaning has been expanded to include the ability to use language, numbers, images, computers, and other basic means to understand, communicate, gain useful knowledge and use the dominant symbol systems of a culture. The concept of literacy is expanding in OECD countries to include skills to access knowledge through technology and ability to assess complex contexts. A person who travels and resides in a foreign country but is unable to read or write in the language of the host country would also be regarded by the locals as being illiterate.
The key to literacy is reading development, a progression of skills that begins with the ability to understand spoken words and decode written words, and culminates in the deep understanding of text. Reading development involves a range of complex language underpinnings including awareness of speech sounds (phonology), spelling patterns (orthography), word meaning (semantics), grammar (syntax) and patterns of word formation (morphology), all of which provide a necessary platform for reading fluency and comprehension.
Once these skills are acquired, the reader can attain full language literacy, which includes the abilities to apply to printed material critical analysis, inference and synthesis; to write with accuracy and coherence; and to use information and insights from text as the basis for informed decisions and creative thought. The inability to do so is called illiteracy or analphabetism.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines literacy as the "ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society"
Writing
It is a medium of human communication that represents language and emotion with signs and symbols. In most languages, writing is a complement to speech or spoken language. Writing is not a language, but a tool developed by human society. Within a language system, writing relies on many of the same structures as speech, such as vocabulary, grammar, and semantics, with the added dependency of a system of signs or symbols. The result of writing is called text, and the recipient of text is called a reader. Motivations for writing include publication, storytelling, correspondence and diary. Writing has been instrumental in keeping history, maintaining culture, dissemination of knowledge through the media and the formation of legal systems.
As human societies emerged, the development of writing was driven by pragmatic exigencies such as exchanging information, maintaining financial accounts, codifying laws and recording history. Around the 4th millennium BCE, the complexity of trade and administration in Mesopotamia outgrew human memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form. In both ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica, writing may have evolved through calendric and a political necessity for recording historical and environmental events.
Mathematics
Children begin learning mathematics well before they enter elementary school. Starting from infancy and continuing throughout the preschool period, they develop a base of skills, concepts, and misconceptions about numbers and mathematics. The state of children’s mathematical development as they begin school both determines what they must learn to achieve mathematical proficiency and points toward how that proficiency can be acquired.
Science
The nature of children’s ideas, the way they think about the natural world, also influences their understanding of scientific concepts. Children tend to view things from a self-centered or human-centered point of view. Thus, they often attribute human characteristics, such as feelings, will or purpose, to objects and phenomena (Piaget, 1972; Bell, 1993). For example, some children believe that the moon phases change because the moon gets tired. When the moon is not tired, we see a full moon. Then, as the moon tires, we see less of the moon.
Physical Education
There are many reasons that promoting structured physical activity in children will benefit them throughout childhood and into adulthood. These reasons range far beyond physical development, to social, emotional, and mental development. Young children are naturally active and will move, run, kick, throw, and play on their own in nearly any environment. However, children today are faced with a variety of challenges that reduce their natural aptitude toward movement and physical activity.
