Preschool is intended to lay the foundation for the rest of a child’s education. The goal is to set children up for success with the skills they need for school. There are a lot of different ways that children approach learning, but there are a number of key skills that preschoolers will learn.
Here’s how a child learns and grows from infancy to preschool.

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Executive Function

What about on a cognitive level? What does the brain need to be available to learn? This is where Executive Function comes in. Executive Function often gets compared to an air traffic control system, but in the brain. It refers to a set of cognitive skills that allow us to prioritize competing tasks, filter out distractions, set goals, and stay focused.

Executive Function is also closely tied to the development of social-emotional skills. Executive Functioning skills have to develop for pro-social skills to develop. (Pro-social skills are things like conflict resolution, perspective-taking, turn-taking, etc.) Research shows that young children who act in antisocial ways participate less in classroom activities and are less likely to be accepted by classmates and teachers. Even as young as preschool, teachers provide these kids with less instruction and less positive feedback. This results in children who like school less, learn less, and attend less.

Social-emotional Skills

A huge element of what preschoolers learn and the skills they need relates to how they interact with others. Learning how to negotiate conflict with peers, manage big emotions, have a healthy outlet for frustration, etc. are all super important skills to learn.
Preschool is an important time for kids to be more independent in taking care of themselves. things like pausing play to go to the bathroom, remembering to wash their hands, getting dressed and undressed independently, etc.
Advocating for yourself is part of this as well, and preschoolers should be encouraged to voice their needs, ask for what they want, and generally speak up for themselves.

Pre-academic Skills

Preschoolers aren’t ready for really heavily academically focused content, but it’s important to introduce these ideas through things like story time, singing songs, word play, shape hunts, counting games, sorting, and similar activities. Much of the important work that preschoolers will be doing isn’t directly related to academics, but having a grounding in logical and verbal skills will help them when they move on from preschool.

Learning Through Play

Play is one of the main ways in which children learn and develop. Playing helps young children’s brains to develop and for their communication abilities to mature. Through play and with the use of educational toys, children learn to experiment, discover, explore, and solve problems.

There are many types of play: symbolic, sociodramatic, functional, and games with rules. These games help children understand the real world around them, test ideas, and apply their knowledge to different situations. For instance, children who engage in pretend play tend to have more sophisticated levels of decision-making skills. Whatever the type of activity you choose, play can work to help your child learn essential skills.

One important skill learned here is writing (or pre-writing). This is a great example of a pre-academic skill that develops through all sorts of play!

Logic Development

Children, through experience, learn to think logically and examine observations. Children at the stage of preschooler development use their past experiences and a systematic series of steps based on sound mathematical procedures to arrive at a conclusion. Once preschoolers experience logic development, they’re able to establish cause and effect relation, ensuring they’ll be successful in school.

Learning to apply logical reasoning through logic puzzles can stimulate the brain and help build brain connections called neural pathways. This enables the child to develop their ability to argue points and improve their critical thinking.

Reasoning Development

Reasoning skill is hard cognitive work. It is what distinguishes humans from intelligent animals. There is no one strategy to teach your child how to think critically. That’s because interactions with more knowledgeable others facilitate children’s reasoning development. Consequently, this stage can also be very confusing and exasperating for parents.

Learning from multiple examples is a matter of making the right connections. As kids interact with the world around them, they continually add new knowledge to their experiences. It is how preschoolers learn to behave in a way that is appropriate for the situations they are in.

Takeaways

Child development is a process every child goes through. This development occurs in the physical, cognitive, emotional, and social stages.

Generally, all these stages can be developed appropriately by making learning fun for children. Consequently, overcoming the learning challenges is key to optimizing the ease of child development.

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