At Keys 4 Success we value providing opportunities for children to improve their cognitive development.
The ability to think critically, use balanced reason, process information, and have improved memory are all aspects of cognitive development we can affirm are positive and useful life skills.
By infusing our curriculum with a variety of STEAM related activities and class discussions that encourages critical thinking we are laying the foundations for continued cognitive development.
According to Head Start Early Childhood and Learning Center, a child’s brain develops the fastest within the first few years of life. This brings up a lot of questions concerning how we as educators can best support children’s cognitive development during this vital time. One of the biggest misconceptions regarding children and cognitive development is that everyone learns the same thing at the same pace. This also happens to be the biggest critique of Jean Piaget’s a renowned psychologists study on children cognition.
How does K4S support cognitive development?
An advantage for K4S is the ability to utilize music to foster cognitive development. “Relating music and movement sessions to what students are currently learning in their curriculum allows our students to expand their language and processing skills on such a large spectrum of learning,” Mr. Shem says. Following the K4S mission, instrument exploration, music theory, and technology are resources used to help students gain the vocabulary and knowledge on how music is used in our every day lives.
If you are an educator and interested in how your students’ cognitive development is progressing ask yourself these questions:
1. Am I doing all I can to give my students access to the quality programming needed to advance their cognitive development?
2. What forms of assessment am I using to gauge what my students are learning and where they need more improvement?
3. Are the students able to make real world connections to the content they are learning?
We look forward to our students being the problem solvers of the future and believe that in order for this to happen we must continue to provide them with access to tools like those found in the Keys 4 Success music and movement program. We must continue to provide opportunities to help them sharpen their individual ways of thinking and processing information. Our children are our most precious gifts. Let’s do all we can to ensure them the most promising future.