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September 25, 2013 Child Development

The Importance of Understanding Child Development When Teaching

  • About the Author
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About Paula Kay Glass

Paula has a Masters degree in education with an emphasis on child development and child behavior. She has been an educator for 22 years. She founded a private elementary school in 2003 and is now working through the Moore Public School District in Moore, Oklahoma as a special education teacher. Paula is also a contributing writer to The Huffington Post and has a children's book published. Paula has three grown children and resides in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. You can contact her at glass foundations@sbcglobal.net or paulaglass@moorepublicschools.com.
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For the next few weeks, I’d like to explore some key points of child development from three years of age to eighteen. We must know what we are dealing with in order to deal with it effectively. The same goes for teaching. We would never walk into a room of kindergarten students expecting them to do algebra, or hand a class of high schoolers the Dolch pre-primer list and have them read it expecting growth in literature. Unfortunately with all of the paperwork, curriculum, district evaluation procedures, standardized testing, and new common core implementation, very few teachers have time to brush up on their child development.

Child development is a process every child goes through. This process involves learning and mastering skills like sitting, walking, talking, skipping and tying shoes. Most children learn these skills, called developmental milestones, during predictable time periods. Milestones develop in a sequential fashion. This means that a child will need to develop some skills before he or she can develop other skills. For example, children must first learn to crawl and to pull up to a standing position before they are able to walk. Each milestone that a child acquires builds on the last milestone developed.

There are five main areas of development in which children develop skills:

  • Cognitive Development:  This is the child's ability to learn and solve problems.
  • Social and Emotional Development: This is the child's ability to interact with others, which includes being able to help themselves and self-control.
  • Speech and Language Development: This is the child's ability to both understand and use language.
  • Fine Motor Skill Development: This is the child's ability to use small muscles, specifically their hands and fingers, to pick up small objects, hold a spoon, turn pages in a book, or use a crayon to draw.
  • Gross Motor Skill Development: This is the child's ability to use large muscles.

Through extensive research, we now know that neurons can continue to make connections on into adulthood. However, the fact still remains that the brain grows very rapidly with billions of neurological connections being made during the first three years of life so it is very important that children get adequate exposure early on to the five areas previously listed.

Although the digital age has expanded the abilities and knowledge of young children, it should never act as a replacement for providing the exposure children need in order to reach these milestones. Each child is an individual and may meet developmental milestones a little earlier or later than his peers. However, there are definitely blocks of time when most children will meet a milestone. And developmental milestones don’t just end once kids are six or seven. All five areas continue to develop up to the age of 21 for most children, especially boys. Although gross motor, fine motor, and speech and language development have reached a plateau, cognitive and social development will continue to snowball.

If we go into a classroom completely unprepared for whom we are teaching, it will be very difficult to see progress and will cause tremendous frustration for the students and for us. Our expectations need to be high, but not higher than what the child is developmentally able to give us.

In the next few weeks, I’d like to provide checklists in each area for each age of development. It will by no means be an end in itself, but more a springboard for teachers to use in order to evaluate and work from. We must also remember that children are individuals and will not develop in the five areas at the same rate.

This is where the importance of differentiated classrooms comes into play. All classrooms are differentiated by definition, meaning that not every student is in the same place as others. And even though it’s so very difficult in today’s world of education to find any extra time to evaluate outside of the box, let alone teach all over the board, if we do our homework beforehand it becomes easier to identify what we are dealing with in our classrooms.

Editor's Note: If you enjoyed this article, please become a Patreon supporter by clicking here.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Darrel Pontejo says

    April 11, 2018 at 2:03 am

    It is important to parents to learn the different stages of child development so that we would know what stage they are right now and if they need something to learn or something to improve for their child's development.

    How to develop your child's gratefulness? We also help those parent on how they can help their kids to be grateful for every blessing they receive everyday.
    https://academyforhealthsuperheroes.com/teaching-child-grateful-gratitude-parent/

    Reply
  2. Reuben Ambeyi says

    June 28, 2019 at 10:34 pm

    I’m a prison guard in Kenya and had challenges understanding the reasons why prisoners behave in such split personalities, which prompted me to undertake undergraduate course that luckily captured child development widely. Now I can say for sure that a number of our children collide into the criminal justice system as a result of gaps in the five stages of child development, echoed with unfulfilled “Maslow hierarchy of needs”. Understanding child development is key in bringing up a ‘well baked’ individual.

    Reply
  3. John Benjamin says

    August 30, 2019 at 12:41 am

    I am a parent of two brilliant daughters and I can see the activeness and curiosity in children of their age. Younger children should be dealt with extreme care and diligence and their potential should be brought to light. I personally believe that in preschool there should be a play-learn kind of an environment that enhance the children's decision making skills and learning ability. I found just the right montessori for them in my area that gives this kind of a learning atmosphere!
    Reference:
    San Marcos Montessori Preschool (https://smmontessori.com/).

    Reply
  4. Theodore R Staton says

    October 06, 2019 at 1:34 pm

    Great information, I'm a grandad swimming in new water, I'm dealing with a very playful 5 year old whom has had an unexplained change in my patience. Now I spend a lot time enjoying and watching his development, wanting to educate myself more to deal properly with him in all his growing phases.

    Reply
  5. Asha says

    June 22, 2020 at 5:06 am

    Important information.thanks lot

    Reply
  6. Penny Higgins says

    May 20, 2021 at 5:18 pm

    I completely agree with what you have written. I hope this post could reach more people as this was truly an interesting post.

    Reply

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