Cognitive Development

Play is integral to young children, as they learn to exercise choice and autonomy by manipulating their environments and making connections between what they are engaged in and how they impact those experiences. Play is also foundational to the development of critical thinking, and to lay the groundwork for literacy, numeracy and science skills as they develop in their school careers. Having all the rote skills in the world will not teach a child to be a critical thinker, and as adults working with children we can have a significant influence in teaching the children in our care cognitive skills at this stage of their early learning. These skills include responding to open-ended questions, problem-solving, forming and verbalizing questions, and explaining thinking.

When a child is engaged in kitchen play, they often share play food (for example, a toy pizza) with their stuffed animals or their playmates. This is not just practice in sharing, but also in experiencing mathematical concepts such as one-to-one correspondence, fractions, addition, and subtraction. Dramatic play based on familiar stories is practice in sequencing, a fundamental literacy skill that forms a basis for reading comprehension in later years. You can help your child develop these skills in organic ways by supporting their play, engaging in open-ended questioning and following their lead.