What pedagogies of stimulation are recommended to achieve the domain specific milestones at different ages?
Learning by Playing
A child under the age of three should learn as she plays, play as she learns. This principle—of learning through playing—forms the premise of the “play-based pedagogy” recommended for the caregivers of children in this age bracket.
A child’s play entails the creation of an imaginative space, where they give meanings to the objects and places around them, and ascribe roles to themselves. The caregiver typically directs this process in different capacities, as the child comes to develop strong associations to the meanings and roles they conjure. In the presence of adequate licence and guidance, these associations become a way for the child to learn concepts, develop faculties and capacities under different domains of development.
The caregiver, in order for a child’s play to facilitate learning, is expected to take a more hands-on role throughout the process of play. This begins with affective engagement: that occurs when the caregiver actively engages in toddlers’ play and communicates with toddlers “both verbally (by explaining the process of play and growth) and non-verbally (by tuning in to the children’s play through modelling play actions).” This allows for the child to both collaborate with their caregiver as they explain, and imitate them as they model the play actions—letting the child raise himself to a higher intellectual level of development through collaboration, to move from what she has to what she does not have through imitation.
In other words, a play adequately guided by the adult provides the child with the stimulation and scaffolding to learn what she doesn’t already know, while simultaneously expanding the scope of what the child can learn. This is also called the expansion of the zone of proximal development—illustrated under the diagram below as well.
A schematic of how the zone of proximal development expands under conducive learning conditions
The play based pedagogical practice follows closely from the responsive caregiving approach outlined earlier, as both rely on an active, individualistic attention to the child, and create a conducive environment for stimulation and learning. The program under development by Rocket Learning aims to supply the parents—who double up as primary caregivers of their children—with demonstrations of this practice and approach, in essence. In doing so, it aims to fill the slight and small gaps that may exist in the care and love provided by them to their wards, when seen in light of a play-based pedagogy, and responsive caregiving approach.
Referred/ Suggested Readings, to understand the pedagogies of stimulation for a child under three
Li, Liang. "Developing a pedagogy of play: Toddlers’ conceptual learning in a PlayWorld." Early Years 42.3 (2022): 278-292.
Obukhova, L. F., and I. A. Korepanova. "The zone of proximal development: A spatiotemporal model." Journal of Russian & East European Psychology 47.6 (2009): 25-47.