Immersed in Learning

When parents leave the hospital with their newborn, they are given a lengthy list of instructions on how to care for their baby. But parents aren't given any instruction on how to help their baby achieve major learning milestones, such as talking. There is no list of words handed out to every set of parents--to be taught to children in a specific order. Nor are parents told to teach their child certain grammar rules before their child begins putting words together to form sentences. Why not? Because that is NOT how children learn. Children learn by being immersed in the learning process, and then positive interactions lead them to successfully learn new concepts. There are three levels to this learning process: introduce the concept, reinforce the concept, and master the concept.

For example, a very young child babbles and happens to say, "da da". Everyone around gets really excited and points to Dad and says, "Yes, this is da da!" Then the child continues to babble, and eventually the child realizes when he/she says "da da", that Dad turns or answers back. "So that guy is da da!"--The connection has been made and the concept is just one of the thousands more the child will soon learn. The people around the child have an important role in reacting to what the child says and does, and facilitating the learning process.

Knowing that young children learn in a non-linear, immersing way, it is easy to see that technology can be a wonderful medium for teaching new concepts. To provide the best learning environment, technology needs to be coupled with software that truly engages the child and provides positive feedback. The teacher or parent still has an important role--to guide the child to success.