Published at Saturday, November 09th, 2019 - 20:29:20 PM. Worksheet. By Leala Rousseau.
Worksheets, workbooks, and printables. Is there a place for them in the early childhood setting? Today I’m explaining why I think worksheets are not appropriate for young children. Welcome to the Child Led Environments Series where we are exploring how to set up and cultivate an environment conducive to child-led learning. How to Cultivate a Love of Learning, Toy Rotation: Why It’s Beneficial for You and Your Child, How to Incorporate an Encouraging Home Preschool Environment,9 Reasons Why Worksheets Are Inappropriate for Young Children,4 Aspects of the Adult’s Role in a Child-Led Approach. As a parent and educator, when I walk into an environment with early learners, whether that be in a homeschool setting or preschool setting, I want to see those kids engaged in their learning. Young children should be manipulating materials, testing hypothesis, and exploring the world around them. No matter where I look, I should not see a child doing a workbook. Worksheets are not appropriate for young children for many reasons. Let me start off by explaining what a worksheet means to me.
Worksheets Do Not Allow for Higher Level Thinking, Again, worksheets are there for spitting out information. Where is the thinking in that? Hands on manipulation of objects, gives children the opportunity to create hypothesis, test them out, and use their problem solving and critical thinking skills to completely understand how it works. Worksheets May Be “Teaching” What a Child is Not Ready For or Interested In, This is more towards workbooks, especially if you follow the workbook page by page. Just because the workbook says it’s for 3 year olds, does not mean your child is ready for it. Related: What to Teach My Preschooler and When to Teach It. It’s best to teach your child based on their interests and signs of readiness. A workbook does not allow room for every child’s unique growth and development sequence. Worksheets Leave No Room to Challenge The Norm. This is a huge one for me. When I taught in the public schools, we were told to get kids to think for themselves and defend their answers. But, their answers and evidence must match the teacher’s guide and test answer key. Really? How is it possible to get a child to think for themselves and defend their position, but also be correct 100% of the time according to an answer key? It’s just not possible! I look at it this way, if a child can defend their answer to any question using evidence then it’s correct whether the answer key says so or not. In 20 years, do we want people running this country who only know how to give one answer, or do we want people who can be creative and think outside the box?
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