Early childhood education: Elect Document vs Standard Curriculum - Essay Example

The learning process has a bearing on the overall development of the child. There are two methods of learning that may be used on a child; play-based learning and standard curriculum learning process. It is often a herculean task to determine the best learning process for the development of the child. Truth be said, both of these methods come with their pros and cons. This presents a bit of a problem on the particular package one should go for and which one to leave. While this may be the case, play based learning process comes off as superior to standard curriculum methods in more aspects than one.

What are the pros of going for play based learning over the standard curriculum? To begin with, you will acknowledge that many kindergarten and preschool children fall in what is known as preoperational stage as far as cognitive development is concerned. Generally, numerals and letters would have little or no meaning to the young children in that stage. They would be best placed representing their ideas and objects using concrete and not abstract symbols as would be taught in the standard curriculum leaning process.

By pretending or taking up other roles in the play environment, the young ones would develop the mental capacity to represent their world. Standard curriculum learning process or reading puts it on the children the requisition to look at representations and symbols and make meaning out of them. Play based curriculum on its part provides children with an opportunity develop the capacity to think conceptually where they use their senses to experience the real objects. For the preschool kids, the use of concrete objects would be a prerequisite as far as the use as well as the comprehension of the printed symbols is concerned (Ontario, 2010).

In addition, there is always the element of special-needs children. These would be likely to be discriminated upon as far as learning through the standard curriculum based process. This is something that you do not have to worry about as far as play based curriculum is concerned. Children will always device a way in which their needs will be taken care of. When they have playmates that have special needs, they can always modify the plays in order to have every party involved. This speaks of flexibility unlike the standard curriculum based learning where here are pre-set rules with no room for modification.

One thing that you will appreciate about play based curriculum is the element of creativity. Essentially, play as a learning process capitalizes on the child’s exuberance and natural curiosity. As a learning process, it has its basis as creativity and innovation. In fact, it provides learning opportunities when the children are most receptive. Unlike the standard curriculum based learning process, the child is allowed to stretch his or her imagination without necessarily being branded as wrong or right.

This definitely has a bearing on the motivation of the children to learn and even have the lessons stick even more. Play based learning process has a bearing on the social development of the kids. With more role play and every child engaging in the play, the children would accept their differences and have increased compassion, empathy and sharing. They would be more likely to understand the feelings of others even in the later lives. This learning process creates choices and options while modeling relationships on the basis of inclusion and not exclusion.

It definitely would have a bearing on the nonverbal skills of socialization