The role of the early years setting in preparing young learners to lead a healthy lifestyle essential to their learning
The beginning years of every child is very crucial, this is when his/her mind is very delicate and adopts easily to what he/she is exposed to be it at home or at school. Early education benefits the child educationally, socially and emotionally. Educationally it improves the child school performance, socially and emotionally it improves and strengthen the child interaction with others. It also has a long term effect such as achieve better academic outcomes (Bruce, 2011). Therefore, this paper will look at some of the recommendations on the importance of early childhood education and the role it plays in ensuring they lead a healthy lifestyle essential to their learning.
The first recommendation is to ensure the child gets a good school-based nutrition education. This education helps the child improve his/her dietary practices that can affect his/her growth, health and intellectual development (Roseman, 2011). Unhealthy eating patterns will result to immediate effects such as: iron deficiency, obesity, and anemia. This effects will affect the child’s intellectual development and growth, therefore, should be exposed to effective school-based nutrition education (Roseman and Haynes, 2011). Nutrition education also prevents the child from developing chronic diseases during adulthood (Thai et.al, 2011). Young children need nutrition education so as they can develop healthy eating patterns.
The second recommendation is providing the children with a good learning environment. Schools are in better position to help the child to become resilient and be able to deal with changes; and challenges (Bicen and Cavus, 2011). The main aim of the school is to build a strong school and good peer relationship. The school should focus on the positive aspects of life and developing the knowledge, skills and values necessary to be lifelong learners.The availability of convenient learning environment that concentrates on the child’s strengths and capabilities encourages the child to actively participate in the learning process (Tsai et.al, 2011). Through a well-developed personal and social development education program schools are able to help learners to have a clear picture of who they are as individuals, how they relate to others and contribute to the community. This also ensures that they are able to cope with change and challenges throughout their lives.
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The third recommendation is ensuring the child has access to effective and quality physical education. Physical activity is important on the child’s physical, social and intellectual development. The tutor should ensure the child is exposed to a quality and effective physical educational experience. This should be on the child’s early curriculum. Children are more likely to learn more from developmentally appropriate instructions as opposed to random physical activity. However, the child is able to acquire social skills when he/she plays outside with his/her peers. The National Association for Sport and Physical Education has created guidelines for appropriate practices in schools and community settings (Smilkstein, 2011). Physical education reduces the chances of the child being obsess, hence, being physically fit. Children require systematic opportunities to acquire physical skills that will contribute to a lifetime of physical activity.
The fourth recommendation is ensuring the child gets early education form a qualified tutor.This is because the relationship between a qualified tutor and the child leads to very good results. Working with young children is not an easy profession, it requires someone who is knowledgeable and skilled (Nutbrown, 2012). The tutor must know how children growand develop, hence, be able to apply effective skills when educating them. Qualified tutors in early childhood education leads to positive child outcomes and good early learning experiences (Tickell, 2012).
Conclusion
Early child education is very important since it serves as the base or rather foundation of the child’s education, social and development future. There are several recommendations that guide the teachers to administer effective and adequate early education to the child. Apart from the recommendations discussed above they are more such as: early language literacy and creative arts (Region and McCuaig, 2012). Thisrecommendations when applied well they ensure the child develops into an intelligent adult who is able to deal with challenges of the world. Earl education plays a very crucial and important role in our children, therefore, should be handled with care and seriousness it deserves (Bruce, 2011). In my research I opted for a research based approach, where I used questioners and observation. This is because these methods are effective in collecting data related to the child and the practitioner without interfering with their daily routine.
A research carried out, as encompassed by Barnett, (2011) showed that children who received high quality pre-school program developed well as opposed to those who did not receive preschool education. The children who received pre-school education later in life grew up to be; very successful, more likely to hold a job, were involved in little or no crime at all and were likely to have graduated from high school. This was not the same case as for those who did not receive early education. This study proves that early education is important for every child so that they can be able to cope with the world in future.
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