As your child's first teacher, it is vital that you understand
the relationships between experience, perception, and learning.
Young children are curious about their environment and readily
explore it in many ways. But just touching, tasting, feeling,
smelling, and hearing does not guarantee a child's brain will
make sense of what is touched, tasted, felt, smelt, or heard.
The five senses are the avenues through which a child
experiences the world. But perception is what transforms raw
data into meaning, which in turn makes learning and retention
possible.
Here is how perception works. When stimulated, the senses
automatically trigger a "detective" game within the brain. The
brain then enables the child to recognize and identify what
stimulated him and some form of learning takes place. Additional
learning takes place when the child can discriminate between
different inputs.
Thus generally speaking, there are three types of sensory
perception:
- Detection - the child senses a stimulation
- Recognition - the child is able to recognize and
identify what was detected
- Discrimination - the child perceives a pattern or
stimulation as being similar or different from other patterns
and stimulations
Memory also depends on perception. Your child's brain acts as a
sponge as it absorbs and processes information. It has the
capacity to store and organize information. But to be
remembered, this information must first be detected, recognized,
and discriminated.
Perception & Readiness
Perception skills are required for readiness. Preschool children
need many varied and enriching experiences involving perceptual
skills to help them develop a good healthy foundation for
learning.
Auditory Perception.
Unfortunately some children have weaknesses in one or more
areas. For example, even though there is nothing wrong with
their hearing, some children are very poor listeners. They may
hear words (detect) but do not receive the message
(recognize) therefore they cannot recall
(discriminate) what was heard. The child may be a lazy
listener or have problems processing information. This indicates
that a child needs more training with listening skills. Games
that require following verbal directions, such as "Hot and Cold"
or "Simon Says," are excellent for this.
Visual Perception. Other
children may have visual perception problems even though their
vision is normal. They may have problems distinguishing between
similar letters of the alphabet, for example b and d, p and q,
or between similar words. The child can detect and
recognize but cannot discriminate between letters
or words. This type of problem needs to be corrected before a
child can be expected to recognize words and begin reading
comprehension.
One way to develop visual perception abilities is through
eye-hand coordination exercises that involve manipulating
various materials. Here are some good kinds of manipulative
materials for you to provide your child:
- For color and size discrimination: an assortment of
colored blocks
- For shape discrimination: you can make your own inexpensive
set of shapes by cutting a circle, square, rectangle, triangle
and oval, etc. out of construction paper
- For specific training in reading readiness: print letters,
numbers, and words on flashcards, or (better) you can use sets
of specially designed letter and number manipulatives, made of foam rubber or wood. For very young children who might bite the letters, wood is best.
Fine Motor Skills. Does your
child hold a pencil or scissors clumsily? Does he cut poorly or
have trouble coloring between the lines? If he cannot paste,
cannot string beads and picks up small objects awkwardly, he
needs more training in fine motor coordination. A good
pre-handwriting program, such as
ReadyWriter from School Made Simple, or almost any
preschool cut-and-paste workbook can help here. Also, sometimes
just waiting awhile may help, especially in the case of boys.
Tactile Perception. Some
children do not like to touch various materials. Some balk at
getting their hands wet. Others do not like to work with clay,
paste, sand or paint. Some children have difficulty
distinguishing between objects that are smooth or rough, shiny
or dull, soft or hard, etc. These children have difficulty with
tactile perception and need further enrichment to help them
perceive textural awareness of various media. Montessori
materials are particularly good for tactile perception
training.
Gross Motor Skills. Some
children have difficulty with large muscle coordination. They
need training in running, jumping, hopping, skipping, trotting,
galloping, etc. Also helpful are activities involving ball play
such as throwing and catching a ball and walking on a low
balance beam, etc. These activities involve the body and its
relation in space.
Use these tips as your first step in becoming aware of your child's perceptual development. Be sure to check his progress at regular intervals. Let's guide each child to use his natural senses to his full potential.
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