Chapter Four- Part One- How Children Learn

Chapter Four deals with Guiding Children's Learning. The authors stress that HOW teachers guide children's learning is as important as WHAT children are learning.
If you did not review the theorists from Chapter One, the authors revisit several of them here. Luckily, they summarize four concepts about how children learn:

1. Children Construct Understanding- Children are natural explorers and learn by doing. Learning is a process of building new and deeper understandings, and acquiring and refining skills.
2. Children Learn by Interacting with Others- Learning is social! Collaborative work gives countless opportunities for children to learn from each other. in the process of talking about what they know, students will unravel problems and clarify their own thinking. This makes for a greater comprehension of concepts and contributes to others' understanding.
3. Play Engages Children in Active Learning- The author suggest looking for and promoting the 4 types of play identified by Sara Smilansky (1990): functional play (examining functions and properties of materials and objects), constructive play (using materials to make a representation of something), socio-dramatic play (pretend play which supports abstract thinking), and games with rules (any type of play governed by a set of rules).
4. Learning Takes Place in Stages- All learning begins with awareness and exploration and moves to the stages of inquiry and utilization.

It must be stressed that all of these concepts are dependent on you knowing the developmental and individual needs of the children your teach.