Patterns of learning
Consider these typical examples of the progression of children’s drawing and block construction from age two to six.
Reflect:
- What similarities do you see?
- Describe the pattern of development for both sequences.
Talking, walking, and reading in any language from Mandarin to Kiswahili to English all typically follow similar patterns of learning. These patterns are:
Selective. Babies around the world make the same babbling and cooing sounds. After about six months, they begin to make only the sounds that are related to the languages they hear around them.
Move from simple to complex. Young children speak single words first and then build them into sentences. For example, an 18-month-old child may say ‘Cow’! as a one word sentence (a holophrase) with many possible meanings such as ‘I see a cow’, or ‘where is the cow’ or ‘I like cows’, etc. At age two-and-a-half, the child may combine words to say ‘big cow’ or ‘we can’t find the cow’. Language skills, like physical skills, build on one another. Children learn to kick a ball, bounce a ball and run as separate skills before they can combine these skills together with other ones to play football.
Move from concrete to abstract. First words usually name important people such as Mommy or Daddy and things such as a favourite food. Words about feelings and thinking come later.
Sequential. Babies learn to sit up before they walk, use one word before sentences and focus on one aspect of a problem before learning to focus on several aspects at the same time.
Patterns of development unfold in the context of children’s culture and daily lives. Each child also has individual rates of development. One child may develop language earlier than another, but later their language skills may be equivalent. Developmental patterns are mediated by childrearing practices. A prescription of ‘normal’ or universal milestones that describe a specific schedule for narrowly defined skills fails to recognize the impact of different environments and cultural contexts.
