Article - Cognitive Skills

Cognitive skills are the intellectual skills to analyse and understand new ideas, making sense of things, fitting new ideas into what we already know. These are the basis of learning, reasoning and creative problem solving. Strong cognitive skills developed in the early years help children become confident and independent learners.

A sense of adventure in learning is an important part of life-long successful learning. Freedom to experiment, play with ideas, use trial and error, and just "see what happens" fosters a creative, analytic approach to learning.

Terms that we might use when describing activities that develop cognitive skills include:

Observing
Analyzing
Discovering
Sorting
Remembering
Evaluating
Assessing
Interpreting
Imagining
Understanding
Thinking
Predicting
Testing

Fear of failure takes away the freedom to experiment. Obviously too much criticism can make children afraid to experiment, but sometimes too much praise from adults for getting things right, can also change the focus from the puzzle at hand to the child's "performance". At the extreme, children can stop learning and become expert at "jumping through hoops."

You can avoid this by looking with the child at the activity. Monitor your comments and questions. Instead of saying "What you did is right/not right or good/bad", think and say "What was it that made that happen" and "What would happen if..."

Toys and activities that can encourage cognitive skills include:

Puzzles
Blocks and Bricks
Art activities
Woodwork
Water play
Sand pits
Books
Play dough and Clay

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