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. Research shows that 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
- and perhaps most important, Wondering.
Fear of failure takes away the freedom to experiment. Obviously too much criticism can make children afraid to experiment, but equally too much praise from adults for getting things right, can also change the focus from the puzzle at hand to the child’s “performance” and desire to please. At this extreme, children can stop learning and become expert at “jumping through hoops.”
You can avoid this by looking with the child at the activity rather than watch them doing it from above. Monitor your comments and questions. Instead of saying things like “What you did is right/not right or good/bad” which put you in the position of judge, show interest in what they are doing and ask sensible questions like “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
- Water play
- Sand pits
- Books
- Play dough and Clay
