Hands-on Play and Books Are Important in Early Childhood

By Allison Pomenta

You’ve probably heard a million times that hands-on play is very important in early childhood, because children learn primarily through play and exploring their physical world. Remember that old saying about the horse that knows its way home? Think of neural pathways (the usual roads that electric impulses take to transmit information along our brain) in a similar way. If children become used to processing information that comes mainly from visual or auditory channels, and use less of their other senses (and, thus, don’t practice using other ways of processing information), these neural paths become seldom-traveled back roads in their brains. 

If you think: “Oh well, our audiovisual world will be totally digital and virtual by the time they’re 15, anyway”, think again. Do you know how lateral thinking (i.e. thinking outside the box) occurs? Precisely because some people are capable of using different ways to analyze data and connect the dots, to get a different picture of any given situation. In our current (and future) global society, the ability to be creative and think differently is what will make some people get the job, keep it, and possibly, stand out enough to be well known.

What’s all this got to do with your child’s play? Your baby and toddler obtains his or her information about the world primarily through touching, and preschoolers are still very tactile in their approach to learning. They learn through trial and error, and repetition. Now imagine all you offer your child is visual and auditory stimulus:  you play an “educational” video game at home, entertain her with a game on your smartphone while you’re on the go, then turn on the TV or at best play an educational DVD while you cook, and then read a book to her on the iPad before going to bed. (Do you see yourself in this kind if world five or seven years from now?) In such a routine, there has been little opportunity for tactile and kinesthetic (whole-body movement) interaction and play. 

The brain learns and stores information best if it receives incoming information from as many senses as possible. In a daily routine such as the one described, little opportunity has been offered to practice self-perception (one of the least-mentioned senses), balance, force, weight, textures, temperatures, plus a variety of fine-motor skills and coordination. That is not to mention the sense of taste and smell, that our virtual society is neglecting. In the case of preschoolers, this can require more effort for them to develop into useful mental categories that they can store in their memories and refer to later on. Imagine an advertiser, a food engineer, or a cosmetics lab technician that can’t easily access olfactory memories in his or her brain, or can’t connect to visual or textual information that he must present to others. Do you see the importance of presenting your child with a variety of stimulus in the first years? It is akin to current nutritional recommendations for eating a balanced diet: providing the child’s brain with a bit of everything, and not just audiovisual (burgers and pizza) every day.

So please, the next time you’re at your local hypermarket, instead of buying a new DVD for your kid, try a board book with textures if he’s under 3, or one with wheels, flaps, pieces to be assembled or pulled, and even scratch n’ sniff smells, if he’s older. And try to choose hands-on games that will promote interaction with others (family and friends), whole-body involvement, and invite open-ended play, imagination and exploration. Wii and Kinect video games might offer the first two types of interaction, but are still pretty limited in the latter.

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Allison Pomenta, MA, PG DIP,  is a content developer for children’s products, specialized in learning through play and informal education. She has worked directly with children in museums, classrooms, and has a 6-year-old boy.