Intellectual Development means being able to communicate, to think both creatively and abstractly, to pay attention, solve problems, and develop keen judgment and a lifelong readiness to learn.
Emerging Skills
Play with language and make up new words
Talk about imaginary conditions
Use negatives, such as "I don't want to go"
Make up rhymes or sing songs
Communicate cause and effect relationships, such as "I can't play because I'm sick"
Through the comfort and responsiveness of an adult, preschoolers will learn how to handle their emotions and how to seek help when needed.
Parents Can:
Tell their preschooler long stories without pictures
Child Will:
Enjoy special shared time of listening to stories
Strengthen his listening and comprehension skills
Parents Can:
Encourage their preschooler to talk about things she finds interesting. Ask open-ended questions, such as "How come ..." or "Why do you think..."
Child Will:
Practice reasoning skills as she thinks about cause and effect relationships
Reinforce knowledge she has, to provide details and information
Parents Can:
Ask their preschooler to predict what might happen next in a story
Child Will:
Think about how events may be sequenced
Use his imagination to create new actions in a story
Play
Through opportunities for play, preschoolers will experience joyful, free, spontaneous moments of fun while learning about themselves and others.
Parents Can:
Play guessing games, such as "I Spy with my Little Eyes"
Child Will:
Practice her observation skills
Reinforce labels for such concepts as colour, shape and size
Parents Can:
Play silly games, such as using the wrong word in the right place. For example, "I'm going to the store to buy a giraffe, and then to the zoo to see a watermelon."
Child Will:
Enjoy the humour of gross contradictions
Enjoy correcting you using appropriate vocabulary
Parents Can:
Encourage their preschooler to make up a story to accompany a picture
For their older preschooler, the story can be written verbatim under the picture
Child Will:
Make the connection between oral and written language
Practice language skills to compose stories
Teach
Through routines and emotionally and physically safe and secure environments, preschoolers can learn how to think, solve problems and communicate.
Parents Can:
Play word games that focus on initial letters. For example, "I'm Annie and I love apples."
Child Will:
Practice the basic reading readiness skill of identifying letter sounds
Learn that letters represent a sound
Parents Can:
Watch a TV programme with their preschooler, and have her recall details and events
Child Will:
Practice oral retelling of what she remembers
Practice using new words and grammatical constructions
Parents Can:
Point out words on signs and labels in their preschooler's daily environment, such as Stop signs, "milk" and so on
Child Will:
Become aware of the connection between spoken words and the print equivalent
