13th April 2016 1:00
By Blue Tutors
New research has indicated that parents in England seriously underestimate how much children should be learning as toddlers. Charity Save the Children has warned that rather than being ‘helicopter parents’, many adults in England have harmfully low expectations of how much their children should achieve in early life. A survey carried out by the charity suggests that parents have little understanding of how far children should have come in literacy and numeracy at key stages in their development. The charity is calling for every nursery to have a qualified early years’ teacher to ensure children’s development.
The survey carried out by Save the Children found that 47 percent of parents believe that their children should know about 100 words or fewer by the time the reach two and a half. According to education specialists, children should know six times this amount at that stage in their development. The charity said that early years’ development has a lifelong impact on children’s academic achievement, and has launched a campaign to improve early years’ education. The campaign, which is supported by leading child psychologists and education specialists, is calling for qualified teachers to work in nurseries to ensure that children have properly structured “brain time” during play.
Currently figures suggest that one in five children are behind in language development by age five, and often never catch up with their peers despite interventions later on in school. Save the Children’s campaign is supported by University College London’s institute of Child Health, who said that most of the connections in the brain are formed at a very early age. Professor Baldeweg at UCL said that children who do not form the necessary connections in the brain early on will suffer consequences to their physical, cognitive and emotional development. The charity concluded that decisive action needed to be taken to ensure that children are given the best start in life.