The millennial generation has a completely different approach to life and perspective on learning because of how much and how rapidly technology has evolved and permeated our lives. Most of the learning takes place through practice, and teaching children to think and ask higher order questions. Let’s further delve into it.
Reading and storytelling
Reading opens a world of imagination for the children where storytelling gives life to the characters and depending on the involvement of the teacher, it enables the children to envision and capture the story. It helps them to learn new concepts, them, moral values and life skills. In addition, they learn new words and its meaning. The word bank helps them to form sentences, and enhances their sense of imagination, listening and comprehension skills. They gain information and knowledge through it. This allows them to utilize all their senses to learn more effectively. It is believed some children learn better visually, while other are better at auditory or tactile learning. The Visual Auditory and Kinesthetic (VAK) strategy has proven to be most effective in teaching children.
Learning with technology
While on the other hand the children are becoming moiré attracted towards technology and if used wisely, it can play a role in reinforcing what is being taught in classroom. These days many schools offer live feeds and recorded teaching methods, lessons and strategies that help the children in understanding the lesson taught in class. Further, if any subject matter is taught and then reinforced through programmed games, it actually helps in boosting their memory and reinforces their learning of the concept. Audio-visual learning story telling with books and pages allows them to form better connection and understanding of the words, characters and the concept of the story. We have come such a long way. Today, professors from all over the university can provide lectures through video conferences and many other social media forums.
Family bonding
At the end of the day, the child has to be monitored constantly, and this plays a significant role in forming their personality. If left alone, their social skills, manners, ability to show compassion and to value bonding time with family and friends will completely become extinct. Additionally, their inner connection and closeness and the worth of human bonding becomes less important. One simple method of building these bonds is by reading with your child. It will help in bonding with the child, makes the child feel special and the parents can also spend quality time with them. Form a family book-club and manage it at an age-appropriate level, like in the form of a puppet theater, or re-telling using play dough models. All these strategies help in enhancing their holistic development and develops a strong language skills and an efficient speech.
Learning disabilities
On the contrary, the technology provides the same kind of advantage but in a different format. There are children suffering from ADHD, and speech impairment might not get too much help from technology. Reading repetitive words, giving them activities that are intellectually and physically exerting will help such children. However, technology does come in handy for children with learning disabilities or those who suffer from autism when coupled with professional therapy and help.
Merger of technology and books
Thus, incorporating both technology and books for children to learn will help children to understand, enjoy and boost their learning. We cannot turn a blind eye to the changes coming our way, but neither can we allow great author s and books that have marked history, created hope and magic to become a relic that belongs in the museum. The arts, culture, values, imagination, conceptualization all comes texts of books. Both teachers and parents must play a crucial role to collaborate both the mediums to create a productive learning environment.
