Indicator: Learning (LRN)

Children show interest, motivation, and persistence in their approaches to learning

Learning is defined as a relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience. Learning is dynamic and reflects the continuous interplay between the biological characteristics of a child and his environmental experiences. Children are active participants in their learning. Their opportunities and experiences greatly influence what and how they will learn. Children have great potential to learn in their early childhood years, particularly when they are engaged in meaningful activities in facilitative and responsive environments.

Several indicators suggest that a child is disposed to learn. These include the ability to maintain attention, to be persistent, to be curious, and to show initiative. Infants orient to people and objects in their environment and demonstrate selective attention to faces, sounds, language, and objects. Through early sensorimotor actions, infants learn about simple cause-and-effect and means-end relationships. They also learn to imitate simple actions. Later in their first year, infants persist for short periods of time to solve simple problems.

Toddlers maintain attention and persist at solving problems for longer periods of time, primarily using trial and error approaches. Through trial and error, they learn about how things work, and they build on previous understandings to develop enhanced ways to relate to people and objects in their environment. Toddlers demonstrate curiosity about how things work, and their developing sense of competence leads them to take initiative to seek learning experiences.

During the preschool years, children demonstrate sustained attention for activities they prefer. They persist for reasonably long periods of time, particularly with tasks that are in their zone of proximal development (not too easy or not too hard). Preschool children form simple hypotheses about how things work, test these hypotheses, and refine them as necessary. Preschoolers actively construct knowledge, integrating new concepts into their existing understandings. During the preschool years, children learn how to learn as they reflect, predict, question, and hypothesize.