The Importance of Building a Solid Foundation

As the long summer nights slowly give way to the encroaching twilight of autumn, Canadian children are often launched into a unique “new year’s” celebration of returning to school. Children in child care settings also tend to move from one program to another which is geared to their developmental age and stage in life, allowing them more opportunities to flourish. All these movements may create unrest and anxiety in children as they are uncertain or speculative of the weeks ahead. During this time of transition, families and educators play a huge role in reaffirming to children that they will continue to “walk on solid ground” as they navigate their new surroundings and build new relationships.

Constructing a foundation for learning during these early formative years is in fact extremely necessary. It is actually quite similar to building a structure to which future floors or levels are to be added in subsequent time periods. If the foundation of the structure is not “solid”, the additional floors or levels will begin to slowly crumble causing structural decay. In keeping with this simple analogy, children too require the need to understand what their routine needs to be and how to manage “variations” along the pathway to success. Returning to the proverbial prescribed bedtime along with the scheduling of reading time or homework completion requires a few reminders for both children and adults but the investment is worth it! Once these necessary foundational activities begin to routinely fall into place in the coming weeks, these patterns do last well into the future and are often determinants of independent life-long learning success.