“Repetition is the secret of perfection”
Dr Maria Montessori
If you have a toddler between the ages of 1 and 3, chances are that you often hear your child say: “again, again”! There is a very good reason why our young friends enjoy repetition so much.
Let’s have a look at what happens in the brain when we repeat activities with our little ones.
In children, neural connections are formed through energy. The less automatic something is, the more energy is required to create the connection. Neural connections are only beginning to be formed, whereas in adults, neural connections are well established based on previous experience, repetition, and practice. (Think riding a bike, driving a car, doing simple maths etc.)
Repetition is a necessary building block that allows children to form neural pathways and to strengthen connections in the brain that will help them learn.
Repetition is important for a number or reasons:
- It strengthens the brain’s neural processors for learning.
- Repetition teaches children to practice, master and retain knowledge and provides an opportunity for reinforcement.
- It strengthens the ability to memorise.
- Children learn self-discipline and critical reflection though repetition.
- Through repetition of movement, coordination skills will improve.
- Children learn to differentiate variations and differences in the world around them.
- Children gain confidence through the ability to master a skill.
- It helps children to internalise concepts.
- It stimulates synthesis, analysis and in turn, application develop the child’s intelligence.
How do I as a parent support repetition at home?
As parents, we can reinforce the positive aspects of repetition by asking our children what they enjoyed at Clamber Club after their session. On your way to your next class, remind them what they enjoyed about the previous session. In younger toddlers this exercise can be done through observing your young toddler and to verbalise which activities they enjoyed during their sessions. This will encourage them to self-reflect, which will assist them in learning things more completely and quickly.
Repetition in early childhood learning is one of the most important fundamentals in child development. At Clamber Club classes our introduction songs are repeated every week and also some of our activities are repeated in different variations. This creates the perfect safe space for parents to encourage repetition without too much pressure. The repetition of our class schedule also creates a stable environment where our young friends can anticipate what is happening next. This helps them to feel more confident in the space when they learn that the schedule repeats every lesson.
Encourage learning extensions based on repetition of your child’s favourite Clamber Club song, or dance, or activity and invite your child to repeat the songs and actions at home.
Our Clamber Club YouTube channel is a great way to get your baby moving and repeating the actions to songs. It also has a great variety of activities that you can repeat with your toddler at home.
Promote repetition in a Clamber Club environment by using multi-sensory instructions; ask questions such as: “What does it look like?” “What does it smell like?” “What does it sound like?” These types of questions will encourage your child to retain new information during activities.
Think of repetition as a person walking through a field of grass. If the person walks that same path over the grass every day, more than once a day over a period of time, a path will form in the grass. Our children’s brains need repetition to lay the neural pathways to better learning experiences.
So let’s GO! Again and again and again and again!
LIZE McDONALD
Owner & Franchisee of Clamber Club Toddlers – Durbanville
durbanville@clamberclub.com
www.clamberclub.com
***Credit: Montessori Academy of Australia