Fostering Visual Spatial Skills

“We use spatial skills in everyday life, whether following a diagram to put together a piece of furniture, doing a jigsaw puzzle, interpreting a graph in a news article, or navigating through buildings and neighborhoods…Importantly, all students can improve their spatial skills through practice,” writes Elizabeth Gunderson on edutopia.org, “One study estimated that if all U.S. students received spatial skills training, twice as many students would have the spatial skills of a typical engineering student.”

Dimensions Educational Research Foundation notes, “Through their visual-spatial work children are able to explore and manipulate three-dimensional materials, developing and practicing many different skills simultaneously (e.g., construction, engineering, kinesthetic, math, literacy, social skills). They are also communicating their knowledge of the world, often before they have the ability to verbalize it, and learning to communicate, process and manage emotions. Children’s visual-spatial work is a language.”

Children employ and explore visual-spatial skills from the start, especially with the thoughtful support of observant and responsive adults. In the Exchange Reflections “Encouraging Curiosity in Toddlers,” Candace Kastrup writes, “At the start of the school year my class of 15- to 19-month-olds took great pride in moving and pushing our child-sized chairs around the classroom. These standard plastic chairs with metal legs become so much more than a place to sit, taking on roles of trains, buses, tunnels and doll beds… I asked myself, ‘What is it about these chairs that draws my toddlers to them? What is happening as they push?’… I set the intention to provide materials on both a small and large scale to help explore these questions.”

For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.

© 2005 Child Care Information Exchange - All Rights Reserved | Contact Us | Return to Site