Would you say that learning the ABC's is different from learning other preschool skills?

Question:I'm a teacher, and I've been thinking a lot about learning in the preschool years. It seems when children learn to walk, talk, use a spoon, explore how flowers look and feel, etc., it is all motivated by their natural curiosity about what they are seeing in the world around them.

But when it comes to learning their letters or numbers--although they may still be curious about these symbols we place in front of them--it seems that this is the first time that they are learning simply because it is necessary, and not because they are mimicing or exploring.

What do you think?

Answers:
I don't think of any of these as 'preschool skills'...they are all 'life skills'. If we didn't know these basic skills, it would probably be difficult to function on a day-to-day basis.

However, learning comes from curiosity. We are curious about how things work, we are curious about political ideas, we are curious about the next step in things, etc. Since we are curious about all of this, we naturally learn from it.

There is an exception to this in my opinion. There are some things that we are forced to learn, like algebra. We aren't really curious about it when our 7th grade math teacher tells us about it! It isn't something that most teens have a natural curiosity about. However some of that curiosity does kick in when we are looking for the answer. We are curious (sometimes!) as to whether we got the right answer or not. We are curious what will happen when we complete the list of instructions that accompanies the lab our science teacher gives us. We are curious in language arts how the novel ends that we are forced to read and we are curious as to what our classmates thought of it during the discussion. At age 14 students may not admit that, but it is happening.
Not necessarily. Numbers are not differnt from Letters.

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