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TOPIC 1 CREATING QUALITY EARLY LEARNING ENVIRONMENT 
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important to provide young children with an environment that includes a variety of different learning experiences that encourage children to investigate, create and solve problems. This environment must have many aspects such as feature structures, objects and props that can affect young children differently. Thus these children are given a good start in life through a better environment.
1.1.1 Why is Quality Environment Important to Young Children?
Young childrenÊs home and school or child-care environment has a strong impact on their development as they spend most of time at home, school or in child-care. This is due to the fact that environment in the early years is a space where playing and learning take place. This includes the outdoors and sometimes even beyond the school, home or centre.
(a) Provides opportunity to explore – Many early childhood educators agree that children learn best through exploration and interaction with concrete experience. Quality environment not only allows children to explore and interact with the world around them, it also allows them to understand more about the world they live in. A good quality environment provides children with opportunity to acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes through their experiences in a stimulating environment. This will encourage children to learn more effectively by making sense of things at their own pace, with freedom and choices.
(b) Increases childrenÊs learning potential – Children develop a sense of knowledge from direct contact with their environment. They get the chance to build up knowledge in a more meaningful environment. They develop a positive disposition towards learning while interacting with others. Many scholars believe that there are cognitive and psychological benefits from an environmental experience. Piaget (1951) believed children construct knowledge through their senses along with interaction with others and by acting on their environment.
(c) Enables children to focus – Quality environment helps young children to continually focus on and constructively engage with the learning process. The learning environment is a vital influence on how children learn as children are active learners and they construct their own understanding through an active, meaningful learning environment. A well-arranged environment allows children to act on the environment, grabs their attention and helps them stay focused. Research has shown that children
The importance of quality environment in
early childhood setting is not just to support learning, it also has a crucial role in
young childrenÊs development and learning for the following reasons:
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