Agnitus Academy. A wide variety of learning mini-games, that teach about shapes, colours, alphabet and numbers. Because you log in to play the apps, your child’s progress is tracked and you can receive weekly emails to let you know the recent developments and advancements they have made in a range of areas. This assures parents that their child is receiving some educational outcome, and alerts them of any areas they may be struggling.

Cosmic Reactor Arithmetic. A competitive mathematics challenge game for iPad, which encourages multiple players to go head-to-head to find out the best maths master. You can modify the level of difficulty to suit a range of different ages, so you can play with young kids as well as older ones. The multi-player style of play encourages parents to get involved, which can be fantastic for kid’s learning and also gets them more excited about it.

Endless Alphabet. An entertaining game that teaches kids spelling, by getting them to choose a word and then scrambling the letters. Kids then need to pull the letters back into order, with each one making a sound as it does so. You can choose the difficulty of the words to accommodate a range of different ages and spelling levels. At the end, the word is sounded out loud and the definition is explained. This is a great way to start growing your children’s vocabulary and get them into good spelling habits.

Learning while playing is a great opportunity for children to grow while having fun. As a parent or caregiver, you need to ensure that you check games for actual educational content – but don’t forget that play is also learning, and there’s no harm in also having games that are simply fun.

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1. Visit the school together. Well before they start, the best thing you can do is make the school feel like a familiar environment. Although they’ll be shown around on their first day, it’s even better if you can walk around and take the time to look at everything thoroughly, and point out where they’ll be and where they’ll need to go throughout each day. Play on the playground and build up a positive association wherever possible.

2. Ensure they can read and write their own name. Some children will already have begun learning to write and read, but if they haven’t, it’s important they can at least recognise and preferably write their own name. Their desk, bag hook and other personal items in the classroom will all be named, so they’ll feel a lot more comfortable if they can instantly recognise which spaces are just for them.

3. Get into a regular reading habit. Reading will make up a large part of the school day, so if they’re already used to doing this (and associating it with a positive experience), it will be much easier for them to adjust. Even if they can’t yet read for themselves, just spend time with interesting books and get them used to listening, as this will also be a large part of learning in the classroom.

4. Assure them they can always talk to adults. A large part of the nervousness children feel at starting school comes from feeling alone or unsure. It’s important that they know that not only can the teacher help them, they can help with anything – including seemingly small or trivial things that can nonetheless upset a child.

Starting school can be a stressful time for a child, so the best thing you can do as a parent is to remove a lot of the worry and uncertainty and let them just focus on their learning.

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• Sesame Street. One of the longest running children’s educational shows, and for good reason. Seasame Street is a combination of many different learning devices and strategies that come in a format specially designed to appeal to young viewers. Every single segment is carefully put together through extensive research and development to find the most effective balance between education and entertainment. Combined with friendly colourful puppets, it’s proven a classic for multiple generations.
• Beakman’s World. Explaining science concepts to children without completely dumbing them down can be tricky, but Professor Beakman‘s bombastic style and Brooklyn accent make them fun and easily accessible. Through a combination of animated diagrams and real-world examples utilising a guy in a lab rat suit, they directly address the questions of viewers, providing answers to the kind of things children naturally wonder.
• Arthur. While it’s important to learn about science, maths and other academic concepts, learning how to deal with people, emotions and social situations is also a crucial part of a young education. Arthur follows the day to day life of an 8 year old aardvark, and is known for dealing with issues that can be very relevant to a child’s life such as dyslexia, Asperger’s Syndrome, the death of a pet and bullying. They may not know how to find answers on these topics elsewhere, so seeing them represented in a friendly TV show is important.

Children’s learning television comes in a variety of different styles and formats, and some are more effective than others. Of course you should pay attention to their preferences, but also encourage consumption of shows of proven quality.

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One of the main features of the site is providing a huge range of high quality flash games. These can be played for in-game currency as well as other rewards, and while there are plenty of action-adventure games available, there is a large stock of puzzle and mind-based games. These test a range of different mental functions ranging from memory to logic, and come wrapped up in the brightly coloured art and characters of the world, making them more inviting for children to play.

One of the side effects of having an in-game currency is the creation of an in-game economy. Determined by the users, it has many of the features of a real economy, and is influenced by factors such as supply and demand and inflation. By looking at it in the context of the items they want to buy and the money they can earn from different activities, it prepares young players with a basic understanding of being part of a wider financial world, and the fact that everything is connected and prices aren’t just randomly generated. It also teaches the value of saving and investment, as well as how money can grow money.

The site also encourages a range of creative pursuits, rewarding art, writing, poetry and more. Children are surrounded by more experienced peers who they can look up to and learn from, and who often make tutorials and guides to help with creative skills.

Although on the surface Neopets.com seems just like any other online game site, it actually has a lot of depth that is the result of a huge and diverse user base. Although its usage should be monitored for children, it has potential as a learning tool that is genuinely fun.

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1. Read together. The best thing a parent can do is spend dedicated quality time with their child, and reading is a great activity to do together. Choose books to read together that you yourself are interested in as well, or think is a good read, so that your enthusiasm is apparent. Change voices and try a range of different reading styles – the more you immerse yourself in the reading, the more your child will be too, and the more likely they’ll want to pick it up and do it in their own time.

2. Set an example. Children mimic their parents, and reading is no exception. Our lives are very electronics-focused these days, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but can send the message that this is how you are meant to spend free time. Show that you also love to read, and encourage your child to read their own books at the same time as you do.

3. Reward reading goals. Of course, the ultimate goal is for reading to be a fun enough activity that children will want to do it on their own. However, this doesn’t always happen right away and some kids are more predisposed to it than others. You never want to force reading or it will take on negative associations, so instead reward them each time they finish a particularly challenging book.

Reading is an excellent way to begin a child’s learning, and parents do them a huge favour by making this a positive and self-motivated activity. Spend time together, and create good memories and feelings with them during reading time.

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In addition to learning, kids also benefit from the imagination stimuli provided by television. Even if a programme’s agenda isn’t strictly educational, it can still help kids think creatively and give them ideas for playing and drawing. A study published in the Sociology journal shows that children who watched more TVs could be seen to do better academically than their peers (however there are also studies proving the opposite true, so everything should be taken with a grain of salt). Stories and moral lessons are often tied into fun and expressive characters, and kids will take lessons and knowledge away from this even when they feel like they’re just watching something for fun. However for younger viewers in particular, these kinds of shows should not make up the staple of what they watch. Instead the specially designed educational programming is a better alternative.

In New Zealand almost all of the national broadcasting channels offer different shows according to the time and audience they’re targeting. Very early morning (6am-7am) is usually filled with preschool-aged programmes, while just after this the slightly more mature cartoons begin aimed at kids just before school. After this it switches back to a younger audience, with stay at home parents in mind. Therefore parents should pay close attention to the timeslot and its content to find one that suits their child. Other paid channels such as Disney, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr and Disney Playhouse offer round the clock coverage that targets a specific age group.

With all of this on offer, it’s a distinct possibility to allow your kid to sit and watch for a large portion of the day – especially when programs claim to be offering an educational service. However passive absorption of information will only go so far, and doesn’t actually require a child’s brain to be active and responsive. Therefore it needs to be balanced with interactive play, either with parents or other children. Although television can improve reading and writing skills, these need to be exercised fully in order to be properly developed. There’s no hard and fast rule for how many hours per day can be healthily spent in front of the television set, but for all its benefits, it shouldn’t be the main source of occupation during the day.

Kids can certainly learn through television, but this needs to be supported and balanced with other means.

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