Their need to know takes root in humans’ primal need to survive. They hear, smell, touch, taste, and see. People are born with senses. Through these innate information channels, we learn about the world.
Picture books ignite and grow children’s curiosity
The visual elements of picture books, such as colors, shapes, facial expressions, and more, capture children’s attention. From a child’s perspective, a picture book’s images expound on a story’s narrative.
Children are emotional
Through everyday experiences, the senses convey information that also emotionally affects children. Emotions influence how children choose to respond to information or to the way children receive information, which affects how they learn. Positive emotions open minds while negative emotions close minds to learning.
Children connect with story characters
When reading or listening to stories, children instinctively connect with the story characters' personality traits and feelings and intuitively empathize with their challenges, like they were joined together in a parallel journey.
Stories nurture curiosity
Together with the characters, through story narratives, children are fueled by their curiosity to find out what happens, as every page transports their hearts and minds to a world created by picture books. When children discover how much picture books satisfy their curiosity, they become an insatiable source of inspiration and excitement.
Unlike stories, math is abstract
Math is about numbers and ideas created in people’s minds to make mathematical sense of the concrete world and abstract ideas. Yet math has become an intellectual force for human understanding, survival, and innovation.
Born with math skills
In fact, children by the age of 17 months, can distinguish the differences between 1,2, and 3 objects. Before the age of 3 years, they know the differences between near and far, more from less, and big from small. These math abilities are hardwired into our DNA, as necessary to our survival.
Concrete versus abstract
In the early primary grade levels, children are generally, in the concrete stage of their intellectual development. It is not natural or instinctive for children to learn math in its abstract form with discretely designed ideas.
Curiosity motivates
For children to succeed, they need to be motivated to learn. Curiosity motivates learning. Picture books are a powerful resource that cultivates children’s curiosity. To achieve connectivity and sustained interest with children, our picture books include ingredients that ignite sensory-driven information and positive emotions.
Math adventures
Additionally, these stories include learning math ideas, which develop children’s mathematical sense-making and reasoning. Designed to elevate the understanding and perception of math, children tap into their natural abilities and prior knowledge and learn with positive experiences. They explore possibilities in story adventures with intercultural characters and simulated real-world math applications.
QUESTION:
What is it about stories that connect to people?
Read a story to your child and observe reactions.
Read a story to yourself. Reflect on how it is connecting to your thoughts and feelings.
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