WiseTip: AL-PER-M0818-P01A

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Approaches to Learning

Promoting Persistence

Ensure your baby has time for uninterrupted play and exploration.

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Hyson, M. (2008). Enthusiastic and engaged learners: Approaches to learning in the early childhood classroom. New York: Teachers College Press and Washington, DC: NAEYC.
Worley, L., & Goble, C. (2016). Enhancing the Quality of Toddler Care: Supporting Curiosity, Persistence, and Learning in the Classroom. YC Young Children, 71(4), 32-37. Retrieved March 6, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/ycyoungchildren.71.4.32

WHY IT MATTERS

Social and environmental facilitation can improve a young child's level of persistence. Home environments that provide choice, time to play, independence, and appropriate levels of challenge can enhance children's motivation, and in turn, improve persistence.

Hyson, M. (2008). Enthusiastic and engaged learners: Approaches to learning in the early childhood classroom. New York: Teachers College Press and Washington, DC: NAEYC.

Caregivers can support learning by providing time for the child to play and persist in solving problems. It is helpful to watch for signs of engagement development in young children as they provide authentic opportunities for scaffolding and support their persistence in the learning process.

Worley, L., & Goble, C. (2016). Enhancing the Quality of Toddler Care: Supporting Curiosity, Persistence, and Learning in the Classroom. YC Young Children, 71(4), 32-37. Retrieved March 6, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/ycyoungchildren.71.4.32

Several investigators who compared different groups of infants have reported that infants who expressed higher levels of persistence and exploratory behaviours at 6 to 13 months scored higher on developmental scales, such as the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and the McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities, both concurrently and at 30 months of age.

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Messer, D. J., McCarthy, M. E., McQuiston, S., MacTurk, R. H., Yarrow, L. J., & Vietze, P. M. (1986). Relation between mastery behaviour in infancy and competence in early childhood. Developmental Psychology, 22, 366–372.
Yarrow, L. J., Morgan, G. A., Jennings, K. D., Harmon, R. J., & Gaiter, J. L. (1982). Infants' persistence at tasks: relationships to cognitive functioning and early experience. Infant Behaviour and Development, 5, 131–141.
Mokrova, I. L., O'Brien, M., Calkins, S. D., Leerkes, E. M., & Marcovitch, S. (2013). The role of persistence at preschool age in academic skills at kindergarten. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 28(4), 1495–1503.

Infants who persist when they engage with objects and activities around them may be better positioned to learn from their environments, making them less likely to experience future developmental delay.

Petrill, S. A., & Deater-Deckard, K. (2004). Task orientation, parental warmth and SES account for a significant proportion of the shared environmental variance in general cognitive ability in early childhood: Evidence from a twin study. Developmental Science, 7, 25–32.