SALT LAKE CITY — Before your child is old enough to get their first job, they could be a construction worker, a baker, a musician or a housewife.
Playtime at Discovery Gateway Children's Museum doesn't stop there: The museum's CEO says it's a great way to build literacy skills.
“Kids really respond to what they see, and when they see something, they learn from it. Learning through play and learning through immersive experiences is the best way to engage kids,” said CEO Kathleen Bodenroth.
Engagement is the beginning of a healthy relationship with books and words, and Discovery Gateway wants to foster that in young children.
“Museums are busy places and there's a lot going on,” Bodenroth added, “so it's really nice for kids and parents to have a quiet place to look at a book, reinforce what they saw in the museum, and then find that book later while they're at the museum to reinforce their learning.”
This is called multisensory learning, which involves using more than one sense to gather and process information, according to the Newhouse Center for Education. By engaging multiple senses, kids can form stronger neural connections related to the content they're learning.
In literacy education, integrating sensory activities helps students better absorb and process new information.
“Immersive experiences make kids curious to see what happens next and want to understand more about something,” Bodenroth says. “So if you're here digging for fossils, maybe you should buy a book with your kid about an actual dinosaur dig site so they realize, 'Wow, this is a whole new career. I could do this when I grow up.'”
“It's great for kids because it gives them an opportunity to discover now but also think about the future.”
It's easy to implement: even if you can't sit down for story time, story time is all around you.
“Ask kids about their senses, what they're seeing, what they're hearing, what they're smelling,” Bodenroth said. “They'll try to describe it, which helps develop their observational and communication skills.”
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