Emotion, cooperation and locomotion crucial from an early age
ScienceDaily
What are the fundamental skills that young children need to develop at the start of school for future academic success? While a large body of research shows strong links between cognitive skills (attention, memory, etc.) and academic skills on the one hand, and emotional skills on the other, in students from primary school to university, few studies have explored these links in children aged 3 to 6 in a school context. Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and Valais University of Teacher Education, Switzerland (HEP-VS), in collaboration with teachers from Savoie in France and their pedagogical advisor, examined the links between emotion knowledge, cooperation, locomotor activity and numerical skills in 706 pupils aged 3 to 6. The results, to be read in the journal Scientific Reports, show for the first time that emotion knowledge, cooperative social behaviour and locomotor activity are interrelated and associated with numerical skills. These results are in line with the political and scientific consensus on the importance of social-emotional skills in early schooling and suggest that locomotor activity should be added to these fundamental skills. A growing number of studies are examining the fundamental abilities that prepare children for school and that are particularly crucial for their future academic success. "Among these abilities, 'emotion knowledge' contributes significantly and is a long-term predictor of social behaviour and academic success," says Edouard Gentaz, professor in the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (FPSE) of the UNIGE and the last author of this study. On the other hand, few studies have examined the links between socio-emotional and academic skills in preschool children. "To fill this gap, we joined forces with the HEP-VS and a team of teachers from Savoie in France and their pedagogical advisor to examine how emotion knowledge, social behaviour and locomotor activity are associated and linked to the numerical skills in 706 pupils aged between 3 and 6 years old," continues the Geneva-based researcher. Unlike most research that generally examines school results through reading tests, this study focuses on numerical learning, the performance of which is less correlated with parents' socio-economic level than language skills.
