Use Jigsaw Puzzles to Prepare Your Child for Reading

We have all sorts of technology these days for teaching our children. The price for some of these can give the average parent pause as we are usually willing to invest in the things our children are drawn to, but you can't always be sure if they will take to the latest not-so-cheap battery-operated learning tool. There are still some old-school methods of learning that work really well. Take a read and see what you think.

Do you want to help your child develop those all important pre-reading skills? You can do that by doing jigsaw puzzles together. Puzzles help develop vital thinking processes that need to be developed before reading can take place.

Babies learn to recognize things by their shape. The position of the object is not important. A cup is a cup, whether it is standing upright, lying in it's side or upside down; it is still a cup. A jigsaw puzzle introduces the concept that position is important. More refined recognition skills are developed.

There are valuable learning experiences that can be gained from puzzle activities. Firstly hand-eye co-ordination is necessary to manipulate the piece into the correct position. To fit the piece exactly involves observing the shape of the hole as well as the shape of the puzzle piece. At first a young child deals with the problem by trial and error and sometimes force. The guidance and example of a parent begins to solidify the process. The youngster starts to develop spatial awareness and mental manipulation as well as increasing physical dexterity. Skill and ability develops as the child learns to place the piece in correctly and internalization of the process occurs.

The role of the parent is very important. Talking about the picture and demonstrating the correct method to complete it, will facilitate the child's learning process. This creates a great opportunity to increase your little one's vocabulary, as well as increase the recognition of objects and situations outside the child's immediate world.

Early childhood puzzles can be purchased in varying degrees of difficulty as your youngster's spatial and reasoning skills become more developed. Children learn to recognize color and shape by playing. Adult conversation increases the potential of the young learner's understanding and development. The green shape only fits in the green hole. This type of matching activity develops early reading skills.

When introducing a new puzzle spend time doing it together at first. Make this a happy social time and lots of fun. Do a puzzle long enough to maintain interest and attention, but be ready to move on to another activity as focus begins to wane. Eventually children will want to do puzzles by themselves as their dexterity and confidence increases, With praise and encouragement children will practice until the skills become familiar. Then is the time to introduce puzzles with a greater challenge.

In this technical age do not forget the simple jigsaw puzzle. The benefits and educational value of doing puzzles with your children far out weigh the small amount of time and money a parent invests in this great learning tool.

Barbara White has over twenty years experience as a parent, teacher and principal. Barbara, President of Beyond Better Development, now enjoys sharing her experience and insights about learning with parents and teachers through workshops and seminars Barbara highly recommends Jigsaw Puzzles for all ages of children and adults.

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Educational puzzles can be bought but they can also be created. Check out our children's puzzles here and if you want to discuss creating something for your school or organization, fill out our custom puzzle order & quote form here.

Jigsaw Puzzle Games Help Kids Develop Cognitive Skills

Children need a variety of cognitive skills for everyday use now and into adulthood. The ability to rationalize and problem solve is vital for most of life activities, but giving our childen a leg up in the area of critical thinking means helping them to be the dynamic people they were created to be; people who aren't afraid to take chances and follow their dreams, no matter how scary those dreams may seem. Personally, I want my children to have the joy of utilizing their spiritual and natural gifts because I know doing so will make them productive and giving people in the world. People who have the power to think outside-the-box open themselves up to experiencing all sorts of things, including their internal drives. This can bring them joy. Joyful people give. Let's help our children be joyful. Please read on.

A jigsaw puzzle can provide long-lasting entertainment and numerous benefits of promoting the cognitive development of children of all ages.

Puzzle solving activities can start at very early ages and continue as children get older. There are puzzles designed just for toddlers, with large wooden puzzle pieces or other durable puzzle games. For toddlers and preschool kids, solving a jigsaw puzzle helps improve basic skills such as hand-eye coordination because it requires the child to manipulate relatively small objects and to place those objects in specific places.

The benefits can continue into preteen, teen, and adult years with more challenging puzzles that require more advanced coordination as well as other benefits. As kids get older, they can advance to more challenging puzzles, which include a larger number of smaller pieces and more complex color patterns. For older kids, solving puzzle games can help develop analytical skills, communication and collaboration, logic and attention to details.

Puzzle games also improve a child's spatial skills. Solving a jigsaw puzzle requires the child to visualize a puzzle piece, and then to mentally rotate the puzzle piece up to 360 degrees to find that piece's accurate fit. This forces the child to move away from concrete thoughts and into a realm of abstract thoughts. He has to imagine the results of an action (in this case, the results of rotating a puzzle piece) not unlike a game of chess.

Puzzle solving improves a child's problem-solving and reasoning skills. The child is repeatedly presented with a problem while solving a jigsaw puzzle: how to make a particular piece fit into the overall puzzle. He will have to evaluate the shape of the puzzle as well as any colors or patterns presented on the puzzle, relative to the other pieces on the game board. He may have to flip or rotate the piece to make it fit. In some cases, he may have to flip or rotate the piece several times before he finds its place in the puzzle. Successfully solving this problem can give children the confidence to attempt more challenging puzzles.

A less-often recognized cognitive benefit of jigsaw puzzles is the picture on the puzzle. For example, solving a puzzle with a picture of the United States will familiarize a child with the geography of the United States. Jigsaw puzzles can also familiarize a child with a scene from history or literature. There is a great variety of puzzles available today making it easier than ever to find ones with an educational theme that appeals to your child. Themes include horse breeds, astronomy, trains, bible stories and more. Even text printed over a puzzle picture is learned particularly well, as a child is often required to study and read the final picture and the individual pieces repeatedly in order to solve the puzzle.

Often, solving a jigsaw puzzle will spark an interest in other types of problem-solving tasks and puzzle games, such as crosswords or word puzzles. However, the cognitive benefits of jigsaws alone cannot be discounted. These skills will overlap into many other areas of the child's life.

Joe Kanooga is a father of two kids, a successful business owner and the author of numerous articles about jigsaw puzzle. Click here to download our free puzzle games guidebook filled with tips, ideas and information.

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Educational puzzles can be bought but they can also be created. Check out our children's puzzles here and if you want to discuss creating something for your school or organization, fill out our custom puzzle order & quote form here.

Educational Jigsaw Puzzles: How Educational Are They?

Many companies advertise their products as being educational. How much of this terminology is sales promotion and jargon, and how much is fact?

As an educator for many years, I can say with authority, that there is educational value in all types of jigsaw puzzles. The skills acquired and practiced in completing jigsaw puzzles are a foundational part of successful learning. Doing jigsaw puzzles develops several functions of the brain simultaneously as a child has fun and also learns. Most notably developed in this learning process are the abilities to reason, deduce, analyze, sequence, and develop logical thought and problem solving skills. Physically, eye-hand coordination and spatial awareness are also required to complete a jigsaw puzzle.

Putting these benefits aside, I want to look particularly at the jigsaw puzzles that are labeled "Educational". These puzzles are designed to teach a specific learning objective. Some examples of these might be a jigsaw puzzle map of the world, or of the solar system. The manufacturers claim that such puzzles will teach a child those specific facts. What educational value in reality do these types of puzzles contain?

Firstly the degree of the educational value of these types of puzzles is dependant on how the puzzles are used in the learning process. For example, let us suppose that the learning objective is to learn about the geography of the United States of America, specifically the position of the individual states. You buy a puzzle picturing all the states and their position in the country, and give it to the child to do. Will the child ace a test on the States? Probably not! I'm sure that some learning will take place, but it will be limited and a few weeks later very little of the learning would be retained. To the child the learning process of doing that puzzle would be similar to any jigsaw puzzle that they do. Their focus on the states and where they fit is limited to the process of completing the puzzle.

In order to maximize the educational value of a jigsaw puzzle, it needs to part of the learning process, but not all of it.

Children have different styles of learning and an advantage of a jigsaw puzzle is that it does involve using more than one type of learning aptitude in the process of completing it. The most obvious learning style for a puzzle is the visual. In doing a puzzle of the USA the child will see the overall shape and also how the various states fit together to complete the whole. Jigsaw puzzles involve both the global (big picture) and analytic (details) aspects of learning. Puzzles are also good for the kinesthetic tendencies of learners. Kinesthetic learners learn best by practical hands on activities. For those with a auditory preference in learning, conversation about the learning and the correlations in the puzzle combined with the overall learning objectives, needs to happen at the same time as the puzzle is being done.

However the greatest educational benefit comes when the jigsaw puzzle is done as part of the overall learning objective. A jigsaw puzzle can be used to introduce a new subject as well as reinforce learning that has already occurred. The educational value increases to the extent that the subject of the puzzle is meaningful to the knowledge the child already has. To the degree that the child can correlate his prior knowledge with the puzzle experience, the more educational value is gained.

The jigsaw puzzle can also create new learning experiences. These experiences can then be developed in many other ways for an overall learning experience. For example, in doing a puzzle on American Geography, famous landmarks located on the puzzle could then be looked up and researched in books or on the Internet. Stories can be read or told about historical events that occurred. The actual size of an American state could be explored by working out how long it would take to travel across by car or train. The learning possibilities are endless.

Some educational puzzles such as 'Faces and Places' and 'The Map of the Solar System' ,produced by the Great American Puzzle Company come accompanied by a guide book that can be used to get the maximum educational benefit and value from the jigsaw puzzles.

In conclusion, it can be said that all jigsaw puzzles have educational value to some extent. The puzzles that are advertised as 'educational' can be of great educational value if introduced, not in isolation, but as part of a specific learning goal that has both relevance and purpose for the child.

Any time spent doing a jigsaw puzzle with your child will make it a more meaningful and memorable experience. Don't just give your child a present of a jigsaw puzzle-instead give your child an educational experience and a memory that will last a lifetime.

Barbara White, of Beyond Better Development, has over twenty years experience as a parent, teacher and Principal. The jigsaw puzzles referred to in this article can be purchased at http://www.blogger.com/Do.

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