Children and the Sense of Placement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Children and the Sense of Placement - Essay Example Varied perspectives and techniques have been repeatedly discarded and developed. Educationists today consider that a child develops a sense of place with the help of reading. It helps the child develop the feelings of belongingness and is able to relate to their environment. The following paper highlights the importance of placement in childhood and its correlation with children’s books that tell a story through pictures along with accompanying text. Before, understanding the correlation it is important to be familiar with the concept of placement and its importance in childhood and education alike. For understanding the mentioned topic, it will interchangeably explain the depiction of childhood in children’s books. Importance of placement in Childhood During early years, as a baby the child starts to develop visuospatial attention. A visuospatial attention is developed by being familiar with the visual stimuli. In case of a baby, it starts to recognize its siblings, parents, and other close family members. This kind of attention span starts to develop at an early age and continues to evolve over the period of time (Smith & Chatterjee, 2008). The importance of place holds a greater significance in the development of a child at every level. The concept of place develops in a child the sense of self, sense of community, sense of destiny, and the sense of mortality. By the term sense of place, it is meant a child’s relationship with its surroundings. Many children are not able to relate to what they were taught in school. This is mainly because of the fact that when they read they understand, but when they look around in their environment and try to implement it they repetitively fail to do so. Therefore, books that explain the text with images increase their sense of place in a way that when they look at their environment they are more familiar with what they have been taught in the school. It also increases their ability to recall and retain. Moreover, many educationists are of the view that if a child is made familiar with its environment than only will it be able to maintain it. For this reason, it is important to develop a sense of place in children at an early age. This could be developed with different activities such as pictorial books, outdoor activities, and play (Derr, 2002). Sense of Place: The Bigger Picture During the seventeenth century, the literary books written for children were didactic. The books usually focused upon teaching the sounds of alphabets to children. However, some books explained to children the moral and spiritual values. Nevertheless, in 1700’s, John Newbery, a British publisher, was impressed with the idea of John Locke. The idea expressed held the notion that books must be published for children where they can enjoy the content in the form of a story. With the innovation in the literature for children, they started to develop a sense of personality and were better able to understand people around them. Most importantly, they started to recognize and build their own personality with the help of the revolution in the field of literature (State University, 2013). However, children were encouraged to read books in order to enhance their sense of placement. To make children familiar with their surroundings and culture in particular, many educationists concluded that a story must be formed that depicts the culture of that particular country. In order to develop the sense of place, many educationists incorporate culture along with nationalism in a story. The story instils in the children a sense of place through the characters of the story. It is widely believed that binding a story with elements