Articles/Press
Playful Learning, Learningful Play – by Patti Blackhurst
In April 2019, Dainfern College in Johannesburg, Gauteng, hosted 300 delegates from all over South Africa at a 2-day Early Childhood Development (ECD) conference themed 'Playful Learning, Learningful Play'. Galina Dolya was their keynote speaker. Here you can...
Why your pre-schooler needs to develop their ‘learning abilities’
LEARNING ABILITIES are EVERYTHING! Focusing systematically on LEARNING ABILITIES through PLAY for your 3- to 6-year-old, over and above knowledge and skills, is proven to develop QUANTUM LEAPS in their COGNITIVE, COMMUNICATIVE and SELF-REGULATIVE development,...
Viva Vygotsky!
By Galina Dolya and Sue Palmer LEV VYGOTSKY - A THINKER WHO CHANGED TEACHING He lived for only 38 years, but in his last decade (1924–1934), the Russian thinker Lev Vygotsky transformed the study of developmental psychology. His cultural-historical theory...
Numbers and comparison of quantities
Understanding numbers and the comparison of quantities Most pre-school children learn to recite numbers, to count a small number of objects correctly and to recognise figures. And yet many of those same children have difficulties starting Mathematics at school. They...
How the learning revolution started
Sue Palmer reports on a revolution in early years education. When a north London secondary head travelled to Russia in search of new ideas for his school he made a discovery that changed his career. Moscow, 1988. Perestroika. The work of Russian psychologist Lev...
High-quality, shared, story-telling activities
How do we help young children develop a love of story, ownership of story language, a profound understanding of story structure and a repertoire of rich language? All young children like to listen to fairy tales and other traditional stories, but do they really...
Playing games makes your child clever
This article was written by Helen Rumbelow and was originally published in The Times newspaper. Gabriella is a seven-year-old at a state primary school in Hertfordshire. But when her teacher asks her to put on a pair of giant gold heart-shaped glasses to read...
How your child can excel in mathematics
It is unwise to push children prematurely into working with big numbers. This is NOT a way to give your child an academic boost nor to help them excel specifically in mathematics. 10 is the ceiling for a four-year-old; 5 is plenty. What is really important is not...