The Importance For Early Education

During the early and formative years of a child's development it is important to nurture and encourage proper growth and development. Read on to learn more about the importance of early education.

Research shows that the in the first five years of life a child develops 90% of their adult-size brain. Children may fall behind in both academic and social skills if they are not exposed to the right kinds of stimulation. Unfortunately, this gap only gets wider as children grow older. There are many ways to encourage your child's early development. Parents need to recognize the importance of early education.

The Importance of Stimulation

Babies need much more than just food to develop. They need lots of intellectual, emotional, and physical stimulation. Soothing music, baby massages, reading aloud, and activities that develop speech and language can all benefit your child by encouraging mental and physical development. It's important to stimulate your baby's sense of touch to improve emotional and physical growth. They respond to facial expressions, hugs, and positive interaction. Reading to your baby fosters speech and language development. In fact, any loving, responsive, and affectionate interactions will help your baby develop normally.

Education and Socialization

High quality education in these early years makes a huge difference as babies become toddlers and then preschoolers. Children who receive better early education are more likely to succeed in both school and in life. Early education creates connections in the brain that are important for growth and socialization.
For example, parents can take an active role in a toddler's speech development. Beginning in infancy, parents can read and sing to their toddler. Gradually introduce new vocabulary words into daily verbal interactions by placing the words in their logical context. Avoid finishing sentences for children and allow them time to respond to questions. Parents can also encourage development by playing games with them. Ask children open-ended questions such as 'What was interesting about your day?' rather than closed-ended questions like 'Did you have a good day?'
During these early years, the brain's ability to change and grow is dramatic. It is important for parents to nurture their baby from day one to foster optimal development.

How Young Is To Young

It is never too early to take an active role in your baby's development. Read on to learn more about helping your young child with his or her developmental progress.

It is never too early to begin baby or toddler education. Babies' minds are actually very powerful learning machines, and it is important to stimulate your child's mind to help it develop normally. There are several simple ways to nurture this development in young babies and toddlers.

Money can't Buy Intelligence

Purchasing expensive toys, videos, CDs, and flashcards is unnecessary. Simply talking to babies stimulates their brains. Tell stories, sing songs, recite nursery rhymes, and name things. This can exercise a baby's brain and teach a toddler speech. Babies respond to facial expressions, music, and the sense of touch. Baby massages, hugs, and affection all contribute to healthy child development.

The Power of Words

Reading aloud is another great way to bond with your child and foster learning. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents begin reading aloud to babies at six months of age. Reading aloud motivates children to become independent readers later on.

Math and Science Development for Young Children

Young children can develop math and science skills by participating in games and activities. Toddlers can learn shapes, colors, and numbers by counting cookies and identifying simple shapes of everyday objects. Music and dance helps children to learn rhythm, coordination, and listening skills.
It is never too early to begin teaching your baby or toddler. Children develop 90% of their adult-size brain within the first five years of life. It is necessary to take an active role in a child's development, particularly during these formative years, by playing with them, reading to them, and loving them.

10 Things to Look for in a Preschool Program

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) offers a list of 10 things to look for when evaluating a preschool, kindergarten or child care center.

If your child is between the ages of 3 and 6, you might want to consider very carefully whether her learning environment is providing her with what she needs to learn at her full potential.

1. Is Everybody Happy?

Be sure that all the children are occupied at any given moment. A good environment is one where the children spend most of the time playing or working and aren't left to wander aimlessly or sit quietly for too long.

2. All the Live Long Day

Your child should have access to various activities throughout the day. Be sure the classroom is equipped with building blocks and other construction materials, as well as props for make-believe. Ensure that there are plenty of picture books and materials like puzzles and matching games, so that children are not all trying to do the same thing at the same time. Paints and other art materials should be present in plenty, also.

3. One on One

It's crucial that teachers work with each child individually, in small groups and with the whole group in appropriate time segments every day. No child should be neglected and the teacher should not be working with the whole group at all times.

4. Note the Surroundings

A child's surroundings are important. Ensure that your child's classroom is well lit and has good ventilation. It should be decorated with original artwork by the children, along with their own writing and stories (as told by the children and written down by teachers). As much as possible, the work the children produce should be celebrated and put in places of honor.

5. Opportunities to Learn

The learning environment should provide opportunities for the children to learn numbers and the alphabet in the context of their everyday life. Notice if there are plants in the classroom, or even a pet gerbil. The children should engage in meaningful activities, group projects and the calling of the roll. Food is essential to a quality education. Be certain that snacks are served and consider carefully the quality of any snacks or meal services provided by the school.

6. Play Time, Too

Your child should be part of projects that they put down and take up again. Also, there should be long periods of time to play and explore. In the best classrooms (at this age level) worksheets are used little if at all.

7. Fresh Air

Be absolutely certain that your child gets to play outside during the day. Time spent outside in the sunshine and fresh air should never be sacrificed to gain more instructional time, and at this level outdoor time should never be withheld as a punishment.

8. Reading Time

Notice whether the teachers read books to the children. Ideally this should happen one-on-one as well as to smaller and larger groups. It should also take place at different times during the day, not just at a designated group story time.

9. What're They Teaching Him?

Curriculum is crucial. Your child may be brighter than most, or he may need more attention than most. In a good learning environment this won't matter (except in the cases of gifted or learning impaired children, for whom special arrangements should be made). The curriculum should be adapted for those children who are ahead as well as those who need additional help. Teachers should demonstrate an understanding of the varying rates at which children learn and be able to accommodate at all times.

10. Ask Around

Take note that other children (and their parents) look forward to school. Ask parents of some of the children there how they feel about the school. Are they secure in sending their child to the program? The children should be happy, if not eager to attend school each day. And take careful note that complaints of feeling sick are not a regular occurrence among the pupils. Also ask if the program is NAEYC accredited. Programs accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children are required to complete rigorous evaluation to prove that they meet high standards of excellence in early childhood education.

taken from http://mathandreadinghelp.org (visit that website for further information about this)

10 Ways To Start Your Toodlers Education

Toddlers have a greater ability to acquire new skills and information than children who are 5, 6, or 7 years old. Research indicates that introducing reading, language, and math skills in the toddler years may make school success come more easily to your child for years to come.

1. "Narrate" your child's activities so that they will know that they have your focused attention.
   This will support them in language and thinking development.
2. Choose children's books with large print words and extremely clear pictures.
   This will help your child to understand what they are seeing and to learn to read words. Many children's books have very small words and very complicated pictures. 
3. Purchase foreign language cassettes and videos.
   It is much easier for toddlers to pick up other languages at this age than it will be later on. 
4. Purchase computer software for toddlers.
   The software will often employ keyboard skills, since it is difficult for many children to use a mouse before the age of two and a half. 
5. Buy alphabet letters for bathtub use and make a new word every time your child is in the bathtub.
   Your child will begin to make the connection between spoken and written language. 
6. Use repetition.
   Some parents get frustrated when a child wants a book read three times in a row, but this is an essential part of how children process information. 
7. Buy alphabet magnet letters to play with on the refrigerator.
   Spell out new words for your child every week. 
8. Read to your child every day.
   Read with emotional expression, as if you were in a dramatic play. 
9. Remember that your child's physical education is directly linked to his academic education.
   Research shows that brain development is directly linked to physical activity, such as crawling before the age of one. If you and your toddler engage frequently in different kinds of physical activities, this may enhance brain development. Examples: galloping, running, rolling, wheelbarrow, etc. 
10. Call the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential In your Town for further Help and Information about this
    They sell books, videos, cassettes, and learning materials to teach your toddler how to read, how to do math, and how to gain encyclopedic knowledge.

this information is taken from about.com and has been re-writed for reader to understand easly

5 Easy Steps to do your Child’s Education Planning

Child Education is one of the biggest goals of parents these days because of the tough environment and high expenses involved. Most of the parents start saving for Child Education right from the birth of Child, which is a great! In this post we learn how you should evaluate the target cost of Children Education and how you can achieve the targets within expected deadline. We are mainly talking about Higher education in this article.

Many Companies come up with Child plans and other products which are nothing more than ULIP’s bundled with special features like Wavier of Premium option and some other features. However Planning for Child Education is not a big task and you can do it yourself, given you have some interest and eagerness to do it. So following are the 5 steps you can do yourself to plan for your Child Education:

Step 1: Set a Target Date 

The first step is to find out the target date for the child education goal. I feel the that average age when a child goes for Higher education can be taken as 21 or 22. You can take your own target tenure depending on your expectations and situation. If you are not yet married then find out the estimated time left for your marriage and when you want to start your family (i mean children) and add target years to that number. For me personally it would be 4 + 21 = 25 yrs. what about you?

Step 2:  Set a Target Amount in Today’s Term

The next step is to determine how much does it cost in today’s value for giving education to your child. All of us have different aspirations when it comes to our child education, courses like  MBA, Engineering, MBBS, Software related courses are on our minds. So let’s say for example you determine that Rs 10 lacs is good enough to provide a good education to your child in today’s value. Now you can jump to next step, but before that make sure you understand the effect of inflation on our Money. Here is another good article on Inflation

Step 3:  Find out the Amount you need on target date

Next step is to find out how much amount you actually need in the end. For this you first need to determine the rise in education cost per year. As per the recent year numbers, Education costs are increasing at 10% per annum. A decade ago you could have done an MBA at 1.25 or 1.5 lacs, but today it costs more than 4 lacs. That’s more than the average inflation. Education cost in our country has been increasing at higher speed than other things. so you need to consider some figure. I would like to take this as 10%.

Now, you can just inflate the today’s cost using simple compound interest formula. UnderstandCompound Interest and other important Formulas.

Target Amount = Amount today X (1 + rate) ^ Tenure

Example: Considering myself, the amount I would require today is around 8 lacs. My tenure is 25 yrs and rise in education cost I would like to take as 10%. So Target Amount I need after 25 yrs = 8,00,000 X ( 1 + .10) ^25 = 86 lacs (approx)

So, I can see that I need to make around 86 lacs in 25 yrs. Please note that this figure is based on your assumptions. The actual Figure you might need may be more or less to this amount. But still this is good enough, as we have a plan at least and we are near the goal.

Step 4:  Estimate the return which you can generate over your investments

This is an important step where each investor has a different level of risk appetite and knowledge. Depending on those factors one can choose different products for investments and can generate some return through it. One who is not much interested in finances and has lesser risk appetite can choose Balanced Funds or Debt Funds and can generate around 10-11% returns. On the other hand a person who can take more risk and have more interest in finances can invest in products likeEquity Mutual funds, ETF’s, Direct Equities etc and can target close to 14-15% returns.

Getting more or less return is fine. All it matters is, does it suit your risk appetite? There is no point in investing in risky products if you are not a risk taker. As a rule of thumb, a person who is investing for long-term like 10+ yrs should take Equity route because over that kind of time frame Equity has performed the best with maximum returns and with small risk. So for long-term, Equity is what you should invest in and for short-term prefer equity only if you are great risk taker. Your range of return expectation should be from 8% – 15%. Anything above that is a bonus but getting more than 15% is tough for general investors like us. Anything like 20-25% should be the target of more professional investors who have advanced knowledge and who are full-time into stock market and related fields. So better be satisfied with suitable returns which will be able to achieve your goals.

Understand Equity and Debt here

Step 5:  Calculate per month Contribution

The next step is to find out what is the monthly contribution you need to do. For this you have to use this scary formula.

C = [FV * r] / [(1+r) * { (1+r) ^ t - 1 }]

Where

C = contribution per month

r =Rate of return you expect to generate on your returns .

t = tenure (It would be multiplied by 12 if payments are monthly)

FV = Future value of your goal (this is calculated in step 3 .

Important Points to Remember

• Apart from these 5 points, there are other points you have to consider which will make your Child Education planning more strong and successful.
•  Make sure you are Insured Properly  because in between if you die prematurely the amount of insurance your dependents get should be good enough to achieve your Child Education. Make sure you buy a good term insurance plan to cover this risk.
• When you are near the end of the goal, when still 4-5 yrs are left then you should better start withdrawing your money from riskier products to more safer products, so that you do not get surprise drop in your Corpus. If another subprime crisis happens at the same time when your kid is ready to go to college, it will be a tough situation. So better start withdrawing your money every month from Riskier products to safer products.
• Make sure you review the performance of your Child Education plan every year and make sure that things are going as expected. If not, find out why? See if you need to change your numbers, if you do it’s fine. No one can plan for things in advance with accuracy and it’s totally find if things go little off track. Just be ready to adopt the changes.
• At the end, sticking to this plan is the deciding factor of whether you are successful or not. The consistency in Investing for this goal is the main thing. Returns will follow when you follow the plan.
• Make sure the Asset Allocation is right and make sure you stick to same asset Allocation
• Make sure you do not force your Child to adapt as per your Plan. Make sure you don’t have anything rigid for Child. Let him/her decide what they want to do, You are mainly a motivational parent who are paying for cost of what your child wants to do in their life. A successful Child Education plan won’t make any sense if he/she is not able to pursue what they are passionate of and love doing.

Conclusion

You have several products in market which claim to be Child Plans. They are costly and complicated for most of the general investors. The simple funda for successful financial planning is “Dont buy if you dont understand it”. Planning for Child Education can be a step by step designed simple plan which we can do ourselves.

Planning The Children Future

For mothers, their children's future tends to be an overbearing concern. Mothers want the best for their children and often expressions like 'the best of everything' find place in conversations related to children.

However simply having your heart in the right place isn't sufficient; there is a need to adopt a hands-on approach and ensure that you work towards making a good future available to your children.

The first step in the process is to set goals, that is decide on the various events in your child's life which you would like to be prepared for. The goals could range from providing for children's education, planning for their marriage to accumulating a corpus that can be utilised as seed capital for venturing into a business activity.

The need to plan and invest for the future largely emanates from two factors, i.e. inflation and lifestyle changes.Inflation deserves to be credited as one of the biggest factors necessitating the entire planning process. In simple words, inflation is a general rise in price levels. As a result it leads to a decline in the purchasing value of money; consequently individuals are required to pay a larger sum of money to purchase the same quantity of goods with passage of time.

Let us take an example to explain the same. Suppose paying for an MBA degree from a reputed institute entails spending $ 30,000 at present. Assuming that your child is 5 years old at present and will be 20 years old when he enters the business school, this gives you a time span of 15 years.

With an inflation rate of 6% per annum and all other factors remaining constant, the fees for the MBA degree would have swollen to over $ 70,000. Quite an eye-opener isn't it?Another vital factor is changing lifestyle. With incomes on the rise and a higher disposal income available to consumers, there is a perceptible change in tastes and preferences. As consumers move 'up the ladder,' they are increasingly get accustomed to better products and services. This needs to be factored in while planning for events like your child's wedding as well.

The investment advisor
Having discussed the need to set objectives, now let us take a closer look at the process of setting objectives. Firstly there is a need to monetise objectives, i.e. determine how much money you will need to fulfill each of the goals. For retail investors, conducting the entire planning process and performing the complex number crunching can prove a bit too much to handle.

This is where the investment advisor must step in. The advisor should help you determine the total funds required. Further he must structure a portfolio based on your needs and risk profile.

His role doesn't end here; in fact there is a need to closely monitor investments and make necessary adjustments. The investment advisor has a role to play in each of these activities.

The power of compounding
For many the idea of accumulating huge sums of money seems like a daunting task. In fact often this is used as an excuse for not planning at all and leaving finances to chance.

Rest assured, if you refuse to make a plan and adhere to it, there's a high degree of probability that you will never achieve your financial goals. Another misconception is that you need higher savings/investments to achieve your financial goals.

Whether you achieve your financial goals or not is more often a factor of your saving and investment habits. A combination of correct investment advice, proper investments and sufficient time can help you achieve all your goals. An example will help us substantiate this hypothesis.

Mrs Anton and Mrs Smith are friends who share their birthdays as well; both are building a corpus for their future needs. Mrs Anton starts saving $ 1,000 each year at the age of 30 years; on the other hand Mrs Smith starts her savings at the age of 40 (i.e. 10 years after her friend started her savings).However to make up for the lost time, she invests twice the amount, i.e. $ 2,000 per year. Both of them earn the same returns on their savings i.e. 8% per annum.

The 10-year itch

	Mrs.Anton	Mrs.Smith
Amount invested ($ per annum)	1000	2000
Tenure of investment (years)	20	10
Returns (% per annum)	8	8
Maturity amount ($)	45,762	28,974

At the age of 50 years, their investment kitties would be -- $ 28,974 for Mrs Smith and a whooping $ 45,762 for Mrs.Anton. Despite investing a higher sum, Mrs Smith's investments failed to match those of Mrs Anton. The secret lies in the power of compounding.

Mrs Anton had a head start of 10 years that made all the difference. We have all heard the cliché: 'Time is money'; in the world of investments, time IS money! The key lesson to be learnt -- start early and give your investments sufficient time to grow.

What happens if you don't start early?
For investors who don't have time on their side, achieving their objectives can become a daunting task. It would entail taking on a higher degree of risk (which is never advisable) or setting aside a higher portion of the savings (this may not be feasible if you are fixed income earner). Another alternative would be to simply tone down the objective.

Let us take an example to understand the implications of not starting the investment process well on time. Say you are planning for your 5-year-old daughter's wedding 20 years from now. You have set yourself a time horizon of 20 years and arrived at an expenditure of $ 10,000 at present prices for the wedding.

If the inflation rate is assumed to be 6%, the sum required on maturity is approximately $ 320,000; another assumption is that the investments will yield a return of 12% per annum.Now let's consider 3 scenarios, i.e. the objective has to be met in a span of 20 years, 15 years and 10 years, respectively.

Does time matter? Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Target amount ($)  320,000  320,000  320,000 Tenure (years)             20             15             10 Returns (%)             12             12             12 Annual investment ($)       4,441,2       8,583,7     18,234,7 Monthly investment ($)        351,2        678,7       14,41,9 As can be seen in table 2 above, if you have a 20-year horizon, you need to set aside just $ 3,701 on a monthly basis to achieve your target sum of $ 320,000. However with passage of time your investment target stiffens considerably. A delay of 5 years will entail investing $ 7,153 every month; while starting the investments after a span of 10 years will mean investing $ 15,196 every month. The investments Your risk appetite and investment objective should ideally dictate the investments made by you. A wide range of investment avenues can be utilised, these include both assured return schemes and market-linked instruments. In the small savings segment, schemes like the Public Provident Fund run over a 15-year time frame and can be effectively used to plan for a child's education. Similarly others like National Savings Certificate and Kisan Vikas Patra offer assured returns over a fixed tenure. Mutual funds (powered by their versatility) should emerge as default choices as well. Some fund houses offer dedicated child plans which attract investments targeted over the long-term horizon. The systematic investment plan (SIP) route must be used as it not only helps you reduce the average cost of investing but is also lighter on the wallet. Furthermore it does away with the need for timing the markets. Then we have Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIPs) dedicated for children; they can play a vital role in building a corpus for children-related needs as well. An ideal portfolio would comprise of instruments from all the above categories in varying proportions. Finally a word of caution! The corpus meant for your child's future needs will build gradually over a longer period of time; there can be situations when you might be faced with a cash crunch and drawing from your child's portfolio may seem like a logical choice. Desist from doing so and maintain the sanctity of that portfolio at all times. Remember that any deviations in your child's portfolio can jeapordise your goals and his future as well.