The perfect after school courses for your toddler

How early childhood activities benefit your child

In our competitive society, many children participate in extracurricular activities to gain an edge. These activities are well known to lay the foundation for the development of intelligence, personality, social behaviour and learning capacity, and as vital elements to ensure your child does not fall behind in their development. For many top primary school applications, a parent must include a dossier of the extracurricular activities a child has undertaken in order to establish the presumption of positive associative attributes. In fact, children who attend extracurricular activities are more prepared for preschool/kindergarten than those who don't1. And of course many of these early childhood activities serve to strengthen a child's performance in subsequent school interviews.

There is much research that points to the ability of early childhood activities to increase a child's engagement, improve social skills, brain development, emotional adjustment and school readiness2. Organized extracurricular activities are prevalent among Chinese preschoolers for example, and have been shown to be positively correlated with early mathematic ability and social skills3. This is also confirmed by a recent Hong Kong involving sixty-four upper kindergarten students also found a positive relationship between extracurricular participation and young children's school readiness and psychosocial outcomes4. Yet another example is a study of the impact of high fidelity classic Montessori programs on preschool children which found significantly greater school-year gains by the enrolled students on measures of executive function, reading, math, vocabulary, and social problem-solving5.

A review of academic literature studying the impact of these activities Include examples involving children as young as babies in neonatal intensive care units (musical intervention enhanced infants’ functional connectivity between auditory cortices and subcortical brain regions). Cognitive and emotional developmental benefits were also reported at 12 months and 24 months of age6.

Research exploring associations between playgroup and child development in Australia based on national data of 104,767 young children confirms that those that had attended playgroups displayed better outcomes in all five developmental domains of physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, communication skills and general knowledge7.

Studies suggest that there are positive associations among physical exercise, fitness, cognition, brain structure and function, and academic achievement in children as young as five8. This explains the popularity of toddler gyms, playhouses and playgroups (in addition to just being great fun)! Indeed, a review of 59 research studies confirms a significant and positive effect between exercise, health psychological benefits, social benefits, achievement and cognitive outcomes in young children9.

Other popular early childhood education courses include phonics and literacy. Toddlers first need to learn about letters by combining visual and phonological modalities, and once they understand how letters map to phonemes of spoken works, they then have the pre-reading skills needed as a gateway to more advanced literacy skills10. Studies of various phonics programs such as Jolly Phonics and multisensory learning methods such as letterland and letter card systems provide evidence that these approaches are indeed effective at improving pre-reading skills11.

Our wide range of early childhood classes are designed to give them that edge in developing their social skills, cognitive potential, love of reading, school readiness and in preparation for primary school interviews. And for parents, with just a click on the Bizibuz platform, you can receive activities attendance reports and developmental reports needed for your child to stand out in the school application process.

A wide range of extracurricular early childhood classes

Early childhood classes for young kids aren’t just educational, they’re also fun! Our range of early childhood courses cover diverse activities from Early sport and toddler movement courses, to Playgroups and messy play, Montessori classes, and Phonics/literacy programs including Jolly Phonics. Inspire future appreciation with Early music and light the spark of curiosity with Early maths/science classes. Give your child the brightest future possible with Primary interview prep assistance.

Bizibuz KnowYourChild™: Find out if your child’s early childhood development is on track

Our unique KnowYourChild™ tools are a series of benchmarking tools for children of different ages designed to track a child’s development, highlight necessary intervention and hidden talents, guide on activities to optimize performance and monitor the efficacy of activities over time.

These tools are developed using advanced algorithms and input from top universities including the Education University of Hong Kong and Polytechnic University and senior teachers from leading institutions including the Chinese International School and Canadian International School.

Our Pre-primary KnowYourChild™ tool is the first of its kind to gauge the development milestones of a child aged 3-6 years of age in order to uncover any notable weakness or strength relative to normative development standards. A child is asked a series of questions orally through tablet format in order to determine how a child’s cognitive skills (maths/science introductory concepts), language and early literacy skills are developing. After the child has completed a KnowYourChild™ tool, parents receive a comprehensive report of their child including smart activity recommendations targeted to address either weaker areas and to foster talents. If the child has previously used the KnowYourChild™ tool, the report also includes development trend analysis in order to reflect on the impact of activities previously undertaken. The KnowYourChild™ reports can be used as a powerful demonstration of your child’s school readiness in school application portfolios.

Visit our KnowYourChild™ tools in order to further explore your child’s early developmental progress and activity recommendations that optimize your child’s further learning.