Steps to Help Foster a Preschooler’s Spatial Reasoning Skills: And Computer Science students, too?

I am a fan of the work at the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (see web page here). They’re in the final phases of the Center and are starting to publish wrap-up papers. Since spatial intelligence is likely predictive of success in computing (see paper from last year’s ICER), these are important ideas for us to think about in computing education, too.

Reading spatially challenging picture books is another way to engage children’s spatial thinking and expose them to spatial language.  Look for books that include pictures from various angles or perspectives, that contain maps and abundant spatial language, or whose illustration require close attention to decipher their meaning — such as wordless books. According to Newcombe, “Even though books only contain static pictures, they can help children understand spatial transformations, if adults read them with the children and stimulate their imagination.”

Source: Steps to Help Foster a Preschooler’s Spatial Reasoning Skills | MindShift | KQED News