CHILDREN WITH INITATIVE CAN ENGAGE OTHERS IN INTERATIONS AND START ACTIONS OR BEHAVIOURS ON THEIR OWN TO FACILITATE THEIR OWN LEARNING. ENCOURAGING INITIATIVE IN CHILDREN HELPS FOSTER A POSTIVE APPROACH TO LEARNING, WHICH IS IN TURN LINKED TO LATER ACADEMIC SUCCESS.

Children with initiative can engage others in interactions and start actions or behaviours on their own. They demonstrate initiative by making choices.

Children with initiative to learn try new things, select and gather materials for an activity, and display excitement about new activities.

Children show initiative when they engage in their own learning. A child with initiative will make a choice to explore something and stick with it until he finds out what he wants to learn.

Studies have shown that learning effectiveness increases when children can engage with activities more deeply. Children who have the initiative to plan and carry out their plans also show better cognitive and academic skills.

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3. Hyson, M. (2005) Enthusiastic and engaged: Strengthening young children's positive approaches to learning. Young Children, 60(6), 68–70.

Initiative is one aspect of a child's approach to learning. A child's approaches to learning also include his/her disposition, attitudes and behaviours. Caregivers can foster positive approaches to learning by encouraging children's curiosity, initiative, persistence and creativity.

How children approach learning affects their success in school and future life. A study was conducted on 195 preschool children from 32 classrooms representative of a large, urban Head Start preschool programme for children from lower income homes in USA.

This study showed that children with more positive learning behaviours, such as the display of initiative, performed better than children with less positive ones. Children with more positive learning behaviours also demonstrated better skills when playing with other children.

Research has also associated positive approaches to learning (emotional and behavioural self-regulation, executive functioning, initiative, curiosity, and creativity) with long-term academic success.

Research has linked initiative and curiosity in young children with kindergarten reading and math academic achievement.6 The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study was carried out by the Institute of Education Sciences with 10,666 children starting from 1998, and provided data on the development of children, from birth and various points after that, in the United States. A sub-study of this longitudinal study, which covered 6,200 children, found that those who showed curiosity and initiative to learn tended to do better in kindergarten reading and math achievement. This suggests that fostering curiosity, which would in turn lead to greater initiative in approaching learning, may optimise academic achievement at kindergarten, especially for children from low socioeconomic status backgrouds.