straightforward way, empower families to implement simple strategies into their everyday routines, and strengthen the parent-child bond. The Basics offers community partners, family physicians and healthcare providers simple, effective tools for promoting brain development that they can easily share with parents and caregivers. What Are The Basics Principles? Maximize Love, Manage Stress Talk, Sing, and Point Explore Through Movement and Play Count, Group, and Compare Read and Discuss Stories TheBasics.org The Basics strategy is based on the understanding that school readiness begins long before preschool, and that families are a child’s first and most important teachers. Centered around five core principles, The Basics provides evidence-based, culturally flexible strategies that align with a baby or toddler’s social, emotional and cognitive development from 0-12 months, 12-36 months and 36-60 months. The Basics Principles were developed by scientists and early childhood experts at The Achievement Gap Initiative (AGI) at Harvard University based on decades of research. Each principle emphasizes a different aspect of development, including social-emotional, language and literacy, cognition and general knowledge, physical development and well-being, and receptive approaches to learning. The Basics Principles aren’t new strategies parents have never heard of; rather, they name and provide shared language for what parents are already doing or can easily do more intentionally once they understand why it matters. MAXIMIZE LOVE, MANAGE STRESS Staying emotionally present for your child increases their happiness, strengthens their emotional health and builds self-control skills. Infants and toddlers thrive when their environment feels loving, safe and predictable. Families create this environment by expressing love through simple things like holding, kissing and cuddling their child, and offering frequent words of encouragement. This principle also emphasizes the importance of parents taking care of themselves to best show up for their child. Parenting can be stressful and overwhelming, and parents’ emotions impact those of the child. Maximize Love, Manage Stress provides strategies for adults to help cope with stress to stay calm and patient with their children. Modeling this behavior can help children learn how to deal with and overcome moments of stress themselves. TALK, SING AND POINT Boost your child’s language skills and knowledge of the world. Children begin to learn language very early by paying attention to our sounds and expressions when we interact with them. Talk, Sing and Point focuses on nurturing children’s communication development using strategies such as maintaining eye contact, taking turns and responding to the child’s sounds with words and facial expressions. Engaging in simple activities like naming body parts and objects, talking through the steps involved in your daily tasks, and asking and answering questions about things that interest them teaches children about the world and helps lay the foundation for critical language and communication skills later in life. COUNT, GROUP AND COMPARE Help your child make sense of the numbers and categories all around them. It’s never too early for families to introduce simple math concepts to babies and toddlers, such as noticing amounts and patterns, and comparing sizes and shapes. Count, Group and Compare emphasizes the ways children can learn math as they play and talk during everyday moments, building on their natural skills and boosting their confidence. Simple activities like counting and wiggling each of their toes, filling a container with water in the bathtub and dumping it out again, and stacking blocks all help children begin to make sense of the world and build the foundation for math long before they enter school. EXPLORE THROUGH MOVEMENT AND PLAY Encourage curiosity, discovery, and a healthy body. Children benefit from spending time playing with others and time playing alone, figuring things out independently (with parents nearby). Explore Through Movement and Play emphasizes building coordination and strength while exploring and learning about the world. Families can help their children explore the five senses by providing objects with different colors, shapes, sounds and textures. Engaging in different types of play, such as imaginative and pretend play, creative activities such as drawing, and physical play, such as crawling or rolling a ball, helps children build on their curiosity and excitement to learn about the world around them. 20
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