Virtual School Bag Essay

The concept of exposure serves as a detrimental element to a child’s development. Having educated parents who expose their kids to things like the outside world and different people, they’re essentially allowing their kids to start the developmental process prior to school. Pat Thomson’s theory of the Virtual School bag encompasses ideas that relate to every child having prior knowledge from home, experiences and everyday life before they enter a classroom. (reference) The diversity offered by each child’s unique school bag allows educators to pay more attention to the needs of each individual child. Exposure to things like books, the outside world away from home and, different people has the power to allow children to gain some visual knowledge

Trust promotes safety for children, therefore safety and trust combined allows children to build an identity in society. Exposure to picture story books allows children to make conscious correlations between written and visual language prior to learning the strategies to do so in a classroom. Lifestyle is a factor that heavily influences the ways in which parents are or aren’t able to actively expose their children to different aspects of the world. Parents who live an active lifestyle, one in which allows them to engage with their children are more likely to expose them to things like other children and adults, picture books, animals, art and, encouraging them to scribble and write. If parents are able to model teachings such as Vygotsky’s theory of scaffolding, they will become more aware of their child’s strengths and weaknesses prior to the beginning of school. Exposure to things like books allows parents to take part in instructional scaffolding (reference), for example letting their child sound out the words while they offer their support and guidance. Essentially, this is modelling the role in which a teacher would undertake with their students at school. Exposure can heighten the developmental process for a child if their parents understand their child’s personal needs, strengths and