A child Endows hundred languages

During the post-World War II era in Italy, the country was overcome with a “…desire to bring change and create anew", was the start of the Reggio approach to early education. The Reggio Emilia approach is an educational philosophy and pedagogy focused on preschool and primary education.

This approach is a student-centered and constructivist self-guided curriculum that uses self-directed, experiential learning in relationship-driven environments. It bases itself on the principles of respect, responsibility and community through exploration, discovery and play.

SAAR believes in the core of this philosophy of Reggio Emilia, an assumption that children form their own personality during the early years of development and that they are endowed with "a hundred languages", through which they can express their ideas. Reggio approach is to teach children how to use these symbolic languages (e.g. painting, sculpting, drama) in everyday life. This approach was developed after World War II by pedagogist Loris Malaguzzi and parents in the villages around Reggio Emilia, Italy. The name of the approach therefore derives its name from the city.

SAAR follows the Reggio Emilia philosophy based upon the following set of principles:

• Children must have some control over the direction of their learning;
• Children must be able to learn through experiences of touching, moving, listening, and observing;
• Children have a relationship with other children and with material items in the world that they must be allowed to explore;
• Children must have endless ways and opportunities to express themselves.

Learn the Experiential way

The Montessori method of education was developed by Italian physician Maria Montessori. Emphasizing independence, it views children as naturally eager for knowledge and capable of initiating learning in a sufficiently supportive and well-prepared learning environment. It discourages some conventional measures of achievement, such as grades and tests. Montessori developed her theories in the early 1900s through scientific experimentation with her students; the method has since been used in many parts of the world, and in India, SAAR Education has been using the method since its inspection.

This is a method of education for young children that stresses the development of a child's own initiative and natural abilities, especially through practical play. It allowed children to develop at their own pace and provided educators with a new understanding of child development. As in Montessori, SAAR Education is age focused to meet the needs of students in three developmentally-meaningful age groups: 2–2.5 years, 2.5–6 years, and 6–12 years. The students learn through activities that involve exploration, manipulations, order, repetition, abstraction, and communication in Montessori learning.

Development of a vision

Waldorf Education is a worldwide independent school movement developed in Europe nearly 100 years ago by Austrian philosopher, social reformer, and visionary, Rudolf Steiner. Its pedagogy strives to develop pupils' intellectual, artistic, and practical skills in an integrated and holistic manner. The cultivation of pupils' imagination and creativity in ways that serve their developmental needs is a strong focus.

SAAR like Waldorf considers that during the first years of life children learn best by being immersed in an environment they can learn through un-self-conscious imitation of practical activities. The early childhood curriculum therefore centres on experiential education, allowing children to learn by example, and opportunities for imaginative play. Waldorf pedagogues consider that readiness for formal learning depends upon increased independence of character, temperament, habits, and memory, one of the markers of which is the loss of the baby teeth.

How to Learn

Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is also an adjunct professor of psychology at Harvard University and senior director of Harvard Project Zero. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship and a Fellowship from the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1981 and 2000, respectively.

The Path to Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist and genetic epistemologist. He is most famously known for his theory of cognitive development that looked at how children develop intellectually throughout the course of childhood.Piaget's theory had a tremendous influence on the emergence of developmental psychology as a distinctive subfield within psychology and contributed greatly to the field of education. He is also credited as a pioneer of the constructivist theory, which suggests that people actively construct their knowledge of the world based on the interactions between their ideas and their experiences.

Representing of Knowledge

Bruner (1966) was concerned with how knowledge is represented and organized through different modes of thinking (or representation). In his research on the cognitive development of children, Jerome Bruner proposed three modes of representation:

• Enactive representation (action-based)
• Iconic representation (image-based)
• Symbolic representation (language-based)

Bruner's constructivist theory suggests it is effective when faced with new material to follow a progression from enactive to iconic to symbolic representation; this holds true even for adult learners.

Bruner's work also suggests that a learner, even of a very young age, is capable of learning any material so long as the instruction is organized appropriately, in sharp contrast to the beliefs of Piaget and other stage theorists.

Bruner argues that language can code stimuli and free an individual from the constraints of dealing only with appearances, to provide a more complex yet flexible cognition.

The use of words can aid the development of the concepts they represent and can remove the constraints of the “here & now” concept. Bruner views the infant as an intelligent & active problem solver from birth, with intellectual abilities basically similar to those of the mature adult. For Bruner (1961), the purpose of education is not to impart knowledge but instead to facilitate a child's thinking and problem-solving skills which can then be transferred to a range of situations. Specifically, education should also develop symbolic thinking in children.

In 1960 Bruner's text, The Process of Education, was published. The main premise of Bruner's text was that students are active learners who construct their own knowledge.