They do this all through their adolescent years. When they reach puberty they begin to take this information, sort it, and think critically with it. They take what they know, add more information to it to draw conclusions, problem solve or create new ideas. As the child grows he or she is adding to their ball of clay. The unfortunate fact is that most high school and college students have not taken in enough information bits in their early years to give them a large enough ball of clay or informational base to do the work required of them in high school and college.
Most college professors assume they are teaching to students with large informational balls of clay.
Children should be given a steady diet of non-fiction reading material to help them build up their informational base. Usborne Books are designed to relay information to the child in the way they learn it. Our books have large beautiful illustrations with little chunks of information around them. The illustrations and the factual text give the child the information in a straight forward, easy to understand way. A lot of children are not reading enough, not reading well, not retaining what they read and are not reading enough non-fiction.