article about how learning to read early is bad for developing minds
Lisa
Reading this article, I couldn't help but think "that's what the group says" "that's what the group says" over and over.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rewire-your-brain-love/201005/your-baby-shouldnt-read?page=2
Lisa
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rewire-your-brain-love/201005/your-baby-shouldnt-read?page=2
Lisa
Frankie Watt
Hi, i will be interested to see any input on this subject. I just read
through the article - it seems to be pretty much aligned with what
Joseph Chilton Pearce says in his influential book Magical Child. In
this book, he posits that children progress through a series of
"matrices" - the first being the mother matrix, and other stages
gradually moving out into the world, and that these stages have a
natural sequence closely related to the physical developments in the
brain. He reckons that abstract skills (with reading as a prime
example) should only be learned *after* close immersion in the natural
world. I'm not endorsing this book, but came across it because of my
experiences with my son's reading.
My son could not be prevented from reading - perhaps an overstatement,
but we would have had to hide all the books in the house. The minute he
realised that you could get words from those marks on the page, he was
absolutely thrilled. He did not rest until this exciting code made
sense to him, and was reading properly at three. DH and myself answered
his questions about it - occasionally sat down with him to go through
something, and of course provided books and read to him, as those things
delighted him.
The Psychology Today article doesn't say what to do in those
circumstances! Joseph Chilton Pearce says you should actively
discourage reading before age 7 - i read the book and a lot of it made
sense to me, but just... not for my boy! I can totally see how my son's
early reading has affected him, and i can't help but worry about it
sometimes. There is an old quote something like "when the bird book and
the bird disagree, believe the bird." i'm pretty sure my son would
believe the book.
I've had the whole range of reactions to my son's reading - from "how
could you push him to read like that?" all the way to "you should enrol
him in some super-advanced boarding school blah blah blah". One of the
sanest things i read was on Sandra's website, the page about
"Giftedness" - "Give her opportunities to learn the next thing she needs
to learn, because that's all anyone can learn."
--
Frances
frankiewatt@...
See my beautiful handmade cards here:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShineSpinner
--
through the article - it seems to be pretty much aligned with what
Joseph Chilton Pearce says in his influential book Magical Child. In
this book, he posits that children progress through a series of
"matrices" - the first being the mother matrix, and other stages
gradually moving out into the world, and that these stages have a
natural sequence closely related to the physical developments in the
brain. He reckons that abstract skills (with reading as a prime
example) should only be learned *after* close immersion in the natural
world. I'm not endorsing this book, but came across it because of my
experiences with my son's reading.
My son could not be prevented from reading - perhaps an overstatement,
but we would have had to hide all the books in the house. The minute he
realised that you could get words from those marks on the page, he was
absolutely thrilled. He did not rest until this exciting code made
sense to him, and was reading properly at three. DH and myself answered
his questions about it - occasionally sat down with him to go through
something, and of course provided books and read to him, as those things
delighted him.
The Psychology Today article doesn't say what to do in those
circumstances! Joseph Chilton Pearce says you should actively
discourage reading before age 7 - i read the book and a lot of it made
sense to me, but just... not for my boy! I can totally see how my son's
early reading has affected him, and i can't help but worry about it
sometimes. There is an old quote something like "when the bird book and
the bird disagree, believe the bird." i'm pretty sure my son would
believe the book.
I've had the whole range of reactions to my son's reading - from "how
could you push him to read like that?" all the way to "you should enrol
him in some super-advanced boarding school blah blah blah". One of the
sanest things i read was on Sandra's website, the page about
"Giftedness" - "Give her opportunities to learn the next thing she needs
to learn, because that's all anyone can learn."
--
Frances
frankiewatt@...
See my beautiful handmade cards here:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShineSpinner
--
On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 06:52 +0000, "Lisa" <lisa@...> wrote:
> Reading this article, I couldn't help but think "that's what the group
> says" "that's what the group says" over and over.
>
> http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rewire-your-brain-love/201005/your-baby-shouldnt-read?page=2
>
> Lisa
--
http://www.fastmail.fm - Or how I learned to stop worrying and
love email again
Sandra Dodd
-=-My son could not be prevented from reading - perhaps an overstatement,
but we would have had to hide all the books in the house. The minute he
realised that you could get words from those marks on the page, he was
absolutely thrilled. He did not rest until this exciting code made
sense to him, and was reading properly at three.-=-
But he figured it out, and asked questions.
There are MANY children who realize that some people can get words from those marks on the page, that that they (those particular children) can't. And if a parent believes there are ways to stuff/wedge that ability into a child, all kinds of damage can be done.
Few children can read at three, but some can. Unfortunately, as you point out, others tend to think the parents DID something to create that ability, or "taught" the child to read.
I think parents should provide for children's interests and abilities in natural, casual, cheerful ways no matter what the child's talents or abilities are, and some will be kicking a football around at three, or riding a bicycle, or playing piano, or reading, or doing fancy math tricks in their heads or drawing recognizable birds or singing up a storm.
-=-There is an old quote something like "when the bird book and
the bird disagree, believe the bird." i'm pretty sure my son would
believe the book.-=-
Lots of people believe what's in books before they believe their own observations and thoughts. Rather than worry about it, maybe just ask him gently, if it really matters, where he thinks books come from. Or perhaps casually find an older book with information that was once "fact" but that changed, and introduce the idea of the age of a book, or the reliability of the author.
Tanganyika, or a platypus, or the way a computer works--those things are not the same now as they were twenty, forty years ago. What they call a robin in the U.K. is a very different bird than that red, red robin that comes bob, bob, bobbin' along in North America.
Developing minds + school + tests-and-measures has many problems than developing minds in unschooling families. A child who reads at three might not become a much better reader for ten years. A child who reads at ten might be a better reader that year than a friend who started at three. And the very cool thing is that it won't matter when they're twelve or twenty-two.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
but we would have had to hide all the books in the house. The minute he
realised that you could get words from those marks on the page, he was
absolutely thrilled. He did not rest until this exciting code made
sense to him, and was reading properly at three.-=-
But he figured it out, and asked questions.
There are MANY children who realize that some people can get words from those marks on the page, that that they (those particular children) can't. And if a parent believes there are ways to stuff/wedge that ability into a child, all kinds of damage can be done.
Few children can read at three, but some can. Unfortunately, as you point out, others tend to think the parents DID something to create that ability, or "taught" the child to read.
I think parents should provide for children's interests and abilities in natural, casual, cheerful ways no matter what the child's talents or abilities are, and some will be kicking a football around at three, or riding a bicycle, or playing piano, or reading, or doing fancy math tricks in their heads or drawing recognizable birds or singing up a storm.
-=-There is an old quote something like "when the bird book and
the bird disagree, believe the bird." i'm pretty sure my son would
believe the book.-=-
Lots of people believe what's in books before they believe their own observations and thoughts. Rather than worry about it, maybe just ask him gently, if it really matters, where he thinks books come from. Or perhaps casually find an older book with information that was once "fact" but that changed, and introduce the idea of the age of a book, or the reliability of the author.
Tanganyika, or a platypus, or the way a computer works--those things are not the same now as they were twenty, forty years ago. What they call a robin in the U.K. is a very different bird than that red, red robin that comes bob, bob, bobbin' along in North America.
Developing minds + school + tests-and-measures has many problems than developing minds in unschooling families. A child who reads at three might not become a much better reader for ten years. A child who reads at ten might be a better reader that year than a friend who started at three. And the very cool thing is that it won't matter when they're twelve or twenty-two.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
plaidpanties666
"Frankie Watt" <frankiewatt@...> wrote:
---Meredith
>he posits that children progress through a series ofSounds like an extrapolation of Piaget with some other ideas tacked on. Kids do grow and change and there are some consistencies, there. I see it on the unschooling lists in the questions people ask and observations they make about certain age children.
> "matrices" - the first being the mother matrix, and other stages
> gradually moving out into the world, and that these stages have a
> natural sequence closely related to the physical developments in the
> brain.
>He reckons that abstract skills (with reading as a primeHe might do better to stick to reporting on what he observes. Abstract skills *can't* be learned by a child who is too young to learn them - and while there's some variability, for sure, it's not a stretch to say your average 3yo doesn't do a lot of abstract thinking while your average 13yo does a great deal of it. Saying a child "should" learn this or that in a particular order is ignoring the data in favor of a pet theory.
> example) should only be learned...
>... *after* close immersion in the natural world.Any time someone writes that "the natural world" is "better" for kids I question their sample populations. It would be easy to conflate the effects of rich vs depauperate enviroments with whether a child has access to "the natural world".
> My son could not be prevented from reading - perhaps an overstatement,This is when old Piaget may be helpful in interpreting the data. There's a segment of the population who intuitively catch on to letter-sound correspondences and figure out the basics of reading somewhere around age 4 - right in the middle of the preoperational stage. The catch is, it *is* an intuitve grasp so despite all those parents and educators who would love to capitalize on it, there's no way to teach that understanding. Once kids get into the concrete operational stage... around 7ish, most are ready to learn to read by some logical sequence of aquiring information, which is why teaching reading to 7 and 8yos seems to work so well. Their brains are already starting to process the right kind of data. The same fact, though, means that given a print-rich environment, they'll learn to read without being taught. Most of them. Then there's another small set who don't learn to read until the formal operational stage at puberty. It's all about brain development, though - there are broad patterns, for sure, but specific skills may develop at a wide range of times and reading is a good example - kids are naturally ready to read anywhere over a whole decade of growth.
> but we would have had to hide all the books in the house. The minute he
> realised that you could get words from those marks on the page, he was
> absolutely thrilled. He did not rest until this exciting code made
> sense to him, and was reading properly at three.
> Pearce says you should activelyAs a message to school and homeschool parents, its better advice than pushing early reading! But it's really advice about when to teach. That's part of the problem with the study of psychology and development as pertains to children - as more and more kids are put in school or otherwise "educated" earlier and earlier all the theories are growing to revolve around how to best teach or best help kids fit in to schools. If you want information about how kids learn without being taught, read radical unschooling lists, sites and forums.
> discourage reading before age 7
---Meredith