Haven't had a moment to read the article yet but here's my gut feelings: My question is - why push so hard for early reading? In my experience as an educator in early childhood, I've had several...
Haven't had a moment to read the article yet but here's my gut feelings:
My question is - why push so hard for early reading? In my experience as an educator in early childhood, I've had several that can read at an early age and it's wonderful, but often leads parents to have misconceptions about their children's abilities. Being able to read (or being able to do advanced mathematics, or other such skills) does give them a leg up academically but in the meantime their social and emotional development isn't being similarly pushed because those soft skills "aren't important". Similar deficiencies in motor skills are also apparent in many cases.
I'm also concerned that this drive and push to perform could have negative outcomes when these children run into the school system which doesn't really do much to actively engage children who are already at an advanced reading/mathematical ability. Boredom and dissatisfaction were my personal experiences in school when I was much more advanced than my peers.
Finally, most of these pushes for early learning of these skills smooth out by around 3rd or 4th grade, without continued pushes from home. Most people who choose to try this are likely to push their children at home, so I'm not worried about this point as much, but it's worth bringing up.
I'll come back and amend my thoughts after I get a chance to read through.
I would just say that it’s wonderful, full stop. Social and physical deficiencies seem unrelated to me — learning to read takes maybe 15-30 minutes a day. If that is stripping so much time from...
I would just say that it’s wonderful, full stop. Social and physical deficiencies seem unrelated to me — learning to read takes maybe 15-30 minutes a day. If that is stripping so much time from someone‘s ability to help their child socialize and exercise that it’s introducing visible deficits — there is something wrong happening here.
I don’t understand this perspective — we shouldn’t push our kids to succeed because the school system will ultimately fail to engage them? Smart kids will find ways to fill their time with something constructive and that doesn’t have to come from the school system. This ties in closely to point 3 — yeah, I guess if a parent decides to check out after a few years, then sure, that would be bad. But wouldn’t that be equally bad or even worse if they had put in less effort early on and then decided to check out?
Edit: so I shouldn’t say early reading and physical/social deficits are unrelated, but the direction of causation, if any, is almost certainly reversed. Kids who are awkward or physically ungifted may well learn to read early because reading is a more accessible pastime for them. I don’t think it works the other way — that learning to read turns kids into uncoordinated social misfits.
Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying don't push kids! Clearly this individual's children were interested and engaged. What I worry over is those who push at the expense of other...
Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying don't push kids! Clearly this individual's children were interested and engaged. What I worry over is those who push at the expense of other developmental areas.
I can definitely see this perspective, 2 seems a little early. I just started a week ago, with my 3 and half year old, with the "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Siegfried...
I can definitely see this perspective, 2 seems a little early. I just started a week ago, with my 3 and half year old, with the "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Siegfried Engelmann. However I was able to have an honest conversation with my child to see if they were truly interested in learning. He loves books and is having a great time learning. It is certainly different for every child.
You're absolutely right about that! My own son has almost no interest in books despite me reading to him from an early age. It's frustrating, but he's still learning his letters, numbers, etc just...
You're absolutely right about that! My own son has almost no interest in books despite me reading to him from an early age. It's frustrating, but he's still learning his letters, numbers, etc just fine. I hope he'll find an interest soon, but I'm not stressing over it either.
I'm curious about your opinion of other early-learning projects, such as teaching babies sign language (the idea being to open up communication earlier, because signs are easier to make than...
I'm curious about your opinion of other early-learning projects, such as teaching babies sign language (the idea being to open up communication earlier, because signs are easier to make than speech sounds).
It's normal to focus heavily on teaching verbal communication: parents' voices from day 1, cultural excitement over first words, etc. To me, sign language and early reading just feel like extensions of that; it's socially acceptable to really, really focus on spoken language, so why not other forms of communication? At the same time, if I taught my kid sign language, I would be very aware I was doing something "weird" by cultural standards.
Definitely agree that every child is different. I started reading at 2 and it worked out well for me, but different children will become interested at different ages (and will have different levels of interest, as well). Props to you for giving your kid the opportunity to read, while being genuinely interested in whether they were interested!
We did actually teach both of our boys sign language early on, from 4 or 6 months old. Mostly food and drink based words. Hungry? Thirsty? More? All done? I very much agree that more forms of...
We did actually teach both of our boys sign language early on, from 4 or 6 months old. Mostly food and drink based words. Hungry? Thirsty? More? All done?
I very much agree that more forms of language are always better. Also other subjects early on like problem solving, reason, cause and effect. These are all things that my parents were not equipped to teach me, so I am trying to make sure they are as successful as possible early on.
It doesn't seem like an either-or situation to me. Spaced repetition has a remarkably good ratio of effort to learning, and I suspect that makes it easier to fit studying into a kid's day without...
in the meantime their social and emotional development isn't being similarly pushed because those soft skills "aren't important". Similar deficiencies in motor skills are also apparent in many cases.
It doesn't seem like an either-or situation to me.
Spaced repetition has a remarkably good ratio of effort to learning, and I suspect that makes it easier to fit studying into a kid's day without exhausting their attention span or consuming all their time (the father specifically said he didn't want to be a "tiger dad"). And if there's plenty of time in the day, you could still invest time on all the things you highlighted — porque no los dos?
anecdotally in my case, bc my mom got tired of me constantly bugging her to read me things 😂 I was (and still am lmao) personally offended by the concept of the existence of Information That I...
why push so hard for early reading?
anecdotally in my case, bc my mom got tired of me constantly bugging her to read me things 😂 I was (and still am lmao) personally offended by the concept of the existence of Information That I Could Not Perceive, so she taught me phonics at like ...idk 2/3? somewhere in there. From what I remember, my experience was similar to the little girl - I knew how to read far more than I understood what I was reading.
But yeah, for me personally there was definitely a disconnect between what I was actually capable scholastically and what my parents expected of me. I think that was more to do with the homeschooling than the early reading though, to be fair.
It's really interesting hearing your take on it as an actual educational professional, I'd say in my specific case, pretty much everything you said was right on the money (though again, could be blamed more on homeschool than anything else.
I also did this with my kids. It was very successful. I’m also a fairly heavy Anki user myself, averaging some 200 cards/day for the past ~14 years, and Supermemo before that going back to the 90s...
I also did this with my kids. It was very successful. I’m also a fairly heavy Anki user myself, averaging some 200 cards/day for the past ~14 years, and Supermemo before that going back to the 90s — spaced repetition works.
What do you study? I tried it several years ago, but I didn't have a goal in mind, so I just learned some random facts that I thought were interesting. I learned that memorizing trivia isn't that...
What do you study?
I tried it several years ago, but I didn't have a goal in mind, so I just learned some random facts that I thought were interesting. I learned that memorizing trivia isn't that useful and that you probably should have a reason for it.
Other than music I want to learn to play, I have trouble deciding what I should memorize, since I can look up most things.
A few languages, and math/physics/chemistry. I’ve also put a few game rules in there (Cthulhu Wars among others), and I’ll often add random notes from books that I’m reading on just about any subject.
A few languages, and math/physics/chemistry. I’ve also put a few game rules in there (Cthulhu Wars among others), and I’ll often add random notes from books that I’m reading on just about any subject.
From the article: ... From the interview: It's probably important to note at this point that kids vary a lot. Still, I'd be interested in reading about what happens if other parents try it.
From the article:
[The father] started using Anki with his daughter when she turned 2, and he continued using Anki with his son starting when he was 1 year 9 months.
...
From the interview:
At first, I just really wanted my daughter to get a jump start on reading, but stupid me, I didn't realize there were unintended consequences. A four year old with a 3rd grade reading ability learns about a WHOLE lot more -- it opened up politics for her. She would read our junk mail, and learn who our council member was, who our representative is, the mayor, current events, history, etc. I know it's stupid of me to say, but I underestimated the effect that reading early would have on her breadth of learning.
[...] I mentioned that we started numbers early with my son. But we also started arithmetic. He wasn't reading by 3 the way Hannah was, but he knew all his multiplication tables up to 12 by 12. This year we tackled prime factorization, Fibonacci sequences, decimal and place values, mixed, proper, and improper fractions, light algebra, etc. I was much more aggressive with the math, and again, he handled it with grace. I was ready to stop at any moment.
It's probably important to note at this point that kids vary a lot. Still, I'd be interested in reading about what happens if other parents try it.
It doesn't really go into how they got started. It's asked in the comment section and the author replies that there's a video, but that's already almost a year into practice. I'm curious about the...
It doesn't really go into how they got started. It's asked in the comment section and the author replies that there's a video, but that's already almost a year into practice.
I'm curious about the entire process, not just the results.
So, not the author so I can’t speak to their process, but the way I used it was essentially to organize practise sessions. Obviously the Anki interface is not suitable for a child but what I would...
So, not the author so I can’t speak to their process, but the way I used it was essentially to organize practise sessions.
Obviously the Anki interface is not suitable for a child but what I would do in the earliest stages is use the search function to see what letters, and later vocabulary, were due for study, and then I would incorporate them into a lesson. Typically, this would involve drawing on a sheet of paper where we would be doing things like making up stories, practising copying my writing, and general illustrating to keep things fun. Then after I would grade my estimate of how well they performed on each element, which is pretty easy if you look back to the sheet of paper, and enter the scores into the Anki interface.
Later on with my second child, we did the practising on a tablet using OneNote, which is interesting because I actually have a somewhat comprehensive record of his progress in going from drawing simple letters to making stories.
Not a parent and that doesn’t look to be changing for a few more years at minimum, but I love the idea of anything that intellectually engages kids in a way they enjoy from an early age. Based on...
Not a parent and that doesn’t look to be changing for a few more years at minimum, but I love the idea of anything that intellectually engages kids in a way they enjoy from an early age.
Based on my experience with younger siblings and kids of friends, I think children are consistently underestimated by parents, caretakers, schools. As others have noted each kid is different and this must be taken into account, but l believe we’ve been doing a lot of kids a disservice by not trying harder to keep a pulse on where each individual’s capabilities sit at any given time and adjusting playtime, entertainment, teaching, and general interactions accordingly. It’s a lot of work but I imagine seeing these little sparks bloom into fireworks would be worth it.
On the flip side, baby enrichment is a booming business. Swimming, music, dance, foreign language, chess, gymnastics, and countless others I’ve seen accepting kids as young as six months (some...
On the flip side, baby enrichment is a booming business. Swimming, music, dance, foreign language, chess, gymnastics, and countless others I’ve seen accepting kids as young as six months (some like gymnastics are 2, still very young). Plus more traditional tuition in elementary school not to catch up, but to push further. Days filled with structured and, most importantly, “productive” activities. Even the unstructured play is often only done with a careful selection of academic “toys” and guidance if they’re not being played with in the “correct way”. Parents feeling like their kid is lagging behind for being a kid.
It seems less and less acceptable for a toddler to just enjoy the world being a toddler, let alone a kid to be a kid.
A great point. Where the line exists exactly is up for debate, but there's definitely a point past which it's all too much. Personally, if I were a parent, while I would welcome some structured...
A great point. Where the line exists exactly is up for debate, but there's definitely a point past which it's all too much.
Personally, if I were a parent, while I would welcome some structured activity, ideally the bulk of enrichment would be coming from myself or my partner. Much of it would be in the form of play or play-like activities, as well as in small moments like conversation (stoke their curiosity, treat them like people, avoid "baby talking" too much). There's also something to be said about ensuring some amount of slow/quiet time, which is increasingly hard to come by in modern childhood.
Haven't had a moment to read the article yet but here's my gut feelings:
My question is - why push so hard for early reading? In my experience as an educator in early childhood, I've had several that can read at an early age and it's wonderful, but often leads parents to have misconceptions about their children's abilities. Being able to read (or being able to do advanced mathematics, or other such skills) does give them a leg up academically but in the meantime their social and emotional development isn't being similarly pushed because those soft skills "aren't important". Similar deficiencies in motor skills are also apparent in many cases.
I'm also concerned that this drive and push to perform could have negative outcomes when these children run into the school system which doesn't really do much to actively engage children who are already at an advanced reading/mathematical ability. Boredom and dissatisfaction were my personal experiences in school when I was much more advanced than my peers.
Finally, most of these pushes for early learning of these skills smooth out by around 3rd or 4th grade, without continued pushes from home. Most people who choose to try this are likely to push their children at home, so I'm not worried about this point as much, but it's worth bringing up.
I'll come back and amend my thoughts after I get a chance to read through.
I would just say that it’s wonderful, full stop. Social and physical deficiencies seem unrelated to me — learning to read takes maybe 15-30 minutes a day. If that is stripping so much time from someone‘s ability to help their child socialize and exercise that it’s introducing visible deficits — there is something wrong happening here.
I don’t understand this perspective — we shouldn’t push our kids to succeed because the school system will ultimately fail to engage them? Smart kids will find ways to fill their time with something constructive and that doesn’t have to come from the school system. This ties in closely to point 3 — yeah, I guess if a parent decides to check out after a few years, then sure, that would be bad. But wouldn’t that be equally bad or even worse if they had put in less effort early on and then decided to check out?
Edit: so I shouldn’t say early reading and physical/social deficits are unrelated, but the direction of causation, if any, is almost certainly reversed. Kids who are awkward or physically ungifted may well learn to read early because reading is a more accessible pastime for them. I don’t think it works the other way — that learning to read turns kids into uncoordinated social misfits.
Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying don't push kids! Clearly this individual's children were interested and engaged. What I worry over is those who push at the expense of other developmental areas.
I can definitely see this perspective, 2 seems a little early. I just started a week ago, with my 3 and half year old, with the "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Siegfried Engelmann. However I was able to have an honest conversation with my child to see if they were truly interested in learning. He loves books and is having a great time learning. It is certainly different for every child.
You're absolutely right about that! My own son has almost no interest in books despite me reading to him from an early age. It's frustrating, but he's still learning his letters, numbers, etc just fine. I hope he'll find an interest soon, but I'm not stressing over it either.
I'm curious about your opinion of other early-learning projects, such as teaching babies sign language (the idea being to open up communication earlier, because signs are easier to make than speech sounds).
It's normal to focus heavily on teaching verbal communication: parents' voices from day 1, cultural excitement over first words, etc. To me, sign language and early reading just feel like extensions of that; it's socially acceptable to really, really focus on spoken language, so why not other forms of communication? At the same time, if I taught my kid sign language, I would be very aware I was doing something "weird" by cultural standards.
Definitely agree that every child is different. I started reading at 2 and it worked out well for me, but different children will become interested at different ages (and will have different levels of interest, as well). Props to you for giving your kid the opportunity to read, while being genuinely interested in whether they were interested!
We did actually teach both of our boys sign language early on, from 4 or 6 months old. Mostly food and drink based words. Hungry? Thirsty? More? All done?
I very much agree that more forms of language are always better. Also other subjects early on like problem solving, reason, cause and effect. These are all things that my parents were not equipped to teach me, so I am trying to make sure they are as successful as possible early on.
It doesn't seem like an either-or situation to me.
Spaced repetition has a remarkably good ratio of effort to learning, and I suspect that makes it easier to fit studying into a kid's day without exhausting their attention span or consuming all their time (the father specifically said he didn't want to be a "tiger dad"). And if there's plenty of time in the day, you could still invest time on all the things you highlighted — porque no los dos?
anecdotally in my case, bc my mom got tired of me constantly bugging her to read me things 😂 I was (and still am lmao) personally offended by the concept of the existence of Information That I Could Not Perceive, so she taught me phonics at like ...idk 2/3? somewhere in there. From what I remember, my experience was similar to the little girl - I knew how to read far more than I understood what I was reading.
But yeah, for me personally there was definitely a disconnect between what I was actually capable scholastically and what my parents expected of me. I think that was more to do with the homeschooling than the early reading though, to be fair.
It's really interesting hearing your take on it as an actual educational professional, I'd say in my specific case, pretty much everything you said was right on the money (though again, could be blamed more on homeschool than anything else.
I also did this with my kids. It was very successful. I’m also a fairly heavy Anki user myself, averaging some 200 cards/day for the past ~14 years, and Supermemo before that going back to the 90s — spaced repetition works.
What do you study?
I tried it several years ago, but I didn't have a goal in mind, so I just learned some random facts that I thought were interesting. I learned that memorizing trivia isn't that useful and that you probably should have a reason for it.
Other than music I want to learn to play, I have trouble deciding what I should memorize, since I can look up most things.
A few languages, and math/physics/chemistry. I’ve also put a few game rules in there (Cthulhu Wars among others), and I’ll often add random notes from books that I’m reading on just about any subject.
From the article:
...
From the interview:
It's probably important to note at this point that kids vary a lot. Still, I'd be interested in reading about what happens if other parents try it.
It doesn't really go into how they got started. It's asked in the comment section and the author replies that there's a video, but that's already almost a year into practice.
I'm curious about the entire process, not just the results.
So, not the author so I can’t speak to their process, but the way I used it was essentially to organize practise sessions.
Obviously the Anki interface is not suitable for a child but what I would do in the earliest stages is use the search function to see what letters, and later vocabulary, were due for study, and then I would incorporate them into a lesson. Typically, this would involve drawing on a sheet of paper where we would be doing things like making up stories, practising copying my writing, and general illustrating to keep things fun. Then after I would grade my estimate of how well they performed on each element, which is pretty easy if you look back to the sheet of paper, and enter the scores into the Anki interface.
Later on with my second child, we did the practising on a tablet using OneNote, which is interesting because I actually have a somewhat comprehensive record of his progress in going from drawing simple letters to making stories.
Not a parent and that doesn’t look to be changing for a few more years at minimum, but I love the idea of anything that intellectually engages kids in a way they enjoy from an early age.
Based on my experience with younger siblings and kids of friends, I think children are consistently underestimated by parents, caretakers, schools. As others have noted each kid is different and this must be taken into account, but l believe we’ve been doing a lot of kids a disservice by not trying harder to keep a pulse on where each individual’s capabilities sit at any given time and adjusting playtime, entertainment, teaching, and general interactions accordingly. It’s a lot of work but I imagine seeing these little sparks bloom into fireworks would be worth it.
On the flip side, baby enrichment is a booming business. Swimming, music, dance, foreign language, chess, gymnastics, and countless others I’ve seen accepting kids as young as six months (some like gymnastics are 2, still very young). Plus more traditional tuition in elementary school not to catch up, but to push further. Days filled with structured and, most importantly, “productive” activities. Even the unstructured play is often only done with a careful selection of academic “toys” and guidance if they’re not being played with in the “correct way”. Parents feeling like their kid is lagging behind for being a kid.
It seems less and less acceptable for a toddler to just enjoy the world being a toddler, let alone a kid to be a kid.
A great point. Where the line exists exactly is up for debate, but there's definitely a point past which it's all too much.
Personally, if I were a parent, while I would welcome some structured activity, ideally the bulk of enrichment would be coming from myself or my partner. Much of it would be in the form of play or play-like activities, as well as in small moments like conversation (stoke their curiosity, treat them like people, avoid "baby talking" too much). There's also something to be said about ensuring some amount of slow/quiet time, which is increasingly hard to come by in modern childhood.