latest criticism of early learning...

[Nikita]

Some person with "credentials" is claiming early learning does no good and is a waste of time. I disagree with his position.

He even preaches this line... studies show that not only are children not capable of truly learning certain skills – such as reading (not simply memorizing words), until their brains have developed enough (which generally occurs between the ages of 5 and 7), but that those who learned earlier tended to experience more problems with reading as they got older. Furthermore, many of the differences between skill levels disappear or greatly reduce as kids reach elementary school, whether they learned to read at age 2 or age 7.

http://www.momcentral.com/cms/11251/are_we_rushing

This is the link for the very long article....

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007/10/28/rush_little_baby/


there a blogspot discussion on this article.
http://giftedexchange.blogspot.com/2007/11/rush-little-baby.html

I do think there is truth to not feeling we should be so pushy and be less guilt stricken if we dont do as much as we'd like.

[DadDude]

Meh...the Boston Globe article is old.  Pretty sophisticated criticism (much better than the recent Parents magazine article), but still wrong in many particulars.

[Kimba15]

I have to agree with Daddude, while the article does 'put up' a good argument, I think it is wrong in many particulars.

Especially where it says True, the idea of planting an infant on the floor and drilling her with flashcards seems absurd. But it might actually be no more extreme than the increasing mania among professional parents to armor their youngsters with every educational enrichment program available - Baby Einstein DVDs at 3 months, Junior Kumon tutoring at 2 1/2 years, SAT summer camps at 15 - all at the expense of old-fashioned but vitally important unstructured play.[/b]

Doman has always said that play is very important and never to forgo allowing your child to play. I think the article lost credibility after I read that point.

I think keep doing what your doing. Even if your child never shows you, what does it matter.

Kimba

[Littleroo]

The article was written about my daughter who is now 8!  She has tons of unstructured play!!  The reporter was pretty biased.

[Tamsyn]

She didn't know her Disney princesses?     That proves it.  She was a deprived child and you weren't giving her what she needed most, what was most important.   

 Seriously, that's how he sets up his whole argument.  And that's just silly. 

Well, while they are clamoring for formal studies, we're content with anecdotal evidence, and our kids are thriving.  Some day they'll get their studies, but why should our children suffer in the meantime?

I do have to concede that a child can start their education at 5 and still grow up to be well educated, brilliant adults.  Hard work, self-motivation, and good teachers and mentors will give us those results.  None of us think otherwise.  However, that doesn't prove that we shouldn't start at birth, or that those who do will wind up with a William Sidis.  "Early Ripe, Early Rot"??  Isn't looking at one individual just anecdotal evidence?  Sorry, I just wanted to point out what especially grated on me.

It's fun to hear from you, Littleroo!  I'd love to know what your girl is up to now.

[PokerDad]

Littleroo,

Great to have you post! Since you obviously did EK (encyclopedic knowledge), I'm curious how you view it in retrospect. Since you plan to "start over" it must have been helpful, but I'm curious just how helpful. What can you tell us with the benefit of several years of hindsight?

[Korrale4kq]

There is a LOT of pop culture that my 3 year old does not know. He never saw an episode of the nauseating Yo Gabba Gabba. I don't believe there was any deprivation there.
He doesn't know a single character from any children's show except the tank engines from Thomas and friends. But that is mostly because he has the underwear and books. And 3 of the engines.
Oh! He does know the lalaloopsy characters. He has seen the movie a few times and loves it. So we bought the books and he knows the main girls.

[Littleroo]

I know I always thought the Disney Princess argument was ridiculous.  She actually never liked them, .  She is much more interested in nature and learning about the outdoors.  We followed all of Domans programs after going to both of his seminars.  I enjoyed it and so did she.  I'm not sure what effect doing the encyclopedic knowledge program did really.  She is a little sponge and learns things amazingly quickly.  But I don't know if that is because of her or the program.  She did read really early, at 18 months and continued to read well.  We homeschool so we just go along at her pace with things.  I think all the early motor work, ie crawling etc was the most helpful actually.  So my second is currently 3 weeks old and we have started again with her.  So I do think its a worthwhile program.  It definately hasn't hurt my child as she is a happy, active,  social 8 year old.  I would love the globe to come do a follow up interview at some point.

[mario]

It's awesome to have you here Littleroo. Good to know about your child too. It makes me feel more confident

[Niniedney]

No matter what it is you're talking about their will be people on the opposing side searching for flaws to point out to everyone! It is true that the programs we use and the materials I have learned from  say that the MOST IMPORTANT part of the EL experience should be to make sure your child has plenty of time for play, and finds the activities you are doing are fun and stress free! As for the Disney Princess argument, it is truly silly. My girls are not allowed to watch very much Disney, they very rarely have movies my husband and I approve of. They do know some of the names of the Princesses, but only because of the books we've read or from I telling them their names. We play princess/dress-up all the time though : ) We do EL in our home because, to me, it seem anys that my children are begging for this type of interaction. They LOVE to learn and explore, and it doesn't seem like it is doing any harm

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