PokerCub Update

[Kerileanne99]

We have a fabulous pediatrician that (with 8 kids of his own including a daughter with PKU) was wholeheartedly with our 'outrageous' EL goals, physical fitness ideas, and vegetarianism (although we did opt to go through a ped nutritionist just to be safe, with full awareness/willingness to modify our daughters diet accordingly!)

Some of the best advice he gave us when Alex would go through a nicely baby 'chubby' period?
"It is not chub, but insurance!" 

Besides, I actually found that as soon as a bit of chub would go on, she would suddenly immediately demonstrate huge leaps in her physical abilities! With his 'water skiing ability' it will be no time at all before you will have to train yourself and mommy to leave absolutely nothing important on edges of surfaces you think are safe

[Mandabplus3]

Oh yes, don't be comcerned at all about how chubby he is. Breasted kids just don't get fat. They get something around their bodies but when you poke it it is sort of almost solid, it feels very different to fat. Go poke a chubby bottle fed baby and then yours, see if you can feel the difference. It's a density thing  Ok that is purely my opinion BTW, but i noticed it when I supplemented my ( rather thin, due to genetics and activity) kids for a few months. They got fat and their poo smelt really bad!
Your baby is a LONG way off worrying whether he is getting chubby. He isn't even carrying enough extra to slow down his physical development.
I also noticed mine would get chubby then shoot up...either physically growing or suddenly developing new skills. I do like the doctors quote. Not fat it's insurance!  Beautiful!

[nee1]

PokerDad, I am very impressed with Cub's progress with language. I just read the recent update you posted on your blog and saw him saying hello to the teddy. Good job, Cub.  All in all, it shows that Fowler's program for language does work. Keep the updates coming. And as I've always said, with a father as dedicated as you are, that little guy is covered for life!

P.S.
Seastar did ask a question about Fowler's book sometime ago. PokerDad gave a complete response so I did not feel it was necessary to add anything. My only comment would that if you are getting Fowler's book 'Talking from Infancy', ensure you get a copy that has the program's CD at the back. The CD illustrates the concepts in the book well and with real babies so you can really see how to do it.

[nee1]

PokerDad,

I've got a question. Fowler recommends you introduce each stage one after the other, with the understanding that if things are introduced in too complex a manner all at once, the baby may become confused. Now my question is this: does this not contradict research (e.g., the Hart and Risley one) that encourages talking to babies using all sorts of complex words, sentences, adjectives, and pronouns right from birth?

I know the Fowler stages move quickly, depending on the child's mastery. For example, PokerCub is already in stage 2 at just 9 weeks of age after having mastered stage 1 (sound play). And I also know that each stage (even the initial stages) require lots and lots of words and talk from the parent (I've seen that in the program's CD videos). And maybe I've answered my own question - that no, his method does not contradict the research, it only provides structure to  the talking. Your thoughts?

[nadia0801]

AMAZING PokerDad! Congratulations and welcome to the world of life-long learning with Cub. Happy for you guys

nee1, I just have to comment, you're such a great researcher! I can't recall a topic in EL that you haven't researched or studied yet. I would love to thoroughly study such interesting techniques. May I ask what is your current focus with you LO?

[nee1]

May I ask what is your current focus with you LO?

Current focus is Math, Vocabulary, and Reading, if I understood your question correctly.

Or are you asking about my focus as regards the Fowler program? If yes, that would be vocabulary development, cos that is what the program encourages.

[PokerDad]

PokerDad,

I've got a question. Fowler recommends you introduce each stage one after the other, with the understanding that if things are introduced in too complex a manner all at once, the baby may become confused. Now my question is this: does this not contradict research (e.g., the Hart and Risley one) that encourages talking to babies using all sorts of complex words, sentences, adjectives, and pronouns right from birth?

I know the Fowler stages move quickly, depending on the child's mastery. For example, PokerCub is already in stage 2 at just 9 weeks of age after having mastered stage 1 (sound play). And I also know that each stage (even the initial stages) require lots and lots of words and talk from the parent (I've seen that in the program's CD videos). And maybe I've answered my own question - that no, his method does not contradict the research, it only provides structure to  the talking. Your thoughts?

Excellent question. First, I'm not familiar with Hart & Risley (yet) 

I would say that yes, it does contradict somewhat (but I'm not really familiar with the research). Just thinking of this, I could try and explain this so many different ways so I'll just type and hope for the best... Fowler uses a Vygotskian approach in that the goal is to simplify to enable the learning jump. In Vygotskian terms, this is the zone of proximal learning. Well, an infant fresh out of the womb has a very narrow zone. Sounds will be difficult to distinguish and isolate. Stage 1 is simply isolating (these are my terms now that I'm using not Fowlers) the sounds and encouraging the infant to listen and repeat. This is done in a playful dialogue.

If you turn to page 16 in Talking From Infancy, you'll see box 3. It looks to me as though it over-emphasizes the overlap, but it at least shows how the stages overlap each other. There's no way you're going to graduate from level to level - you're just going to introduce more complexity as the child is able to comprehend (or articulate depending on the stage).

You will also see on page 101, ch. 8, that stage 3 generally begins around age 9 months. This is where you start linking words together. My guess is that the pre-req is the child actually saying words... but I'm still working through the book meticulously. At worst, you're curtailing a few months in favor of advancing the simple ideas of language. I'd say that Fowler's research (his Potentials in Childhood demonstrated his vast amounts of research... and Talking from Infancy was written 10 years later!) is solid enough that I trust him... and his results, as referenced in Brain Rules for Baby (which says a lot since the author basically says don't waste your time trying to advance your child) speaks for itself.

We're still working on our sounds [which is done, generally, face to face] and will continue to do so for a long long while. He's now ready to start linking sounds with objects and actions.

I will add that it's not as though we're not 1. having adult conversation while he's around, and 2. reading, where more complex intonations, adjectives, nouns, and other words that won't come up around the house are used.

He's getting all that advanced stuff, it's just I focus my effort on the stages at this point.

And funny thing about the book reading. I've noticed that he's associated "talking" with the pages so that now when we start reading, he starts talking like crazy! It's funny to hear him go while I try to read... and then I stop and try to let him talk... it's funny.

[nee1]

Thanks for your response, PokerDad. I understand what you mean, that Fowler simplifies the word stages for babies. Anyway, I did not know about his work when my son was tiny, hence I was saying all sorts of complex things to him, there was no simplification whatsoever. He does not talk as much, so I wonder if the simplification process would have hastened his progress more. When he was Cub's age, he was nowhere close Cub as regards language,  inspite of all my complex and advanced talking. (After reading Fowler, I started simplifying/repeating things a bit more and I'm seeing much more progress).

Do you think complex sentences from birth help tiny babies, or do you think the simplification process works better?  I think a combination of both works best – simplification (ala Fowler) for nuances and details of language; advanced speech (from conversation and books) for overall vocabulary.

I think that is also why LR and YBCR are effective, they simplify the process for children. So that a child gets to see an apple, a hat, etc., repeatedly and independently of other stuff, and therefore becomes able to identify those words and corresponding pictures easily. What do you think?

P.S.
Here is the Hart and Risley paper: http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/spring2003/TheEarlyCatastrophe.pdf.

[PokerDad]

Thanks for the paper, I'll check it out!

Regarding simplifying vs not simplifying... my only real experience to this point was my puppy, so I'll use this as a crude way to discuss.

I know plenty of people with stupid dogs. I should define that... a dog that doesn't understand what you say when you talk to it. I think there are a few reasons, mainly that most people leave their dogs alone during the day just sitting, and more importantly, when there is interaction, the human uses complex syntax and vocabulary that is extremely difficult to grasp. Most dogs will know a few words such as "treat"... that one is easy... wanna treat? here you go (and dog eats, and associates the eating with the treat word after a few repetitions)

Instinctively, I adopted much of the phase 2 stuff with my puppy just by thinking the following "If I had a very limited capacity to understand language, how would I learn?"

My answer was to simplify. Even Fowler's recommendation not to use plurals is something that I did. Or, you can go the opposite and not use singular (though Fowler never says this... but it's the same principle). Because we'd encounter more than one person at a time usually, I started referring to strangers on the sidewalk as "people"... gotta say it was weird saying "people" when there was one person, but I instinctively understood not to change the word and keep it the same - always - the same.

In the end, my dog really understands language nicely. The remarkable part is that the dog can and does learn after a SINGLE repetition now. In addition to toys, she knows people's names, dog's names, places, activities and such. We still keep it simple.... yesterday, to test this whole thing out, I asked her "where's the raccoon?"... 18 months ago or so we had some raccoons in our fireplace. They haven't been in there since, but when I asked, my dog looked around for a moment, then walked over to the fireplace and started looking UP at it... LOL. If I randomly mention a dog's name, she'll run to the window to see it...

My apologies for being long-winded here. I suppose to answer your question, using complexity will have an advantage: more sound and more diverse sound. The disadvantage is that it's random and takes a lot of time to have the skill to distinguish one sound from another, and more importantly to be able to break the sound into words which then constitute meaning. If all you did was stop between words (which would be annoying as hell to do, and annoying to listen to), I think it would work far better - and this is a strategy I'm starting to use more with Cub. I'm also making sure I REALLY pronounce things.

PokerMom had a bad habit of baby talking - I had to talk to her about it a few times, but this morning congratulated her on the improvement I've noticed. She still uses the excited high pitch, but pronounces... LOL. Now I'm narrating my activities and am needing to remind myself to draw attention to a noun if I'm talking about "Now I'm cutting with the knife" (holds up knife to show Cub)

I'll leave you with one quick note since Cub is waking up... in using Anki to learn to new words, I've found that I've sometimes had to repeat the same word in excess of 20 times before learning it!

How much more would a child that hasn't mastered language yet?

[nee1]

My apologies for being long-winded here. I suppose to answer your question, using complexity will have an advantage: more sound and more diverse sound. The disadvantage is that it's random and takes a lot of time to have the skill to distinguish one sound from another, and more importantly to be able to break the sound into words which then constitute meaning. If all you did was stop between words (which would be annoying as hell to do, and annoying to listen to), I think it would work far better - and this is a strategy I'm starting to use more with Cub. I'm also making sure I REALLY pronounce things.

Oh, you are not being long-winded at all. I understand your point completely - that complexity has the advantage of introducing lots of diverse sound to the baby,  but has the disadvantage of  making it difficult for the baby to distinguish sounds/words from each other. Thank you for that insight. Oh, and when I talk about about simplification, it has nothing to do with baby talk. I'm not a fan of baby talk. I'm sure you understand the sort of simplification I mean.

Please, if you have further insights on this matter, I'll very much love to hear it. Thank you once again.

[PokerDad]

Lately, I've been reading, listening, watching a lot of cognitive psychology relating to education. A good summary is that learning is NOT linear.

It's not linear because it's actually exponential.

Doman says that all babies are born geniuses. I get what he's saying - they're all geared up to learn and learn a lot and learn rapidly. Without question this IS true, but in the grand scheme of things it's not entirely true.

you see, when a baby is born, everything is new. Everywhere the baby looks there's something to learn, and so learning is constantly taking place. In the adult world, very little (by percentage) is new, and very little learning, relatively speaking, is taking place. With this I will agree with Doman.

But the science shows tells us a different story. The more you know, the greater your capacity to learn!

By derivation, the less you know, the less your capacity to learn...

WOW.

So in that sense, Doman is actually wrong.

What's that have to do with the subject matter? Well, starting small... LEARN SOMETHING, anything! and the next thing will be easier to learn, and so forth down the line.

If you'll recall from the Moshe Kai thread, I mentioned that I happened to notice that his parents seemed to take this route. When they started flash cards with him, they took something he knew "airplane" and then added in only two other cards. They made sure................ they made sure he KNEW a card before introducing a new card.

I'm not saying this method is superior to complete inundation, only that in the beginning it is probably beneficial to scale down and focus on smaller things and build up.

So with Cub, my very first objective from a few hours old, was to say a single sound and get him to perhaps try and mimic. That went on for weeks! Once he started getting one or two, then adding in others was easy. My other goal was "just get him talking, whatever it takes". Practice practice practice. This is still my goal and will be until he can talk fluently. So if he's babbling away, I won't disrupt. When he stops, then I start on an activity (or in some cases, try and extend his talking - which is where the teddy bear started).

I found this principle absolutely held true with my dog. Once she understood one or two words, I knew she now had learned HOW to LEARN (yep, you have to learn how to learn) and that future words would come far easier... and they have.

If not for this forum, I would not know where to start, or where to go... the possibilities are endless and you CAN keep the pedal to the metal (just look at what H is doing for schooling... awesome work).

 

EDIT: I'm reading through the link you gave me; I'm familiar with the 30 million word gap (but will read the article) - I wanted to point out something before I forget. There's a part in Potential of Childhood where Fowler discusses IQ at various ages and socio-economic statuses (or perhaps I got this from somewhere else...) but if I recall, the IQ differences didn't start emerging/diverging until a certain age. If this memory, or factoid if you will, is correct, it would go A LONG WAY to confirm all of the above... there's a gap, but the difference is pronounced by school age. How much difference in IQ will there be at age 6 months? Guessing not a huge gap there ON AVERAGE (Obviously EL kids are going to be diverging already)....

[PokerDad]

I think I had read this article several months back while browsing old threads. Having read it, I do NOT think Fowler contradicts this particular research at all.

Look at the measurements they looked at: diversity of vocabulary, frequency of vocabulary, and encouragement.

Well, we're knocking the cover off the ball with encouragement. Vocal play is ENCOURAGING - as in, massively so. I do not see why word play or sentence play would not be similar... actually, yes I do... sound play is definitely give and take setting the stage for frequent vocalizations. This is a habit I'm so thrilled to be forming for him...

(warning, unrelated tangent coming)...

My in-laws just came back from meeting my wife's new niece from out of town. While on the trip, they observed the older cousin who is "E"s age (almost to day if I'm not mistaken)... and, my in-laws aren't really aware of my EL interest at all... I did not solicit the info, but they couldn't help but tell us that cousin barely utters a word and maybe says one or two things on occasion (while watching Toy Story will say "buzz"). They said, in particular, that this kid basically was mum.

Contrast that to Cub, only 9 weeks old, where I'm working very hard to get that kid babbling (which he's doing very well with)... that's the difference between encouragement and no encouragement. Socio-economic wise - they make more money than we do by a decent percentage.

(tangent over)...

The study concentrated on sheer number of word exposure. It could be the same word over and over (though obviously they measured how diverse the vocabulary was) - and the study didn't begin until MONTH 10!! Look at the graph and you'll see the starting points are very close together at 10 months. I'd say that the divergence starts earlier than this, but the massive gap isn't impacted by diversity prior to this but rather AFTER/during language acquisition.

Frequency with Fowler will go WAY UP - you actually have something to talk about.

The only place that may suffer for a while is the diversity (skipping pronouns and such for a while)

Naw, Fowler doesn't contradict this - he gives you added depth into what's happening early on.

If there is a detriment in vocabulary, the easy way to fix it is to read.... read... read...

EDIT: in reference to my prior post about linear learning, the article speaks of the trajectory "curve" and that enriched children were adding words at a much higher rate... question, why would this rate gap continue once in school?? Should it not normalize? I'm speaking specifically of RATE not actual numbers... should not both children start acquiring new words at the same rate once in school since their environments are similar now?
Trick question... learning is not linear, the more you know, the more capable you are of learning... enriched children had higher vocabularies going into school and were able to accumulate faster than welfare kids. Look at the graph, it's a "curve" and not a line. Exponential growth...
and the big "AH HAH" that should be going off in your mind if you're reading this is how EL will set your child up MASSIVELY especially if you continue with the hard effort up until grade school age and beyond.... just wow. The only way to stop or hinder the potential is to throttle by failing to keep the environment enriched (ie, analogy of the adult world where nothing is new)

[Mela Bala]

Thanks for the update on PokerCub's progress.  I bet he is trying to read to you when he sees the words 
You are doing an above and beyond amazing job with him.  I look forward to more updates.

You may need to start your own forum for gifted pets 

[seastar]

Loving this thread! Thanks for the summary of Fowler's book as I don't think I'll spend €185 on it! I will definitely try to get it from the library though.

Pokerdad - the latest video on the blog is INCREDIBLE! You guys are doing such a terrific job. And Cooper is just so cute!

[PokerDad]

Thank you all for the encouragement... I really need it sometimes!

If not for this forum, I wouldn't be cataloging his progress with the blog - and the videos are nice because I can notice his progress easier which, in turn, helps keep me from getting discouraged everything seems hectic.

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