A true story your own grandmother told me.
When she was very little the whole town knew that a new invention called the motor car was expected to drive through the town.
A horseless carriage.
They could hear it coming from a long distance away.
Her mother held all the children back from the road and let it go past without the advantage of a close look.
It was so dangerous.

But what if the school system as we know it now is defunct when your baby is five years old.

What if you hold your baby back so he can conform to today's style of school system.

Let"s say:-
Don't take advantage of the proven research on baby brain development.
Don't  do Early learning at 6months.

Don't encourage a second language when babies have the biggest window of opportunity.
Don't advance the child"s social skills and their ability to executively control their attention and concentration and problem solving skills.

You will be placing your son outside the norm because most of the world speaks more than one language.

Yes I know this argument is silly.
Like the old "yellow peril " racism threat.

But it is also silly to hold a child back.

See IrisGrinstedt post on page 2 of this forum.
She refers to a TED talk (this years winner)
The Cloud School

The speaker describes the history of the school system as a Victorian english invention.
Successful in producing a world wide machine made of people who cooperate like ants.
Suitable for survival in a trench under fire.
He says a system where children are taught to conform to learn under duress and cope under stress.
He suggest that children learn faster through play and positive affirmation .
And that the school system as we know it will not exist.

He says they can teach themselves.
In his new way of cloud education he uses "grandmothers"
Not as educators but as encourager s.

   so I don't have to up skill my maths to be useful to my grandchildren after all.

The Read Each Day I suppose does show her how a social network works.
I would not recommend that as a priority for a toddler.
In fact it makes me quite squrmish to be promoting that without the protective factor that we are all very real to her.

Real relationships are everything.

She does know us all outside of the virtual reality thank goodness.

As well as the five of us having fun we are using ideas from Brillkids to extend her reading and maths too.
I send short video clips and audio clips of me singing to her.
These are accompanied by the written words. She reads the words with her mum on a large screen.

Her grandad dressed as a frog and I sang "Mr Frog jumped out of the pond one day...." He hopped around our  lounge doing the actions.
His comment was that he dosnt want that "going viral"
It is lovely.
 

All this is familiar to her as we played little theatre games while we were home with her.

There is science too.
 Because we are in the tropics we can post gorgeous pics of colourful beetles.
Good for counting too.
We pose questions and little puzzles for her to think over.

We are surprised by what she comes up with as responses.
Her mum and her post up her comments.

How lucky I am to be able to follow up on anything she is currently interested in.
The posts just sit there like a book for her and her mum to scroll through and talk about.

Funny thanks

Having.

If I could turn back the clock 30years and the resources were available I would  playcentre for a  while then Montessori preschool and or homeschool.

The playcentre was the the only place I could learn about children.

My grandchild attends the same concept today but her  mum knows
So much more than I did.

Freezing up

Yes 1st child did that
She was definitely not shy later on.

Please ignore this if it dosnt strike a chord.

I used to reflect that if you pushed me into an equivalent environment.
An overcrowded noisy day room At a severely mentally disabled psychiatric ward I would freeze up.
Add people rushing around with big blocks and the carpentry corner saw sand hammers.

It took time - lots of time for her to assess it all.

Whereas baby number 2 went there as a newborn and had no difficulty ever.
Streetwise I called her.

1st child was 2.5 when we first entered playcentre.

She had lots of experience in small groups.
We had changed house countries and friends(except for the imaginary ones she brought with her)

Maybe that was part of it.

She tended to scowl at adults who baby talked to her or ignored
Them despite her very good vocab.

Anyhow she grew to love it.
Most importantly it was a good place with high adult child ratio
Crowded and noisy too.

I tap on search a lot.

Great when you need more info on a topic.

Funny and refreshing.

Thanks.

I am illustrating a Reading Bear Story.

The Pig and the Mill
Tim makes a zip line.(impossible without grow up help)
He isn't wearing a helmet when he zips and he does hit the pig.

I am less worried about all this after your post.

I have tried to anchor the story into fantasy.
Might be OK .

I can tell you why I do not speak about about our grandchild reading in my workplace.

I am posting here because I think it is important not to deny how vehemently opposed so many people are to EL.

I have been strongly lectured on the damage that will be caused to the child if she reads early.
(Note denial that she can!)
And on the social isolation she will now have to face at school.
(Unless we somehow turn her learning off I suppose.)

I was shocked at the arrogance and ignorance.
All this without any curiosity from my work colleagues about how she is learning or knowledge about what a happy sociable little child she is.

So I am protecting me now.

Cost benefit ratio.

I suppose if you figure that adults who are a daily part of your child's life, teachers, friends, family may react in this negative way you had better protect your child from them too.

You would not want them "proving" how wrong you are and subjecting a young child to scrutiny and testing.

Very few of our friends and family show any curiosity except a wonderful solid little core of us that support her mum unconditionally and share the joy.

Oh by the way Mrs Obedih -last night I listened to a BBC Radio 4 podcast interview with a psychologist studying brain development in children.
She referred to the fact that babies can learn very early.
 
The attention grabber was that computer programs developed to engage the child's attention, with tracking across the screen, for example was not a bad thing after all.
In fact positive.
Contrary to previous warnings from The American Acaedemy of Paediatrics on too much TV.
 
She also mentioned how children apparently forget or appear to go backwards.
She describes this as children learn and then impose their own theories on the world despite feedback to the contrary.
Later they catch up.

I understood from the interview that she thought it was an error to teach babies content.
I did not understand why she held that view.
She mentioned visual and auditory stimulation and repetition.

She declared her own interest as a consultant for "Baby Bright" which I have not looked up yet.

The podcast :-
From The Life Scientific
Anette Karmiloff-Smith
22.01.13
Should babies under two watch TV? Developmental psychologist,Annette Karmiloff-Smith,discusses how with the right subject matter a TV screen can be better for a baby than a book.
 
Typical headline this dosn't represent the content of the interview.

For the full interview
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/tls/tls_20130121-1216a.mp3

Looks good to me.

Joey's Blog . Great idea!

We have made a Facebook page where I am supposed to write a sentence or two each day and I think my grandaughter will eventually dictate a reply.

It isn't up and  running quite yet.

We will report how it goes.

I think she might be too young to participate in your blog but we will work at that.

Good on you!

Yes
Best not to test I reckon.

But if you can get away with it in the way of a genuinely fun game that doesn't feel like a test even to the adult....
-Must also depend on the child's personality.

Looking back 30 years, my first baby would have smelt a rat.
I could never trick her
She could see through me.
We are still on the same wavelength.

I think our grandchild is probably pretty extrovert at this stage and seems to like the spotlight (at the moment.)
She is also very good at saying,
"No more! "and using our names with this firm directive.
Sometimes she quietly signs finished
Both forms of communication we respect immediately because we know we are pushing the limits and do not want to derail any learning opportunity that she needs to make independently.

I love to watch her doing her own thing.
I try to guess what she is doing without her knowing I am looking.
Sometimes it is obvious and most times it is wonderfully mysterious.
The best stuff happens when we are not involved.

We had to laugh behind our hands when she pulled the sticky note pad out of a very low down microwave in our holiday rental.
There was circular scribble on it and she told one of us it was egg.

Now I've just remembered the testing can go both ways.
During a hide and seek game when it was Aunty"s turn to hide we got aunty to lie in the bath tub and lay towels over her.
Coming ready or not and off Chloe went to find Aunty.

I saw Chloe look at the bath tub and so did her mum.

I thought -we'll she dosnt know those bumps are a person hiding.
That's what you can expect from a baby

Chloe opened a tiny drawer in the hand basin saying"No"
And I thought wow she really is a baby as she can't figure out this.

Then she pointed down the toilet and looked at us all with a huge grin.

Her mum knew all along that as soon as she entered the bathroom she had it sussed.
I was completely fooled,

Your story sounds like how it was for me with our second child.
I was mystified as to why nothing I tried seemed to work.
I felt guilty for ages as I could not find the key.
 
Of course I did not have Brillkids back then.

She has grown up to be a fantastic teacher herself.

Thanks Fruke

Yes I can open the link above and I did get 150 questions for free.

I can see where we will be going..

Right away I can add some new sticky notes into the Please Play game.

When I said "we don't care where it will lead" I really meant that it does not matter anymore if the family skeptic plays along.

The game and all the other suggestions are so valuable.
She is so keen to learn and have fun.
We do care a great deal.

I had no idea about testing to get into schools.

While I was on holiday with our grandchild I purchased some maths workbooks for the near future.
I only learned about workbooks from these threads on Brillkids.
The good shop was "Clever Kids" in Tauranga for anyone in NZ.
The owner used to be an Infant teacher.




 

I have been around our grandchild for 10days getting to know her and cramming as much time with her as possible before we flew out.

This "testing" idea worked for us.

A small cardboard box of open letter envelopes. Each envelope is addressed "please play" on the front.
Each envelope has a colorful pattern or abstract illustration on the back where the opening is -just to look inviting (probably unnecessary.)

Inside is a simple sticky note with simple directions.

Some of the notes start with the name of a family member and others are nameless.
The message is always :-
"please play................... "

For example ....."row row row the boat"
make a train
sing me a song
read me a book
hide and seek
hunt for insects outside

You get the picture. The possibilities are endless.
 
Originally the idea had three goals : Firstly to try to engage a family member who is a daily visitor just before the evening meal. The visitor is a skeptic about early reading and learning.
Secondly for the toddler to introduce this person into her favorite activities, and lastly to free up her mother to be able to get on with making dinner.

The game was accepted right away by Chloe 21 months who gets it out herself, chooses an envelope randomly and reads it out loud.
It became such fun that none of us cared where it will lead.  An even better goal don't you think?