.
Fear not; your baby will be fine.
According to Siegfried Engelmann in his book Give Your Child a Superior Mind, ``every single genius at the top end of the IQ scale received intensive early training. Every single one was subjected to an extremely active environment, not one that folded its hands and waited for the child to “mature” but one that went after him and trained him when he was still of preschool age’’
He then buttresses this point by giving the following examples of parent-made geniuses who DID TURN OUT WELL. An excerpt from Engelmann’s book:
``We will let Dr. Cox (who is not sympathetic with the environmentalistʼs interpretation of IQ) speak for herself, with an excerpt from each of the cases listed as having a childhood IQ of 180 or more. Jeremy Bentham (jurist and philosopher): “When he was 3 his father bought a Latin grammar and other books to begin his classical education. The Greek alphabet he learned on his fatherʼs knee, using Lilyʼs Grammar and the Greek Testament as the two principal instruments of instruction.
Thomas Babington Macaulay (English historian, poet, statesman): “ʼStill the merest child,ʼ he was sent, reluctantly on his part, to his first school. . . .Before the age of 7, Thomas wrote a compendium of universal history, which his mother describes as ʻa tolerably connected view of the leading events from the Creation to the present time, filling about a quire of paper.ʼ”
Blaise Pascal (French geometrician, philosopher-writer): “When Blaise was 3, his father began to devote all of his time to the education of his children. The boy never attended school and had no other teacher than his parent. When young Pascal was 8, the family moved to Paris and the father began a systematic course of training, the rigor and originality of which can be likened only to the discipline of John Stuart Mill.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German poet): “From the age of 3 until he was 6, Goethe attended a day nursery or kindergarten, and here, according to tradition, he learned to read. His father had already begun to tell the little lad and his sister the history of the town. . . . Goetheʼs father early recognized his sonʼs unusual ability, and friends of the family enthusiastically mapped out careers suited to such rare talents.”
Hugo Grotiius (Dutch jurist, founder of the science of international law): “Hugo remained at home in the care of his parents until he was 8 or 9, and wasinstructed by them in the rudiments of Christian doctrine and impressed with sound principles of morality and honor. Before he was 7, the foundations of his knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages were laid by his tutor, ʻan excellent man.ʼ”
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (German philosopher and mathematician): “Leibnitz was brought up in a studious and scientific atmosphere; he enjoyed an education very unusual in the period of German decline in which his early years were passed. His father, when teaching him to read, made every effort to instill in him the love of history, both biblical and secular. After his fatherʼs death, which occurred when the boy was 6, his mother devoted herself to his education and, in order that his formal training might be of the best, sent him to the Nicolai School in Leipzig.”
John Stuart Mill (English philosopher, writer, logician and economist): “Until he was 14, Mill was educated at home by his father. He began to learn Greek at 3; and from then to his 9th year he studied Greek classics, making daily reports of his reading. At the same time under his fatherʼs direction he read innumerable historical works.”
My advice: teach your child to read, he/she will be the better for it.
1. Check out an abridged version of the Engelmann’s book at his website:
http://zigsite.com/PDFs/SuperiorMind.pdfBuy the whole book at Amazon and go through it. Very, very informative on the early education debate.
2. Also read ‘Native Reading’ by Timothy Kailing. Convinces that it is better to start early than latter.
3. Read `How and Why I taught my toddler to read’ by Larry Sanger. This book is free on Larry’s website:
http://larrysanger.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/How-and-Why-I-Taught-My-Toddler-to-Read.pdf. (By the way, Larry is on this site as DadDude).
These books have very convincing points on why children should be taught early. The advantages from early learning stays with a child for life. A longitudinal research study by Doleres Dunkin proves this point. See her book ‘ Children who read early’.
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