Yeah, mum2tiger, music is in my list too......you can't leave this out...I  think it is normal to get no answer from a 21 months old baby but to listen to the forks' vibration, what you need to do is to say clearly the music notes when you do the exercise with him, I  believe he "definitely" has perfect pitch ability later when he is exposed to any musical instruments. You are wise to train his hearing though...

 Hi mum2tiger,

For Shichida's books in English, you may check Shenli's blogpost. Not mistaken she bought several English copies... it doesn't cross my mind to find out since I read Chinese and Chinese and Japanese are the closest in terms of language structure and meaning. 

When my daughter was small,  I never missed speed reading to her in math and factual information  such as timetables, periodic tables, world maps, countries and capitals, brain's anatomy, flash cards,  lots of stories readings,  simple sticker puzzle exercises ( MPH has many books in this nature)  and swimming.

Speed reading on factual information helps cultivate child's vastness of reading interest to learn less interesting subjects later because in reality not all subjects are interesting or pictorial, I  believe it boils down to child's " habitual" reading style since young...

0-3 is the easiest time to teach...hope this helps.

Perhaps you could search for: (1) second-hand.... (2)  you may borrow from someone you know who has good quality tuning forks.....because you won't  use it very often especially after the child gets his pitch corrected,  it is similar to swimming exercise, once the child learns how to swim then you would have to chuck the swimming ring away.....something like that...

The best way is by way of reading and a bit of flash cards to young babies to read...so my daughter reads her own at age 3, she is 6 now and she reads novels such as " The Red Pyramid"....

  happymomof5,

Yes, I could't agree more with you on the idea that abacus is built on deep understanding and working with place value....because I think that should be the ways too......I recalled the sum of 20x3, I first taught my daughter she has 3 20s, so makes up to 60, but her abacus teacher would tell her first count how many digits, in this case 3 digits, so makes up to hundred place, but because 3x2 is 6, less than 10, so you need to stir the beads at tens place instead of hundred place.....I abhor this kind of math thinking skill because it doesn't make the child thinks why it is not so.....that comes the issue of what you had just  mentioned in your last comment " lack of creativity" in math solving skill, something that I spotted too,..... that said, I still expose her to abacus is because since she has been using  mental maths so well, so I think it is no harm to use other system such as abacus to prove a sum ......abacus teaches vector ( negatives) and abacus can solve millions and millions of big numbers, but ironically abacus can't solve the sum such as 1-2 when other simple and straight forward method abled to.......

I'll pass on all the comments on the mind maps & all, but

There are beautiful resources ( I personally really liked what I saw of the Jones Genius,, Abacus programs are a great tool, etc.) & we really should give our kids much. much more than the public school system does, in a much warmer (psycologically/spiritually) & logical/practical, & deeper way (intellectually). it really pays off - speakign from personal experince with some of my "babies" in high school

God bless you, dear dedicated parents out there, I really admire you!!!

Hi happymomof5,

I am unsure how Chinese parents teach their kids, perhaps as you mentioned by way of rote memory....that said,  since you mentioned abacus, and I am using abacus with my daughter, I would say abacus is another kind  of grueling math exercise if you want to call it, besides, abacus too emphasized a lot on rote memory.......

fiz,

Can you tell me what Shichida books you found useful and where I can get them? Thanks!

Hi aangeles,

I have found these 2 books that I think is an-essential-to-have books:
(1): ISBN 978-7-5442-4255-4
(2): ISBN 957-452-891 X

In book no. 2 page 226 & 227, Dr  Shichida had set up required expectations with regard to child who used right brain methods in Math Program. ( To my humble opinion, I think for kid who is able to do mental math would  have reached the set expectation and I think this expectation is kind of reasonable.)

That said, I also read a book by Dr  Shichida,  there too he had set a very stringent standard in terms of language, in that case it was Japanese Language he mentioned about  ie. I could recall he said the child at age of 5/6 should already be able to read, write and understand Secondary's level textbooks and so on.  In that, I am sure my daughter had yet to reach the set standard for Chinese, but for English I think it is possible for her to achieve that too. ( For this book, I can't find the exact ISBN and pages for your reference, but I would cite the copy soon.)

Book no. 2 has a special passage on how to do ESP and  achieve ESP for child between 0-6,  if this is what concern you then you may check it out at page 96 onwards. 
Book no. 1 is a mixture or HOW- to and WHY book.

Hope this help.

Cheers.

fiz,

Can you tell me what Shichida books you found useful and where I can get them? Thanks!

Dear aangeles,

I can't recall how many books I read by Dr Shichida, mostly in Chinese language because Chinese  should be the closest to Japanese if those books were to be translated.

Most of the books are quite similar, with case studies, but I remembered this book that sets the very strict requirements of expectations of the young child of 5/6 to achieve if he/she were to use the right brain methods correctly, so back then I did cross check with my daughter's levels with that book,  would let you know the book soon cause can't find it now.

The other I think is a must-have copy: presumably for children above 6 to adults i.e. for children who is able to receive instructions with no fuss: a HOW-TO-DO book: ISBN: 978-7-5442-4512-8, it comes with a CD.

The other emphasis by Shichida is raeding and math. In his books, my understanding is read as many books as possible, books with and without  pictures, books with boring and/ or interesting contents such as simple understanding of law of nature, law of motion......books with in-depth knowledge, even sometimes books with religious philosophy. He ever cited one chanting phrase  in that book I just above mentioned with ISBN.

 He also emphasized a lot on math, so the school has a  CD on multiplication, that said, I think what he wanted his young students to achieve perhaps is mental calculation........ Whether it is dots math, See's math, abacus, anzan, all that are the same because all stimulating the brains.

I got most of my books in Popular Bookstore, MPH and Border.

Happy New Year!

I would check out that two books for you later.

TTT8,

You are absolutely right, singing solfege, I think this helps tremendously too.

After  joining music group class: Harmony Road Music Course ( a US system), with a book comes with a CD, and the CDs also teaches the child to read the music notations in solfeggi. And  I suspect too she must have developed her  perfect pitch during the constant class practice by that very experienced music teacher,  solfege singing together with Tuning Forks.

I recalled yesterday evening I asked her to do sight read and played new song composed by Mozart's: "Non Piu Andrai", and   in the process often I notice she would try on the piano several rounds, get the notes herself ( I can't play piano BUT I understand music language the "left-brain" way), get the rhythms and  sing  solfeggi while playing, and by doing so, for sure she has already mastered that new song,  so today she is already able to play by memory to entertain me........that always make me inspired.

http://childgeniusminds.com/[/url]. I would recommend it to everyone because it has lots of interesting tips for higher IQ for kids.  Check it out!

Hi Teresa,

May I have feedback on Child Genius Mind ? Mind to share with us ?

Oh,  it is not out of topic, initially I used See's maths, I   think this method is good for children compared to abacus,  because after using both abacus and mental maths, I have noticed such limitation sometimes back after asking my daughter to do both the sums,   for instance 4-5 or -5-(-10) and so on with abacus, abacus doesnt do sums like that,  and she would tell  " I cant do that because  no rules could apply" but the same doesnt seem to happen in See's Maths ( mental Maths).  That was my experince after seeing how my daughter adopting both. I must say both are good training.

 To be very frank you can teach See's math yourself to your child.....See's math is a simple math within our knowledge, not something extraordinarily hard.


I see close relation between piano, reading and Maths, because she i's doing theory too at young age of 5,  so ceratin part of the theory needs the child to undertsand conceptually  simple maths application or when the music notation is up and above the usual 5 stave lines.........or  why not all pieces are treble clefts...... or  be asked why this is 1/8, or 1/16 and so on and not 1/4, I notice it would be difficult for the music teachers to explain and  to tell the young child the concept of fraction and so on if the child doesnt have that in mind initially.

  That is why I think there is close relation between math, piano and reading, for instance it would be drilling if the child doesnt quite understand the meaning of andante, fff, mf, f, or lento, or andante or presto....silence or play adagio and that those terms often appeared in every music piece......so I personally feel it is always good if the child could grip the concept the moment she plays with it or has a feel of what she is taught to play...............But what I just mentioned doesn't appear to be a problem with kid  who is  9/10/11/12 years old and so on.....So age and understanding is my concern  in early child education, the option to bridge this gap is to find interest in books she read.....and you are perfectly right not all books are suitable to them.

Dr. Jones says that you can do Jones G. as soon as they are walking and talking. We started JG when my son was 16 months old. JG goes in steps so we are working on mastering steps right now. My 16 month old is spending his time counting and learning numbers 0-10. We made some JG numbers and used velcro to secure dots to the numbers and we take them off and put them back on. He can say all the numbers but 5.

We did some Doman Math, essentially LM, and my son did not respond either. However, you really have no idea what they get and don't get. I wouldn't quit LM; it might shock you what he's learned in a month or two. I wish now that we'd stayed with it.

Send an email to JG and attend on of their seminars. It is worth it!

Sonya

May I know if JG's program is suitable to kid's one year old ?

Hi Angeles,

The other activity that I did more often but lesser now is "reading".  I used to read many books above her age since young. I always think to make her  challenge the activities we taught is far more fruitful than to let her constantly doing activities that have lost the challeging lustrous.  So I often  read books to her that likely to impact her reading skill as well as literacy skill. So now she could write  creative short stories on her own,  such that she would always name her characters with creative names such as King Boratio and Queen Doratio and so on, frankly I don't know where she pluck those names from.........  But she is only 5 and she enjoys reading books  by Shakespeare ( student's compilation)  and the strange thing is she could understand its context. Very different from my time!

Hi aangeles,

Yes, I do a lot of right brain activities with her since one month's old. I am living in Malaysia and I should have ample chances to attend any of the schools you mentioned but didn't attend mainly because I did activities  through books I read on Shichida's method with her at home back then, second I can't drive, so I have to confine my activities at home. Basically I homeschool her until now.

 I used Wink too, also some materials I bought from Prof. Shichida's  such as linking memory, flashcards, mandalas, doing eye exercise............her memory is good, very good. She picks up piano lesson this year and she  could do real fast. I added one activities with her that is mental maths , the visualization way so her abstract concept is good, the more important I am saying here is mental Maths, that is why she was fast to translate music notation to practical training on piano  faster compared to her peers. I think there is one thing common  between these 2 activities : "abstraction".

But does all those right brain activites I have mentioned have any relation to perfect pitching apart from maths ? For that I am not sure. Perhaps it does.

Dear Angeles & TeachingMyToddlers,

It was my mistakes, I didn't use 4 months to teach her perfect pitching, I used up 4 months to teach perfect pitching with various devices such as piano and xylophone, as mentioned results was not good. After purchasing,  I used about a month to get her familiar with Tuning Forks. And the thing is once she gets it, she gets it forever. Even though I have hardly used the forks to her by now but she still able to discern any sound when I place any vibrating forks near her ears.