Myths of Early Learning

1. » Introduction
2. » Why teach babies to read so early?
3. » Myths of early learning
4. » Teaching your baby to read (flashcards)
5. » Teaching your baby to read (multi-sensory)
6. » Felicity's mother's experience

Today's Belief

Today, the teaching of babies by their parents is typically limited to things such as how to say simple words like 'Mommy' and 'Daddy,' identifying body parts, and how to play simple games. In general, an infant is mostly left alone to do whatever he seems to enjoy doing, without much active involvement from the parents to actually teach him anything much beyond that. Things such as reading and math would usually be left until kindergarten (age of four) or, more often than not, primary school (age of six).

This is generally due to one or more of the following beliefs:

• Children should just have fun and be happy in the early years, and learning things such as reading and maths is not fun, and would make them miserable;
• Children are incapable of learning complex things such as reading and math at such a young age;
• Teaching infants things such as reading and math now may put them off both subjects in the future;
• There's nothing wrong with the education system today. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It is best to stick to what everyone else is doing.

 

Let's examine each belief one by one.

"Learning to read (etc.) is not fun and would make my child miserable"

This statement reflects a commonly-held misconception that babies do not enjoy learning activities (such as reading), and this arises from an adult's common association of negative feelings (like boredom) with education. Adults often think back to their days of schooling where nothing could have been more painful then than sitting in a class listening to the teacher talk about the different ways of conjugating a verb when all they wanted to do was to play outside with their friends.

The truth is, babies absolutely LOVE to learn, whether it's learning new words or how to make Jack pop out of the box! If you meet parents who teach their babies how to read, for example, you will commonly hear how these babies focus their entire attention on the words and get upset when the session ends.

This is especially so in the early years, before they reach primary school which is when they have increasingly more and more distractions due to having greater physical abilities (to play sports, etc.) and making more friends with whom they can now better converse and play with.

When it does become a chore for the child is when she is shown the same thing over and over again without variation (where she justifiably feels bored after absorbing all the information numerous times already), or when she is tested or made to perform (which she typically has little interest in doing, or doing repeatedly, since such 'performances' do not really benefit her).

Obviously, learning should not be forced upon an unwilling infant, and doing so may indeed end up being counterproductive and damaging to your child's interest in whatever it is you are trying to force him to learn. The good thing is, it will be quite clear to the parent when a child is willing or unwilling to learn, and furthermore, there are different ways of keeping the learning materials fresh in order to sustain your child's interest.

"Children are incapable of learning complex things such as reading and math at such young age."

This is probably one of the greatest myths. Believing so is also probably one of the biggest follies a parent could ever commit from the point of view of the infant. Early-learning expert Dr. Glenn Doman, who has spent more than half a century in the field, says, "Every child born has, at the instant of birth, a greater potential intelligence than Leonardo Da Vinci ever used."

Thanks to the efforts of Glenn Doman and other early-learning experts over the recent decades, the belief that children are incapable of learning complex things at an early age has been demonstrated time and time again to be patently false. What we are instead seeing is more and more examples of little children acquiring the abilities to read and do instant math well before going to school. One of the earliest documented examples comes from early-learning pioneer Dr. Robert Titzer, who showed in a home video his daughter Aleka clearly comprehending the meanings of numerous words at the age of just nine months.

Taking the example of math, young children can instantly tell the difference between a picture containing, say, forty two red dots and another containing forty three red dots. This has been shown repeatedly at The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP) founded by Glenn Doman. What's more, children taught using their methods are able to grasp the concept of numbers easily and do instant math even before they are taught what numerals such as "1," "2," etc. stand for.

"Teaching infants things such as reading and math now may put them off reading and math in the future"

Unless a child is constantly forced to learn when he clearly does not want to, then in actuality it is quite the contrary. In the case of reading, for example, it has been shown again and again that babies who are exposed to words and taught to read in a joyous manner develop a long-lasting liking for books and reading.

In fact, if a child is only exposed to learning in school, it is not only more difficult for their brains at that stage to absorb concepts and patterns necessary for learning reading and math, but they also have many more other interests to distract them from learning, such as sports and making friends. Thus, a vicious cycle commonly develops, where the child finds reading and math difficult to begin with, and as they struggle to learn, they become less and less motivated to learn, and develop a negative association with these subjects.

"There's nothing wrong with the education system today. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It is best to stick to what everyone else is doing."

Of course, the choice is yours, and we advise you to do whatever you feel comfortable with. What we are merely trying to do is to lay down the facts and anecdotal evidence in an effort to show you that perhaps our current understanding of how babies learn in the early ages, as well as the importance of early-learning, might not comprise a very complete picture.

As renowned inventor Buckminster Fuller once said, "all children are born geniuses, and we spend the first six years of their lives de-geniusing them." We believe that evidence is quite clear now that the early-ages represent a critical window in which your child is most receptive towards learning and stimulation in general. More importantly, your child loves to learn, and the process of learning (from parents especially) in turn makes your child happier and more bonded to you.

If you truly want the best for your child and are willing to make the effort, then it is difficult to imagine why you would not want to expose your child to early-learning systems as early as possible.

 

1. » Introduction
2. » Why teach babies to read so early?
3. » Myths of early learning
4. » Teaching your baby to read (flashcards)
5. » Teaching your baby to read (multi-sensory)
6. » Felicity's mother's experience