Children will learn as long as SOMEBODY is there to teach them. My daughter could pick out different Disney titles on VHS tapes that only had text on the tapes when she was 2.
“They decide they’re no good at math — ‘I’m not a math person,’ they say — and pretty soon the school agrees, the parents agree,” Dr. Clements said.
I wonder how many times that quote above is actually changed around? Mommy talking to Granny on the phone about how Johnny struggles in math within earshot of Johnny who internalizes it. The self-fulfilling prophecy is now complete.
Children begin recognizing geometric shapes as early as 18 months, studies find; by preschool, the brain can begin to grasp informal geometric definitions.
Like everything else the NYT publishes, this article is a dung heap.
My daughter will turn 2 years old next week, and she can identify every letter of the alphabet verbally as well as by sight (upper and lower case) and can annunciate the sound of each letter when asked or when she see it.
She counts to 10 easily, and almost to twenty with a few hangups.
She can name every color of the rainbow (ROYGBIV), as well as pink, brown, grey, black and white. Just before posting this my wife was trying to teach her "burgundy."
She can name every basic shape, the circle, square, rectangle, oval, triangle, heart and star. Incidentally, today, for the first time, she identified an octagon (that surprised me).
Though it's tempting to believe that she's some type of gifted genius, she's not. It's a simple concept called PARENTING. PARENTS taking an interest in her development out of love and concern for her development and her future.
Hello NYT, it has nothing to do with income levels or elitist academics using children as lab rats. In fact, it stands to reason that welfare mothers who don't work (and live off of the rest of us) have all the time in the world to devote to their children, so there should be no excuse for them putting kids into kindergarden who can't count to five.
Well, in considering brain power, I’m reminded of the real “Rainman” who died today (or this weekend?). His dad said that when he was two years old, he grabbed about 8 volumes of the encyclopedia and read it, memorizing it in the process — not to say anything about no one teaching him to read in the first place... LOL...
Now, that’s “brain power”... :-)
A 4-year-old who cannot count "1, 2, 3, 4" is either mentally retarded or has been so neglected that removing him from his "parents" and putting him in a foster home would be doing him a favor.
There's no mystery to it, I've been counting everything and reading to her since the day she was born. Just like I did for my son.
The most surprising thing I've learned about child development is that it's mostly nonlinear. Just because they don't “get it” today, doesn't mean they're not on the cusp of an epiphany when some big idea just falls into place. Patience, and creativity are the keys for me.