Call your mother. Ask her the following question: "Mom, when did I learn to read?"
I am going to predict, based on the national average, that she will say six years old (the national average is 6.5). If this is so, then why are so many schools requiring children to read before they complete kindergarten?
"Have kids gotten smarter? Can they learn things sooner? What effect has modern culture had on child development?"
"The surprising answers," according to this month's Harvard Education Letter are "no, no, and none."
If today's children are the same as the children we were, what does that mean they need from us parents and teachers in terms of learning experiences?
Let us answer by turning inward: What are your most memorable early childhood experiences? What do you think you learned from them? Post your responses as comments! Let the dialogue begin!
I am going to predict, based on the national average, that she will say six years old (the national average is 6.5). If this is so, then why are so many schools requiring children to read before they complete kindergarten?
"Have kids gotten smarter? Can they learn things sooner? What effect has modern culture had on child development?"
"The surprising answers," according to this month's Harvard Education Letter are "no, no, and none."
If today's children are the same as the children we were, what does that mean they need from us parents and teachers in terms of learning experiences?
Let us answer by turning inward: What are your most memorable early childhood experiences? What do you think you learned from them? Post your responses as comments! Let the dialogue begin!
Director of Early Childhood Education at Greenfield Hebrew Academy in Atlanta. Cross posted from Authentic Childhood
Thank you for posting this! Let kids learn to read when they are ready. Keep reading to them, eventually they will want to read themselves. And when they do, it is a whole new world that opens.
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