Building Your Child’s Ability to Communicate: Reading

Reading is one of the most beneficial things you can do with your child. In the early months of life, your child will not understand the things you are reading to her, but she will understand many other important things from reading with you. She will understand that sitting on your lap and hearing your voice is pleasurable. She will come to understand that a person’s voice moves in a certain rhythm, and the sounds she hears repeat themselves in certain patterns. She will learn that you are interested in what is on the page for some reason, and she will eventually become interested, too.

As time moves on and you continue to read to her, she will come to recognize many words you say and relate them to her real life experiences. She will see that the pictures in the book relate to what you are saying with your mouth. She will come to understand that the marks on the page are called letters, and that when you put them in certain groups called words, they mean something. She will learn that books tell stories that are enjoyable to hear and think about. As she matures, she will come to understand that she can learn just about anything she wants to know by reading. As she hears you read and learns to read herself, she will develop a rich vocabulary which will allow her to express her feelings and ideas and send them out into the world. She will learn to speak, to write and to think from listening to you read.

Building Your Child's Ability to Communicate: Listening

Your child will be able to express all of his wonderful thoughts if you listen to him. The importance of listening to your child cannot be overstated. Seek to have your child express himself in whatever way he is capable of doing so. Encourage your child to express any apprehensions and aspirations he might have. This will yield valuable information to you as parents as well as provide a useful outlet for the child’s feelings. Perceptive parents will learn how to adjust and adapt teaching strategies from what they learn by listening to their child.


Parents should relate to their child in such a way as to provide a feeling of belonging and worthiness. This requires a great amount of loving and listening by the parents. Look at your child when he speaks to you and respond to what he says. Too often, parents provide what they believe is the “right answer” for their child without allowing the child to think creatively to solve problems or express ideas. If your child has a different idea than you, do not put him down or punish him for thinking differently. Value your child’s opinions even if they are simplistic or flawed.


Children need to be listened to with love and understanding in early childhood. Otherwise, the child will go on without gaining vital practice in thinking critically. Let him explain his ideas and his point of view. Ask questions and help him come to his own conclusions. In this way, you will teach your child to think things through for himself and gain self-esteem and confidence.

Building Your Child’s Ability to Communicate: Talking

Building your child’s ability to speak and to understand others is a three-pronged endeavor. It includes talking to your child, listening to your child, and reading with your child.  This blog will focus on talking.

A child learns much from conversation. Conversation, and the vocabulary that develops because of it during the early years of a child’s life, helps to build your child’s cognitive power. In conversation, words are symbols consisting of sounds created by the vocal chords. For a child who does not yet have a vocabulary and who has not mastered the capacity to get meanings from sounds made by the vocal chords, this is indeed a complex and challenging learning situation. Remember that listening to and getting meaning from sounds requires the ability to associate these sounds with something familiar to the child. This is more complicated than you might think, particularly if this task is analyzed from the point of view of the child. Remember that your child is beginning with zero vocabulary, and does not even know that vocabulary exists.


Very young children need consistent speech stimulation, and parents should converse frequently with them. Some studies of child behavior indicate that children will make earlier attempts at speaking and will jabber and make conversational mimicry if, during the early months of their lifetime, they live in an environment where they are talked to frequently. Even at an early age when you may not think your child is understanding you, it is important that conversation (even if it is a one-way chat) occurs frequently. The entire first five-year period of a child’s life is critical to building vocabulary and developing language skills.


Children begin to develop a “word recognition” vocabulary before they can speak. That means he will recognize and be able to respond to many words before he can say them himself. You can enhance your child’s ability to recognize words by clearly repeating simple words for him. When you are putting on his shoes say, “Shoes.” Repeat the word “hand” as you stroke your child’s hand. When you see a dog strutting by, point and say, “That’s a dog. Dog.”


A child who is spoken to as if he can understand will soon learn to understand. He will develop a keen intellect and a powerful means of expressing his thoughts as he listens to you.

What should parents focus on teaching during the first five years? Part II

The Basic Building Blocks


What should you focus on helping your child learn? What things will be of most value to her? There are several key building blocks upon with which all other learning and education stand. First and foremost, a young child must learn that she can trust her caregivers and that she is of value to them. (We will discuss this more in the chapter on nurturing your newborn.) After your child feels secure in your love, there are several other mind-building activities you should focus on as you nurture and educate your child in her early years. Here is a list of five major areas of focus:


1. Building your child’s ability to communicate
2. Developing your child’s ability to reason
3. Building your child’s ability to discern differences using sight, sound and touch
4. Improving your child’s large and small motor skills
5. Teaching your child numbers, colors and letters

What should parents focus on teaching during the first five years of life?

This blog focuses on the first five years of life.  Why?  Because by age five, the basic character of a child is well established. The core of his character includes his ability to empathize, communicate, reason, make choices, assimilate information and solve problems. This is why I parents should be the dominant players in their child’s intellectual, social, and emotional development before (and beyond) age five. If we as parents consistently and lovingly teach our child we will give him a rich emotional and intellectual reservoir from which to draw for the rest of his life.

So what should you focus on teaching your child in her early years? I have found that while it is essential to follow your child’s interests, there are some important things she will not show interest in on her own simply because she does not know they exist.  For example, your one-year-old child is not likely to come up to you and say, “Mom, I’m really interested in learning the alphabet so that I can start reading.” She will not say this because she does not know what the alphabet is or why it might need to exist. Nor does she have the ability to think into the future and consider how she might extend her knowledge base through reading.  Therefore you can slowly, lovingly, and purposefully teach her things that will be of most value to her now and later in life. 

In other words, you don’t have to wait until your child requests that you teach her the alphabet. You know that it will be valuable for her to know the alphabet, so you can begin exposing her to it now by means of the well-known alphabet song. She will learn to sing the song because she likes singing the song with you, not because it is part of her personal long-term learning goals. But you have long-term goals in mind for her, and you can set her feet on the path to achieving them before she even knows that there is a purpose for what you are teaching her. In addition to capitalizing on your child’s natural interests, part of your responsibility is to build your child’s interest in things you know will be of value to her.

Do you agree?  What are your experiences?

The Home: The Best Place to Teach your Young Child

I need to bring up an important point.  Some psychologists and educators advocate starting public school education at two years of age, claiming that a great opportunity will be lost if we do not start sending our two-year-olds to school in order to build their intelligence. Many opponents, myself included, do not agree. Although they recognize possible benefits for some children, they argue that young children will lose much more than they gain if we institutionalize their learning this early in life. They argue that in the early months, the child needs the home. They argue that schools are too bureaucratic and complex to be sensitive to the individual needs of tiny tots. They say that removing a very young child from the home will weaken the home environment and too much responsibility will be placed on the schools. Numerous studies of home and parental influence on learning support this position.
This places great importance on the home, which is where it should rightly be. In my opinion, parents are the best teachers and and whenever possible, the home is the best opportunity for very young children to learn and grow, if parents will take on the responsibility.  I hope this blog will help and inspire parents to teach their young children.  A powerful intellect is one of the best legacy that we can give our children.

Can a Child's Ability to Learn be Increased? Yes!

What we do with our children affects both her feelings and her intelligence.   In the past, many educators believed that intelligence was almost totally fixed at birth and that a child’s capacity to learn was determined by heredity. It was believed that we should strive to teach a child all we could within the limits of her capacity, but that we could not increase the basic capacity significantly beyond the limits inherited at the time of conception. Modern research now overwhelmingly confirms that a human being’s intelligence—or her ability to learn—can be increased. The way parents interact with their child has a significant impact on her ability to learn. Environmental factors—or factors outside the child’s own self—have much more to do with nurturing intelligence than was formerly believed. The results of this research bring great hope and great responsibility to parents.

This places great importance on the home, which is where it should rightly be.  Parents are the best teachers and and whenever possible, the home is the best opportunity for very young children to learn and grow, if parents will take on the responsibility.  A powerful intellect is one of the best legacy that we can give our children.

For the next while I want to focus on the first five years of life.  Why?  Because by age five, the basic character of our children are well established. The core of his character includes his ability to empathize, communicate, reason, make choices, assimilate information and solve problems.  If we consistently and lovingly teach our child we will give him a rich emotional and intellectual reservoir from which to draw for the rest of his life.

So what should you focus on teaching your child in her early years? I have found that while it is essential to follow your child’s interests, there are some important things she will not show interest in on her own simply because she does not know they exist.  Therefore you can slowly, lovingly, and purposefully teach her things that will be of most value to her now and later in life.

In other words, we don’t have to wait until your child requests that we introduce her to math and reading. You know that it will be valuable for her to know the alphabet, so you can begin exposing her to it now by means of the well-known alphabet song. She will learn to sing the song because she likes singing the song with you, not because it is part of her personal long-term learning goals. But you have long-term goals in mind for her, and you can set her feet on the path to achieving them before she even knows that there is a purpose for what you are teaching her. In addition to capitalizing on your child’s natural interests, part of your responsibility is to build your child’s interest in things you know will be of value to her..

What should you focus on helping your child learn? What things will be of most value to her? There are several key building blocks upon with which all other learning and education stand. First and foremost, a young child must learn that she can trust her caregivers and that she is of value to them. (We will discuss this more in the chapter on nurturing your newborn.) After your child feels secure in your love, there are several other mind-building activities you should focus on as you nurture and educate your child in her early years. Here is a list of five major areas of focus:

1. Building your child’s ability to communicate
2. Developing your child’s ability to reason
3. Building your child’s ability to discern differences using sight, sound and touch
4. Improving your child’s large and small motor skills
5. Teaching your child numbers, colors and letters

What is Intelligence?

What is Intelligence?


We have already touched on the fact that what you do with your child affects both her feelings and her intelligence. But what is intelligence exactly? Is one child innately more intelligent or brilliant than another? Is intelligence a trait you are either born with or born without? Is school the only place where intelligence can be built? Is intelligence gained strictly from book learning, or is intelligence the result of the unique coalescing of study and individual experience? In the next few blog posts I will discuss these questions and I hope that you will discuss with me.  For the purposes of this blog, intelligence refers to a child’s mental capacity—her ability to learn.

One More Thing on Reinforcement Theory: Praise, Praise, and Praise

Just one more point before finishing up on reinforcement theory, in our anxiousness to help our children, we tend to correct too much and reinforce too little. Praise is the most powerful tool we can use in guiding our children. If we are wise in the way we apply the reinforcement principle in praising and correcting our kids during the learning process, learning will most often be a happy experience and our kids will seek more opportunities to be involved in it.

During each teaching experience that I will suggest in this blog, remember to actively and consistently apply reinforcement theory.

Please participate in this blog and encougage others to do so.  I think we can have a very vibrant discussion if all readers will participate in a positive way!