Individual Differences

Because there are great differences in the growth patterns of children, it is difficult for a blog of this type to take into account the broad span of abilities and readiness at all age levels. Some children will be able to progress faster than will be recommended in this blog; others may move along much more slowly. Some children—in fact many children—have intermittent patterns of tediously slow progress followed by great surges of interest and learning.
Accept your child as she is and work with her on whatever level of ability she may have at any particular time in her life. Do not be alarmed if your child is behind the recommended levels of accomplishment contained in this book or other reference materials. Some children will not be ready for a specific activity at the suggested age. In almost all cases, if you are patient and understanding, the slow phases of learning will pass and rewarding learning experiences will unfold later in your child’s life.

The suggested experiences and desired outcomes presented in this book are presented as broad guidelines, and will not fit every child’s developmental pattern. Very few children will reach all of the objectives at the recommended time since the activities presented are designed to stimulate and stretch the mental capacities of children having widely divergent backgrounds and abilities. Do not worry about a child’s slowness to develop a certain skill unless it departs drastically from what is considered normal. In such cases, of course, consult your doctor for further information and resources.

By the time a child is about a year old, you as an attentive parent will have learned a great deal about how to teach your child. You begin to get a sense of her strengths and limitations. You will have learned some tricks about how to hold her attention and how to interpret certain responses to various learning situations. As such a parent, you are striving to make your home a powerful, responsive learning environment for your child where opportunities for physical, metal, and emotional growth abound. You should be as conscious of nurturing your child intellectually and providing him with a balanced learning “diet” as you are to balancing her physical nutrition.

Be Patient During the Learning Peaks and Valleys

There will be periods in the life of almost every child when he will have a total disinterest in certain learning activities. There will be other times when he will be highly interested and will eagerly seek opportunities to learn and to be involved in the games and in the use of educational toys. Children go through stages of development which are related to their physical, emotional, and psychological growth. Do not be unduly concerned if your child’s level of interest is irregular over a span of time. There will be high and low spots in your child’s responses to learning situations. Wise parents will adapt to these situations without conveying apprehension or worry to their child.

It is by not necessary that your child learn all of the things presented in any particular book or blog, including this one. But it is possible. Too often parents either overlook the need to teach their child basic principles or choose not to teach them for fear of overwhelming their child. You need not worry that you are pressuring your child if you are teaching him when his interest is piqued, and you are applying the reinforcement theory including the 80% rule (please see earlier blog about this subject.) Your child is likely capable of things beyond your expectations. Lovingly offer him the opportunity to try.

Canopy of Love

Remember, teaching your child will become hollow and meaningless if not approached and presented in learning activities and games with love and patience. The loving relationship you have with your child supersedes the importance of teaching your child any particular skill, game, ability or concept. Tenderness must envelope everything you attempt to teach your child or else your most potent opportunities for bonding and teaching will be lost. So, as you are teaching your child the alphabet, keep in mind that your overridding objective is not the alphabet; it is the bond you are creating with your child as she grows. In all of your interactions, let there be a canopy of love casting its comforting shade on you and your child as you learn and grow together.

Building Your Child’s Ability to Discern Differences Using Sight, Sound and Touch

By the time your child reaches the age of five she should have had ample opportunities to use her senses to help her understand the world around her. She should be able to listen to sounds that are nearly the same and detect the differences. She should be able to look at objects and pictures that are almost identical and be able to see slight differences. She should be able to identify objects that she cannot see by touching and feeling them and forming mental images of them. Concentrate on building these skills in your play activities and incidental teaching.

The results of this teaching may not become apparent until much later when your child is learning to read and do simple mathematics, but they will become apparent. Do not neglect the developmental opportunities provided by activities that develop the senses.

Teaching Your Child Numbers, Colors and Letters

Letters are the initial tools your child will use in order to construct and express her own ideas and gain access to the ideas of others. She, of course, must learn letters and their function before she can learn to read. According to her stage of development and her ability, expose your child to letters in any way you can. Teach her to sing the alphabet song; write letters on a lap-sized chalk board and tell her their names; let her try to form the letters. Learning the letters of the alphabet and their sounds can be one of the most fun and natural things to teach your child, if you tackle it creatively and spread it over a long period of time. Your child will not learn the alphabet in one day, one week, or one month. Be content to acquaint her with one or two letters at a time, adding letters only as your child is able to identify them correctly 80% of the time.

Likewise, numbers are the units that will allow your child access to the world of mathematics. They will allow him to count, calculate, tally, analyze, estimate, evaluate and measure. Count things while your child is watching and listening. Count the plates you put into the cupboard, the tiles on the floor, the number of birds you see fly by your window. Your child will learn to say the numbers in sequence before he understands that the number names stand for a certain quantity of things. Let your child absorb the concept of numbers and how to use them slowly over the course of weeks and months and years. Your patience in teaching mathematic concepts will be far more effective than trying to force your child to understand concepts that seem simple to you but are really quite advanced for a young mind. Speak positively about math, and show your child how you use it in your everyday life.

Understanding colors is important on many levels. The simple exercise of looking at two things and distinguishing them by color is an extremely mind-building activity. Mastering the identification of colors gives your child a whole new avenue of describing and classifying things. Knowing that colors occur in fairly predicable patterns—that grass is green and the sky is blue and clouds are white—gives your child a sense of consistency and stability in the world around him. Since your child’s world is filled with color, there are myriad opportunities to talk about colors and identify them.

Games are an excellent way to teach your child letters, numbers and colors. During an engaging game, your child learns without awareness of effort since her concentration is on the game. Using your own imagination, make up games that focus on teaching colors, numbers and letters to your child.

Developing Your Child’s Ability to Reason

All the objects, ideas, and experiences a child is exposed to increases his ability to think about things and make choices based on what he knows. Virtually any experience a child has extends his ability to reason.  Every experience your child has equips him with knowledge to use and apply to future situations. Make sure you are providing many different experiences for your child both in and out of your home. Forests, sand dunes, ponds, buildings, aquariums, libraries, playgrounds and your child’s own bedroom all provide their own diverse opportunities for your child to learn, explore, gain knowledge and apply it.
Most children in the fourth year of life can develop the ability to reason and make judgments after weighing multiple factors in a game situation. When your child reaches this stage, be sure to use objects, toys and games that provide a mind-stretching interplay of several factors. For example, games like that apply mathematic skill with color identification and the use of geometric shapes will provide particularly rich opportunities to development cognitive power. Children who master the ability to use a combination of three or more skills in a fairly complex game will be ready to master even more difficult cognitive feats as they reach the age of five.