One of the best ways to get your baby prepared for school, starts the day he is born. It is very simple – just talk. And you don’t have to find a special time – talk about anything and everything that comes to mind when you dress your baby, feed your baby, and hold your baby. Just by talking you will be building the brain capacities your child will need to do well in school because the left side of our brain is all about symbols, whether it is math class, or science, or cooking class. .
Your baby’s brain is a “learning machine” set from the first day of birth to absorb and adapt to the world around it. Your job as a parent is a reasonably simple one, to provide an environment that fosters the development of skills that will be helpful in later life. And it turns out it is really not very difficult to get the baby’s brain building the right way because the infant brain has a built-in strategy – “watch others around you move and listen to them talk.”
Why would a baby who cannot speak or understand any words be interested when people talk? Scientists have learned that a primary job of the infant brain is to figure out language because speech and language appear to get the left side of the brain “set up” for the kinds of learning that will be important later. In the 1950’s a famous linguist, Noam Chomsky, first introduced the idea that the human baby’s brain has a built-in design to acquire the natural language relatively effortlessly. Chomsky referred to the baby’s in-born inclination to learn language as an innate “language acquisition device.” Although Chomsky’s original concept has been revised over the years, neuroscientists like Dr. Patricia Kuhl at University of Washington and Helen Neville at the University of Oregon, have demonstrated repeatedly that the human infant brain is ready from day one to listen to and learn the language spoken around them.
But to do well in school, a child needs more than talk – a child needs to be able to handle all sorts of symbol systems. For the most of us it is the left hemisphere machinery that enables us to use and handle symbols. You may know that the right hemisphere of our brain is very important for understanding other people and developing social skills. But recent brain research indicates that there is a hub in the left hemisphere that starts building when a child begins to sort out his first symbol system – the speech sounds that when strung together stand for words that stand for objects and action. Having this symbol software up and running, seems to provide the architecture that the brain will use to develop other symbol systems so important in school:
One of the best ways to get your baby prepared for school, starts the day he is born. It is very simple – just talk. And you don’t have to find a special time – talk about anything and everything that comes to mind when you dress your baby, feed your baby, and hold your baby. Just by talking you will be building the brain capacities your child will need to do well in school because the left side of our brain is all about symbols, whether it is math class, or science, or cooking class. .
So, Step One of Parent Smart is talk, talk, talk.
Your baby’s brain is a “learning machine” set from the first day of birth to absorb and adapt to the world around it. Your job as a parent is a reasonably simple one, to provide an environment that fosters the development of skills that will be helpful in later life. And it turns out it is really not very difficult to get the baby’s brain building the right way because the infant brain has a built-in strategy – “watch others around you move and listen to them talk.”
Why would a baby who cannot speak or understand any words be interested when people talk? Scientists have learned that a primary job of the infant brain is to figure out language because speech and language appear to get the left side of the brain “set up” for the kinds of learning that will be important later. In the 1950’s a famous linguist, Noam Chomsky, first introduced the idea that the human baby’s brain has a built-in design to acquire the natural language relatively effortlessly. Chomsky referred to the baby’s in-born inclination to learn language as an innate “language acquisition device.” Although Chomsky’s original concept has been revised over the years, neuroscientists like Dr. Patricia Kuhl at University of Washington and Helen Neville at the University of Oregon, have demonstrated repeatedly that the human infant brain is ready from day one to listen to and learn the language spoken around them.
But to do well in school, a child needs more than talk – a child needs to be able to handle all sorts of symbol systems. For the most of us it is the left hemisphere machinery that enables us to use and handle symbols. You may know that the right hemisphere of our brain is very important for understanding other people and developing social skills. But recent brain research indicates that there is a hub in the left hemisphere that starts building when a child begins to sort out his first symbol system – the speech sounds that when strung together stand for words that stand for objects and action. Having this symbol software up and running, seems to provide the architecture that the brain will use to develop other symbol systems so important in school:
· written letters that represent the spoken words,
· numerals and other mathematical symbols like + and =,
· algebraic symbols like x + y,
· scientific symbols,
· geographic maps that symbolize space,
· numerals that represent time,
· musical symbols
· symbols used for cooking, or designing buildings, and so forth
One of the best ways to get your baby prepared for school, starts the day he is born. It is very simple – just talk. And you don’t have to find a special time – talk about anything and everything that comes to mind when you dress your baby, feed your baby, and hold your baby. Just by talking you will be building the brain capacities your child will need to do well in school because the left side of our brain is all about symbols, whether it is math class, or science, or cooking class. .
So, Step One of Parent Smart is talk, talk, talk.
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