Tip 28: Kum on - You can do better!

"Fast-Tracking to Kindergarten?" This was the headline of a New York Times article on Sunday, May 15 about pushing structured reading and math curriculum in preschools such as Kumon Junior. Many of you may feel pressure to give your child an edge by enrolling her in reading and math memorization classes before kindergarten.  But wait! Child development researchers have found there are better ways to prepare your child for academic and life success; play activities that are more fun, less pressured, and free. The "games" below are based on child development research on the best ways to build math and science readiness skills for school.   You can start by playing these with your child at home then let just let him go -- to experiment through unstructured  play alone or with other children.

MIXING BOWL MATH [Based on Research by Alison Gopnik at UC Berkeley]: Ages 9 - 14 months - Open a low cupboard in your kitchen, or any safe play area, that has unbreakable pots and pans, mixing bowls, and/or measuring cups.  Let your child experiment with the different sizes of bowls, stacking them on top of each other, or nesting one inside the other. As your child plays with the different sized items provide words to describe their sizes, "little, bigger, big, biggest."  Help your child count the bowls as she piles one on top of the other or fits one inside the next. 

12 months to 2 years - When you go to the park, take a few pans, mixing bowls, or measuring cups with you to the sand box and help your child learn how to measure sand by pouring it from one sized bowl to the next. As your child experiments with the amount of sand each container holds, help him to describe how one bowl holds "more" or "less" than the other. Make a pile of sand in a corner of the sandbox by pouring one, after another cup or bowl of sand on the other. Count the number of cups or bowls it takes to make the pile as high as your child's knee or even her waist.

2.5 to 4 years  Next time you make cookies or any other recipe that calls for cups/tablespoons or teaspoons of ingredients, let your child pour the flour or sugar from the measuring cups or spoons into the mixing bowl. Have your child count the number of cups the recipe requires of each ingredient. After combining the ingredients, ask your child to count how many times she stirs the mixture, or let her set a timer for the number of minutes the mixture will cook.

While the food is cooking, ask your child to draw a picture story about mixing the foods. She may just draw circles for each bowl or cup, but that is a perfect opportunity to talk about the numbers of cups or spoons of ingredients that were used. If your child is interested in what the numerals looks like, help her write the number next to his circles. If your child is three or older and interested in writing,  you can write your child's name on the picture with pencil and have your child trace the letters.

BUILDING BLOCK PHYSICS (Based on "Einstein Never Used Flash Cards" by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek):  Ages 18 months to 2 years -Using large wooden building blocks help your toddler to build towers and count how many blocks can be stacked before they fall. Make a game of counting the blocks each time a new tower is built to see if your child can better balance the blocks on each new tower to build a higher tower. Take turns counting the number of blocks then naming the colors as the towers are built.

Ages 2.5 to four years - Using small wooden blocks of different sizes and shapes (no Legos for this game because the goal is to understand the physics of balance)  build towers, walls of buildings, door and window frames in the walls, and bridges over roads, while talking about "balancing the blocks"  for the towers, bridges and walls.. Encourage your child to experiment with methods to construct doorways and windows in the walls by laying blocks half-way on top of a standing block leaving an open space below then "lining up" another block to form the other side of the window or doorway .  As you play, help your child compare sizes of blocks and learn shape words like "square," "rectangle, “and" triangle" as  blocks are piled on each other or leaned against each other.

After building ask your child to draw a picture story about the "city" or "town" that he built. It is fine if your child just draws circles but talk about each one and ask your child what he just drew. Then count the number of "buildings" or "towers' your child drew and practice writing the numeral on the paper. If your child is three or older and interested in writing, he can practice writing his name on the picture as well.

WHY?  I have nothing against structured preschools like Kumon Junior, especially if the alternative is spending time in front of a television. But, both Alison Gopnik at UC Berkeley and Kathy Hirsch-Pasek at Temple University feel this type of approach to pre-school is not necessary. They refer to research that indicates that children who spend time playing games where they can experiment with size, number, nesting, pouring and balancing are not only building skills that will help them with math and science in early grades, they are also developing problem solving skills and discovering the joy of creative innovation.  And when children have ample opportunities with this kind of play at home, on the playground, or at a more conventional preschool or daycare center, they will also be developing tools that can help them engage with other children socially, which helps build teamwork and leadership skills.


ONE KEY TO SCHOOL SUCCESS IS PLAY, PLAY, PLAY

Tip 27: IT TAKES ALL SORTS! - To Be Smart

Did you know sorting acitivities, just like puns we discussed in the previous blog, can build mental flexibility? You can help your child's brain mature at any age by practicing the creativity and problem solving skills that come with flexibility of thought. By building tolerance for change at early ages and playing sorting games, or games that use sorting strategies as children get older, you increase a form of intelligence that is critical to success in life.

Toddler Choices – Ages 2 – 3 – Toddlers are not known for their flexibility of course. The “terrible twos” is all about asserting control. But, letting your toddler make a color choice for a shirt for example, “do you want the red shirt or white shirt today?” helps to teach colors as well as build flexibility.
With two-year-olds it is best to provide two-choice options, try some of the choices below and teach new qualitative concepts as well as building flexibility:

Size- “Should we play with the big or small blocks?”

Shape  - “Will your doll sit in the round or square chair?”

Length of time - “ Do you want me to read a long or short book?”

Categories- “ Should we read the book about trucks or animals?”

Object type - “Who will you take to bed, Teddy Bear or Rabbit?”

Texture - “Which blanket do you want, soft or fluffy?,”  

By two and a half to three years, children can handle three choices and you can vary the choices within a category to build even more flexibility; you can also add higher level concepts:
                Height – short, medium and tall or high, medium, low
                Quantity – few, many, a lot
                Volume – empty, more, full
                Flavor –  chocolate, vanilla, strawberry
                Design – stripes, solids, dots

Card Sorting Game – Ages  3 ½ – 6 – In an earlier post I talked about how to help children sort their toys, cars or stuffed animals by different categories (color, size, shape) during clean-up time. But sorting games are also fun. “Old Maid” cards can be sorted into piles by the color of hair or clothes, by boy vs. girl characters; playing cards can be sorted by color, number or shape. By changing the sorting “rules” children learn that the world can be organized in many ways, with no “right or wrong” way;“we just played the color game, now let’s play the shape game.” Take turns choosing the way to sort.

Sorting Strategy Games – Ages 5 – 12 – You probably have not thought about this, but many childhood board games involve sorting. “Guess Who?” is a great way to teach sorting options to young children because the questions allow eliminating categories – boy or girl, brown or blue eyes, blond, brown or red hair. Other games that help expand on the use of sorting as a strategy for solving problems are:
            Twenty questions
            “Clue”
            “Set Games”

Why?  Psychologists actually use card sorting tasks as one measure of executive function: the capacity to be organized, purposeful and flexible. Young children may have trouble with changes in routines or might be rigid about clothing choices because the pre-frontal lobe, which is essential for flexible thinking, is just starting to mature. As I have mentioned before, the pre-frontal lobe is part of the human brain that will mature into adulthood. Dr. Adele Diamond, an expert on pre-frontal lobe maturation,  has been using sorting tasks as a way to measure cognitive maturity for many years. Building mental flexibility will help your child to get along with others, solve new problems in creative ways, and welcome new life challenges. In addition, flexibility of thought is associated with Fluid Intelligence, a capacity that psychologists view as very important to success in adult life.

Tip 26: That's Punny - Frontal Lobe Flexibility builders

As we mature we develop the capacity to solve problems we have never seen before, plan for the future, and adapt to change. These skills depend on a mature frontal lobe and flexibility of thinking is a key omponent of these capacities. Puns (word play) are one of the most fun examples of this flexibility. At about four or five, children start to appreciate puns. My daughter Heather's first puny joke, at about four and a half years was,

"Why did the turtle cross the road?" - to get to the Shell station."

Below are some punny jokes (adapted from the website -clean one-liner puns) you can share with your youngsters at different ages  - see if once inspired your child(ren) come up with some of their own.

Simple puns, easy vocabulary -Ages 4-7 years - no reading required
1. Why didn't the turkey cross the road? Because he wasn't chicken.
2. Where do you find chili beans? At the North Pole.
3. When a clock is still hungry, it goes back four seconds.
4. Why can't a bicycle stand on its own? Because it's two tired.
5. What do you call a train loaded with gum? A chew chew

More sophisticated, higher level vocabulary -Ages 8-11-reading ability helps understanding
1. What do you call a country where everyone drives a red car?  A red carnation.
2. Energizer Bunny arrested - charged with battery.
3. Sea captains don't like crew cuts.
4. What do you get from pampered cows? Spoiled milk.
5. A gossip is someone with a great sense of rumor.
6. Dijon vu - the same mustard as before
7 a boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat

Mature puntentions - Ages Pre-teen on up
1. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
2.With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.
3. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
4. He had a photographic memory that was never developed.
5. Once you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall.
6. When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.
7. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
8. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.
9.Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
10. Without geometry, life is pointless.

A pun is a "play on words", because it is fun (although a little silly), but a great way to build a sense of how words are arbitrary symbols ( translation-can have double meanings)

Tip 25: Music, Music, Music! Brain Building--Right, Left and Center

There are three parts of the frontal lobe that are stimulated by music – Broca’s area  on the left, the mirror-neuron system on the right, and the emotional center in the middle.  Watch a video from Dr. Daniel Levitin in Montreal, of the brain listening to Chopin to see the frontal lobe working, at this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/science/19brain.html

The new research indicates that a large part of the impact of music on the brain has to do with emotion. No need to be a “Tiger Mom” to instill music appreciation – a love of music and the benefits it provides are its own rewards. And, you don’t need to push Mozart; all music is good for your child’s brain.

Lullabies – Ages birth to three years – Evidence points to all cultures using bedtime as a time to build a ritual of singing a baby to sleep. With infants, singing the same lullaby each night while you rock your baby stimulates the language and mirror systems while quieting the baby down to sleep and creating a bedtime routine. Any soft, lilting song will do. My children loved “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, but this is one opportunity you have to share your favorite song and create a family tradition.  With children over a year, a soft bedtime song after a bedtime story provides a special one-on-one opportunity for parents and child.

Car Sing-Alongs  -   Ages three to seven years – When driving carpools to school, scouts, or other outings take along a CD of children’s songs, pop it into the CD player, and have the group sing along if they seem interested. By playing children’s songs while driving you can keep the group engaged and limit conflicts, especially among family members. The music also helps to mask the traffic noise from outside the car that can be a problem when you try to carry on conversations.

Name that Tune – Ages seven to eleven – Ask each child in the car to take a turn singing a few of the starting notes from a popular song they think others will know. See how many notes of the song it takes before someone can name the song. Once you have the name, sing a few lines and then let the next child take a turn.

Music Lessons – Five years and older – Music lessons make children smarter.  New research conducted by Dr. Shellenberg and colleagues from the University of Toronto showed that  that children's IQ scores increase an average of 1 point per 6 months of lessons.  So, in theory, a child taking music lessons from age 7 to age 12 would have an increase of 10 points in their IQ due to the music.  We will be watching this research as details are released. 

Tip 24: Twist it out - for speech sake!

Try these tongue twisters as a meal-time or car-time competition to build speech accuracy and agility

Funny word flips - ages four to six - go for five in a row (counting on fingers)

Rickety wicket

Frying flies

Flying fries

Selfish shellfish

Real red leather

Try three twists

Shred Swiss cheese

Fred fed Ted bread

Six slick sticks

Sassy sentences - ages six to ten - repeat these or other familiar tongue twisters several times quickly stopping at the first mistake. Keep score for each player as number of correct repetitions in a row.

She sells sea shells by the sea shore

A cheap ship trip

Crisp crusts crackle crunchily

Rubber baby buggy bumpers

flash message!

A box of biscuits, a batch of mixed biscuits

Brad's big black bath brush broke

The six slick sleeping sheep

Twelve twins twirled twelve twigs

Why? You may have noticed in the movie The King's Speech that King George the VI practiced tongue twisters as part of his speech therapy preparing for his radio broadcasts. Tongue twisters have been used for decades by actors and public speakers to build speech precision. New neuroscience research has revealed that a crucial area of the left frontal lobe, Broca's area, is very important for speech planning, timing and sequencing.  When this area is exercised it may help strengthen important long brain pathways that link the back of the brain to the front. This might also help with development of other frontal lobe skills: planning the best response to a question or formulating written text.

Genius within: emerging from Autism - Story #1

Sitting before me is a three and one-half year old boy who has just spoken his first word, "O.K." This is unusual for a first word - most children start with names of important people in their lives, like "mama" or "dada" or even objects like "baba" for bottle. But Adam will start talking differently - he has been diagnosed as "autistic". After being silent for over three years, about three months of speech therapy has opened his world to the power of words. But not just words, he has begun to appreciate the pleasure of interacting with another person. Not only is he saying a few words, he is following my gaze, looking with me toward his mother to see if she is wearing glasses, like the woman in a photo that I just showed him. He is also imitating me for the first time and using gestures to show he understands the meaning of pictures - he puts a photo card of an umbrella over his head to indicate he knows how that is used.

This may not seem like much to parents or grandparents whose children are developing in a typical fashion, but for Adam there was a breakthrough. Only a few months before he had screamed when he entered my room. He flailed and hit me when I tried to get him to play with toys on the floor. He could not tolerate touch. He would not look at my face, hold my hand, or respond when I spoke his name. But gradually, by combining behavioral techniques to reinforce his socially appropriate responses while incrementally moving from toys he would play with, like Thomas the Tank Engine, to unfamiliar cars and trucks, I was able to help him escape from his world into the world that others enjoy. With that came two very important capacities - language and social interaction.But, the real story of Adam is not his emergence from his inner world to ours, it is the story of who Adam has become today --a college graduate pursuing a science career with a girlfriend whom he hopes to marry in a few years.

I think there are many Adams. Adults who as children struggled to learn what comes very naturally for others: language, social skills, play. Most of us know about a few famous "outliers" like Temple Grandin, a child diagnosed as autistic who pursued a doctorate in animal husbandry and lectures around the world on what it is like to grow up with the autism label. She has had her story told by others and has told us her version herself. But there are likely thousands of untold stories. Some who never were given a diagnosis but nonetheless forged through life with loving, non-judgmental parents and found their "niche" in a world of music, art, or science. At a very early age they may have been perceived as misfits or "loners."  Yet, they were somehow able to break free of life-limiting labels to explore their unique passions and in the end delight the rest of us, neurotypical humans, with their unique sense of humor, artistic vision or scientific creativity. Others may have been assigned a label, received some kind of therapy like psychotherapy, occupational therapy or speech and language intervention that enabled them to bridge two worlds -- the social world most of us inhabit, at least some of the time, and their elaborate inner world of intense interests in computers, nano particles, dinosaurs or Thomas the Tank Engine.

These are stories of metamorphosis - how children who are locked in their own worlds emerge. But more important, they are the stories of unlocked genius. The very complicated set of disorders we call autism specturm disorders, it turns out, are for some, hidden gifts that open a world the rest of us cannot appreciate. Adam is just one such example of the genius within.  

Tip 23 - For rePeat's Sake! - Repetition builds fast brains

Have you ever wondered why young children love to hear the same bedtime stories over and over? Or why a two year old will become upset if you skip a page from a favorite book?  The brain is actually designed to use repetition to build strong, fast pathways. So developing predictable routines in the home around activities where repetition level is high, not only makes for a calmer home it helps build brain speed and capacity.

Bedtime routines – Ages 6 months through ten years

Mealtime or other family routines – all ages – Many of today’s families are so busy with afterschool activities and events that a dinner routine is all but impossible, especially during the pre-teen and teenage years. But try to find at least one meal or activity a week where the entire family is together and

In the last blog I talked about the importance of prediction. New brain research is showing that the brain uses repetition to build this capacity to predict and that build’s the brain’s ability to handle familiar information quickly so that complex, changing information can be handled more quickly as well. Dr. Paula Tallal, at a neuroscience conference last week explained it this way – an accomplished musician practices scales everyday; a golfer practices repeated strokes at a driving range; most writers keep daily logs.

WHY?  Because research shows that the brain is a statistical processor that uses repetition and frequency of occurrence to prioritize information for storage.  Through repetition of highly familiar activities the brain stays primed to handle that information quickly so that complex processing can proceed with less effort.

To see firsthand the value repetition in early learning, watch this video of young twins speaking to each other. Notice that they do not have real words yet, but obviously through hours of listening to their parents talk they have learned the value of speech melody (intonational contour) and communicative interaction. In a few months frequently repeated words made of easy to say combinations like “mama’ and “dada” will creep into to their dialogue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McmzFpewEx0&feature=topvideos