…for raising successful children? Thoughts? The authors include the director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard
My kids were late readers. They just did not have the eye brain coordination to read very young. They could do math very young, so we read to them, and did math problems at a young age. We kept them engaged at every dinner conversation. We took a lot field trips in addition to school trips. Public school is only half the year in Colorado and most states, so parents have the other half of the year to HOME SCHOOL, and we did home schooling around the K-12 schedule, constantly. Our kids both seem to have passions in mathematics, and headed or in PhD programs. They are engaged with what they do, which is a joy to see. It was a lot of work to “home school” around the K-12 schedule, but thats what I recommend, for a parent who does not have to work full time. Any sort of attention works for kids, really, doing anything with them is better than screen time. Our older son did not get a cell phone until 10th grade. We had to monitor his texting and we forced him to ease back on texting by tracking all his texts for a week and that got him to learn self control. Cell phones kill intellectual capacity in kids. I might not give my younger kid a phone so early, but there are computer free summer camps that also get kids to think better without the crutch of a cell phone in their hand constantly.
Public schools are about 172 days out of 365 days a year is what I mean by “half the year”. Look at how many days your child goes to school, and home school on the days they are home. Not work sheets, but debate, exercise, music, art, field trips, look at Globe and find a country, do a puzzle, play bridge, look at birds, take a hike, and home school the child the entire time. It will pay off! It takes a lot of effort to spend time with children. I liked my kids so for me, it was easy but some people do struggle with children, then get them into programs where they can learn around the K-12 school day.
My kids learned a lot of math from cooking with me. We also played a lot of games and did a lot of hiking with them. We also had a membership to the local science museum which it turned out gave us free admission to science museums all over the country. When my older son got interested in what dh was doing on his laptop, (using Visual Basic to set up a lab notebook), my son learned it along with him. (Guess who is now a computer scientist.) When younger son got interested in WW2, but couldn’t read yet, I read him endless books from the library about Naval battles in the Pacific. (Guess who is now in the Navy.)
There was a book back in the day, The Magical Child by Joseph Chilton Pearce which talked about neurological development and challenged some common child rearing practices. I used many techniques from that book, which included baby wearing and many sorts of early stimulation. Flash cards to me sound dreary, but books and counting in various languages and singing and biking and camping and enjoying the natural work world every day added joy to all our lives. There are teachable moments in everything. My kids were stars in the younger grades and still are fascinating and accomplished people though learned to read in kindergarten, not before. Their later elementary years were made more difficult by divorce and a co parent determined to counteract my approaches to things, with lots of TV and video games.
I was fortunate enough to work very part time and have time at home to be creative in how I approached life when my kids were young. I think the American work place for many parents leaves little time or energy for creativity and intellectual stimulation.
@Coloradomama Could not agree more about the negativity of giving cell phones and electronic devices to children. Unlimited data is simply wrong. It’s not for everyday consumption. That’s why there’s WiFi.
I like to think we did this. Worked brilliantly with D1. For D2, emotions got in the way, for many years.
Can it be taught? I’d say, not to parents who have little of substance to discuss. It feels less like a formula and more like a lifestyle.
We did everything wrong. Our kid didn’t learn to read until the summer after kindergarten, resisted every attempt to study math with him, went to full-day daycare since age 1, and we didn’t even have the family dinners (the horror!) because of various scheduling and diet issues. He still grew up a high achiever. I like to think part of it was that we always took him seriously, took time to explain why some things are not permitted, listened to his arguments, respected his opinions and generally had high expectations. But I suspect most of it is just genes.
My oldest was a small person who insisted on doing things on his own schedule. He toilet trained himself long after his compatriots had mastered it…in one day. (The school told him he couldn’t move up to the Fours wearing pullups.) He read words but not books until third grade, when he suddenly started reading chapter books. When he decided that he wanted to play Little League baseball, he went from awkward attempts at catching to (okay, mediocre) ball skills.
The list continues throughout his childhood (and probably his adulthood), and I’d like to take credit for providing an environment that valued learning, questioning, and expression (but it still is really him driving the bus - after graduating college, he truly became an autodidact). It definitely was “homeschooling around the school curriculum” and gave me the opportunity for lots of personal growth standing up to people who didn’t share my respect for him as an individual.
This “system” would never have worked for him.
Absolutely right. When we finally crack what it takes to help kids, it will be found somewhere in the endless permutations of A | C | G | T.
IDK - I read to both of my kids from the time they were infants until they went to middle school. I just love to read so it was what I did. We played board games, did puzzles, took a lot of walks, talked with the kids a lot, ate meals together. None of this was done with intentions of raising high achievers (though that happened) , it was just what we did. I worked full time for several of those early years, then part time, then was home full time for some years. My employment situation really didn’t change what we did with the kids.
Both of my kids started reading at age 4. It wasn’t something I intended to have happen, it just did. I did the same when I was 4. I have no idea how to actually teach a child to read.
I mentioned this article to a friend, and he had the best take: A book called Common Sense wouldn’t sell as well.
Two of mine read before K and the other did not. But once he started he went from “Bob” books to chapter books in a couple of weeks. He is quite successful. I don’t think reading before K should be a goal. The girl that was the best reader in my youngest son’s class was not one of the best students by second grade when all the other kids were reading. Some kids don’t have interest in early reading or just aren’t ready. That doesn’t translate to being less successful.
Being an active, hands-on parent is wonderful and helps, but I see highly successful kids from families that were very involved in their kids’ education and those that were totally hands off. Kids that have their physical and emotional needs met at home are better equipped to do well in school. Beyond that, so much of “success” depends on genetics and personality. Enrichment during non-school hours is great and can take many forms, but is not always possible.
Here kids are in school for 181 days. Once they reach the higher grades, there is still school to consider on weekends (homework and projects). I only consider summer to be “non-school” time. My kids would not be interested in formal homeschooling during the summer or on weekends, but were active in enrichment learning opportunities including travel, going to the beach or a museum, and more structured camps and activities
Our S was reading before he started preschool. He taught himself because with his younger sister in the stroller I couldn’t read every word of every sign the way he wanted me to.
D started reading in 1st grade—never read picture books, went straight to chapter books. Both kids continue to have a great love of learning and reading.
We have always had books all over the house and they migrate, depending on who picks them up and where they end up. Our kids though libraries and book stores were 2nd homes!
My son was an early reader. He figured it out on his own. By the beginning of kindergarten, he could fluently read anything that he would understand if he heard someone say it out loud. He loved to be read to, and he has always liked to read. He was delighted to receive a stack of books as one of his presents for Christmas or birthdays.
My daughter didn’t learn to read until it was taught in school, hated being read to, and never read anything that wasn’t required for school. She specifically asked (at about age 6) not to get books for her birthday or Christmas. The first time she ever read a book for pleasure, she was 23 years old.
The nonreader did better in school. I’m still scratching my head over that.
Interesting that so many responses focus on being able to read by a certain age. That’s not the focus of the book at all. I personally don’t think there’s a formula to raising successful children. What works brilliantly for one child might backfire spectacularly with another. If there’s one takeaway from the book, it’s that parents should invest the time to become students of their kids. It never hurts to read to a child. But there are other ways to instill inquisitiveness, grit, and a love of learning. Despite its title (which I did find a bit preposterous), the book contains different parent models, from the highly educated to the barely literate, all of whom worked purposefully to raise successful children, and tries to extract broad themes.
I love to read but absolutely LOATHE reading out loud. I tried it a bit with my kids but very often failed to do it. I had vowed that once they were in the process of learning to read, I’d do it more. But then, between ages 4 and 5, both started reading and reading well totally on their own. My best friend a reading specialist is sure that they learned from the somewhat embarrassing amount of television we let them watch, all with the close captioning on ( because I personally like to watch TV with close captioning so we always left it on.).
I also failed at family meals and limiting tech ( my kids had smart phones very early on) and in addition to tv played a lot of video games. My plan was to limit it if I saw it interferering with school or the desire to do other things. But for my kids that just didn’t happen. They were among those ( maybe a small minority) that could and did self regulate. I remember my sister in law marveling that my kids would spend a long rainy Sunday building an elaborate “ shopping mall” out of LEGO’s when they had unlimited access to tv and gaming.
And as far as academic success both my kids went to top schools driven by their own internal desires for success. A lot …probably most…of this is just genetic luck. I never had to do the heavy lifting.
Bottom line, read to your kids because it is a fun thing to do, not because you think it will encourage reading in the long run or make them any smarter.
Basically nothing the parents can do is going to make a difference other than providing the basics of a stable home and decent nutrition. And I’m not even so sure that matters as much as we imagine.
The only people that would read anything about strategic parenting are the least likely to need guidance on it.
I still believe my S was most interested in reading because he played early-ish video games where he went from place to place on a quest for this or that and had to be able to read what characters said or instructions on the screen in order to play.
I did read to him as a kid, even those very long Harry Potter books…by midway through the series he was reading them himself. We still love to discuss what we are reading and often give each other recommendations.