2 year olds learn so much about the world, learning to read that early will not do as much as parents expect. Let 2 year olds learn and be exposed to things children of that age normally do, sure an early start here and there is okay. But please do not set high expectations for them and first and foremost, let them play a lot. This obsession with getting them ahead of their peers could backfire, they may later feel alienated from their peers, be misfits in their age group and so on. When the circumstances bring along and when the child gravitates toward early intelectual pursuits let it be as it is of their own choosing.
No. Allowing a child to direct their own development is a weird and damaging strategic fallacy that is making the rounds.
Child development is absolutely dependent on how much language the child hears and reads, and is measured by child language development milestones that are waymarked by age down to the month.
Learning to read earlier should serve to maximize IQ. This is bog standard child development science. Learning to read will not hinder playtime nor social skills.
You likely can't talk to a child enough. Consider all children to have a language input deficit that is highly relevant to development. What reading does is allow the child to self ameliorate that deficit as soon as possible.
Talk and read to children as much as they can stand, starting in the womb if one wishes. Teach them to read as early as possible. No one actively should be trying to hinder child cognitive development so that children ostensibly better fit in socially. That's not how social skills work, besides.
I work in human developmental research and have never heard or read anybody make such claims that you consider "bog standard child development science", and some of what you say are definitely not supported by the current understanding of human development.
For example
> child language development milestones that are waymarked by age down to the month
is totally false. It is quite known that developmental milestones are acquired by children in different times and even in different orders and sequences. This "down to the month" is pure non-sense for most of the milestones.
Young children are better served to be guided by their own curiosity, interest and exploration drives and which parents feed with variable inputs and building upon, rather than by anxious parents feeding them with whatever terabytes of exploitation-intended information they think is gonna "serve to maximize IQ".
Yes, reading to kids in certain ways (using numbers/spatial relationships/theory of mind stuff/interactively) has been found in some studies to correlate with certain outcomes but there is nothing to suggest a totally linear relationship such that talking to a kid 24/7 since the womb is gonna produce the next Einstein.
I'm a clinician who works in child development pathology, which is why I commented. You have zero idea of what you are talking about. Your unprofessional hyperbole and willful misconstrual of clear statements aside.
>"have never heard or read anybody make such claims that you consider "bog standard child development science"
Reconsider your profession.
>This "down to the month" is pure non-sense for most of the milestones
"Most", you say? Which is it? Are some milestones down to the month and some not? Or are all not down to the month?
"Down to the month" is shorthand for a normative developmental window. So "down to a limited window of months, which together comprise a large percentage of the child's age in months".
Is that better meaningful communication on a public board? Some would instead say "too long and unnecessary". Avoiding such communication being a core communication skill. Or perhaps you are too, say, "bothered" to be able to allow for meaningful communication devices in public. Get a grip.
Those limited, often overlapping, windows assist in defining service eligibility. Overlapping means that differently ordered milestones are possible. Your "different times" of milestone acquisition is limited to the very limited normative windows. Per both the standardized clinical knowledge body and each individual State that adopts those standards. As an expert, you'd know that all normed measurements are subject to statistical deviations in development but sure as heck are also limited by the same. This is super basic. Also, it is generally unnecessary to explain normed scores, normed milestones, and basic statistical concepts on HN. But thanks for the variously pedantic and wrong corrections.
>Young children are better served to be guided by their own curiosity, interest and exploration drives and which parents feed with variable inputs and building upon,
"Variable inputs" is too vague as to be meaningless as an argument. "Building upon" generally refers to scaffolding, which is a single tool used in certain circumstances or when otherwise appropriate. Beyond that, who said that implied basic interaction / play techniques are excluded?
I'm speaking of total language exposure over years, from a host of sources.
"better served" is unprofessional and unclear language. If you mean to say that child curiosity and interest should replace talking and reading to them as much as possible, then you are dead wrong and should reconsider your line of work. However, the reality is that these are not mutually exclusive activities and so at the least we can conclude that your correction is unnecessary (and weird). Many if not most children crave more such interaction than they receive.
>rather than by anxious parents
Who said anything about anxiety? Speaking and reading to children is a natural activity. Some parents do it more than others. Some parents neglect it more than is healthy for a child's development. The constant being that more of it is better for development. If you are trying to argue that point, I'll move on from "find a new line of work" to "I don't believe you in your statement about your line of work".
>feeding them with whatever terabytes of exploitation-
"Terabytes of exploitation"? What? You don't work in child development research, at least not in any meaningful way.
>intended information they think is gonna "serve to maximize IQ".
Its not debatable that maximizing language input, from an early age, maximizes developmental potential. That doesn't mean, nor did I imply, that parents need to do anything but the best that they can in providing children with language stimulation. That means being at least superficially aware of and respecting the relevant developmental science, and trying to meet the best standard that they can in light of it. You seem to have an issue reading extremes into things , which in turn leads to your use of truly bizarre language.
> I'm a clinician who works in child development pathology, which is why I commented.
sounds like you take research at it's word instead of understanding the fundamental ideas and concepts that are being explored...classic white coat thinks the book is right and everyone else is wrong
I do not think that such a conversation is done in productive way (especially when cutting phrases in half to make them appear making no sense) but will try get a couple of points across:
- I interpreted the comment in the context of the answer to a specific article/interview. In the linked content, for example, there is a video of a 2.5yo doing a "flashcard class". While I do not think there is anything inherently harmful or anything, it is not a way that 2.5yos learn about the world, and even if it is not harmful it is not needed for 2.5yos to sit on a chair and doing a class to learn about the world. Their curiosity and own exploration drive is enough for pulling them into learning, and this is what I mean by parents should feed, ie see what their kids are most curious and interested in and feeding them inputs to that direction. The comment you answered to was referring to this article, and I interpreted your answer in that context. If I misinterpreted anything, I can only see the context that is shared here, not in your mind.
- To reiterate and clarify more on the context, "Speaking and reading to children is a natural activity" is _not_ what OP was about. What OP was about is applying a specific strategy for kids at 2+ years, ie to learn to read using a specific exploitation-based approach. If that is all you meant by your previous comment, then you may want to reread the comment you answered to from that perspective. Nobody here is saying "leave the kids do what they want and do not care about interacting with them much/talking around them" that you seem to suggest. When I say parents building upon kids' own curiosity and exploration drive I mean seeing what sort of inputs their kids become more curious and interested in at a certain time and feeding them inputs like that. When a kid starts being interested in sounds and music, feed them with sounds and music and sound/music-related books and toys. There is no handbook that is gonna say which month and day exactly this should happen for a specific kid.
- I may miss a lot of knowledge indeed, but I still find setting goals of "maximising language exposure" and "maximising IQ" weird and unclear. No, I have never read or heard this way of approaching development and learning. Parents doing their best and being mindful of the importance of language exposure is different than "maximising" anything. Maximising with respect to which parameters? Even defining this as an optimisation problem, any complex optimisation problem like this is a tradeoff between different parameters and outcomes. What happens to the other parameters and outcomes when you optimise on just one?
- If "you do not speak the jargon" is what you prefer to focus, just say that and any more discussion will not be needed.
You are making up stuff and saying it with authority but no references, no personal experience, just words. For the record I fully disagree with you. Children should not be made to learn to read at 2 or even before 5 or 6. This doesn't mean they shouldn't be read to or helped learn letters ans words. Now, check this out, this is my opinion.
This is usually the sentiment of the top comment on HN whenever teaching children comes up. However, in this case, I don't really see the down side. They still get to do all the time things you mentioned, but they can also read. I find it hard to imagine the risk of alienation to the point of being labelled as misfits and somehow stunting their social development is high enough that it's worth worrying about.
We could just as easily speculate that these children can help their friends understand the world and become closer with peers as a result.
We aren't talking about locking them up for years to focus on reading, it's just a bit of spaced repetition.
The theory I've heard is that if the kids end up advanced in grades far beyond their peers they'll struggle to develop socially, since they'll be surrounded by older kids/adults. If that's accurate then gifted programs of peers could be one solution.
Emotional maturity, physical maturity and intellectual maturity are definitely different things. I was a year ahead at school but struggled because I wasn't emotional and physically as mature as my peers.
> A four year old with a 3rd grade reading ability learns about a WHOLE lot more -- it opened up politics for her. She would read our junk mail, and learn who our council member was, who our representative is, the mayor, current events, history, etc. I know it's stupid of me to say, but I underestimated the effect that reading early would have on her breadth of learning.
I agree with you. It's up to the parents to figure out an environment where the kid will be okay in 10 years. Hard to argue for intentionally pulling someone back just to conform if there is nothing wrong with what they're doing.
(most) kids will learn how to interact with the rest of society at one point.
Children need to develop the soft skills necessary to deal with the fact that crab bucket mentality is very real and can very easily ruin their lives if they can't figure out how to deal with it. Reducing "development" to "how big factoid sponges can I make my child" is not going to help with that.
Well said, I would think it's even disadvantageous to make them sit in front of smart screens to learn to read and to get positive feedback from their parents.
the great thing about knowing how to read early on is that you can read things adults write for other adults, so you can tell when what adults say to you contradicts it. which it does, a lot
condemning a 4-year-old to mostly interact with other 4-year-olds is appalling. other 4-year-olds are ignorant, impulsive, insensitive, and often cruel. everyone deserves the ability to ground themselves in the adult world, and literacy is a crucial tool for doing so, because books can't discriminate against you the way adults will
you cannot gravitate toward pursuits you don't know about. deliberately keeping a child ignorant is detestable
and none of this takes away from play; play does not depend on ignorance but on imagination
>condemning a 4-year-old to mostly interact with other 4-year-olds is appalling. other 4-year-olds are ignorant, impulsive, insensitive, and often cruel
I don't understand your point. Other 4 year olds are ignorant/impulsive/insensitive but not yours?
>everyone deserves the ability to ground themselves in the adult world
As a children I had zero interest in doing that. There may be children way different than I was, but I think speech, ability to express emotion, self-worth, etc are way more important for this than (very) early reading skills.
>deliberately keeping a child ignorant is detestable
Come on, nobody talks about raising an analphabete children. The topic was about (not) speeding up the learning process extremely, and (not) leting kids learn this skill at a more usual pace.
> Other 4 year olds are ignorant/impulsive/insensitive but not yours
no, all 4-year-olds are. it's a major reason adults discriminate against them. but it becomes much worse when it's not just you but everyone around you
> leting kids learn this skill at a more usual pace.
for almost all of human history, the usual pace left adults unable to read without moving their lips, or at all. either the pace you're used to is suboptimal, or that one was, but more likely both. to know which direction is better, you have to listen to people whose experiences diverge significantly from what is usual. there are lots of us here in this thread, and we're unanimously telling you that what is usual is below what is optimal. so far below, i'd say, that you could reasonably call it institutionalized child abuse
I remember in 2nd grade I was sent to the principals office and was then, for whatever reason left alone. to sit there for about 2 or 3 hours. I quickly got bored and discovered a box of American history books under the chair I was told to sit in.
The books were completely uncensored early American history, I am still not sure what the heck they were doing in an elementary school. When I say uncensored, it was raw brutal rape and pillage history.
At the time I read around a high school level, about a year later I'd be tested at college level.
I spent the next 2 or 3 hours engrossed in a text about the founding of America. It was one of those foundational experiences for me, and it was only possible because of I was reading far above my grade level.
(Fwiw I learned to read playing final fantasy on the NES and going through the strategy guide well over a hundred times! No Anki needed!)
I taught my kids how to read pretty early (4, not 2) using the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons book, which was astoundingly easy.
Both kids are now in school and reading significantly above grade level and I have different concern - their ability far outstrips their experience. So even though they can read large unfamiliar words, the subject matter of the stories that are challenging enough to be interesting to them deal with themes and experiences that are pretty foreign. Books that deal more with their experiences and interests are written at a much more basic reading level and are not interesting to them.
They seem to really enjoy reading but sometimes I wonder if early reading is really beneficial in the long run. On the other hand, I certainly read some books too young, but I don't really regret that, so maybe I'm just making up problems to worry about.
> On the other hand, I certainly read some books too young, but I don't really regret that, so maybe I'm just making up problems to worry about.
Don't have kids but I agree, this sounds part of growing up. I believe adult books as a precursor help understand real experiences better.
Being a fan of BFG and Matilda, I accidentally ended up picked up Roald Dahl's "Skin" (his adult short stories collection) when I spotted it as a preteen in my school library.
I didn't understand half of it but I still devoured it in a day.
I only started understanding when I was much older and actually experienced similar things in life.
I started with that book but moved to https://reading.com - it is the same pedagogy and essentially the same curriculum but with more engaging stories, larger fonts, and interactive sliders my kids enjoyed.
To be super clear this isn’t an app you hand your kids. You still sit side by side and teach the lessons.
That looks pretty nice - my youngest lost interest once the stories started, and I think that was partly because the stories weren't particularly engaging. But overall I was extremely impressed with the pedagogy, it was so easy it felt like cheating!
Now I need to figure out a fun way to do spelling, since both of the kids like to write but English is really tricky to spell.
We used the same book with our kids, and are encountering the same issue. The books that are at the proper reading level are often not appropriate from a content perspective.
I work in literacy and am aware of a number of companies that are working to develop solutions that allow teachers/parents to level up/down reading materials to address this mismatch.
I tried using that book with a kid with adhd and it wasn't working, but I have tried to use its lessons while reading other books. If anybody reads this that has success despite adhd, please let me know if you have any advice.
4 is still pretty young so I'm not stressing about it.
For what it's worth, the oldest got all the way through on his own power, asking to do it each day. The next kid petered out around day 45 and we didn't try to force it, but she's even more advanced than the first one was at her age now. Not stressing about it seems to be a good approach : )
My young son also has ADHD (diagnosed but no need for medical intervention). When Covid came and we stayed at home, he got bored, so I decided to teach him to read. We are non-native speakers, so it's natural for us to look for a phonics method. Luckily, I stumbled upon the right one: Reading Egg. It's a reading app based on a scientific phonics-based approach with very engaging activities and a library to choose from.
In the beginning, I worked with my son, but after about a week he was able to continue on his own. We started very light with 2 lessons per weak + maths lessons (oh, they have maths too. But the reading app is much better, IMO). Later it was probably 3 lessons per weak, IIRC. I still do the reading with him in the first month, but in the later months he could read (the task) on his own.
After 3 months my son could read independently and he ventured out to read books outside the app. Today he is an avid reader with a wide range of interests (business and marketing is the currentbhot topic :D ). He scores in the top 3% in reading (measured twice a year by the MAPS tests) and in the top 0.001% in maths. Considering his developmental problems, I think it's remarkable progress. And not least thanks to the Reading Eggs app.
I always find the discussion about how to teach reading in the US superfluous because there is a proven better way and it is so cheap. So maybe give it a try.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Reading Eggs. Just a happy customer.
I had a collegiate reading level at age 5 and still struggled to read many kinds of fiction books which were rooted in familiarity with the human experience. I could get through the books, but I didn't really comprehend them well until I'd read and watched enough media to piece together a more robust model of the world.
I read every books in the house as soon as I could read adult books (by age 5). Some books even multiple times. I was offered a lots of fiction books growing up.
Age 7, I would read the dictionary at night, one word definition at a time, out of sheer curiosity.
By age 14 I stopped reading books. I could never relate to any of the human emotions. I did learn that money, fame, and sex was a big deal perhaps. But you don't need books to learn that if you have a social life instead of reading books all day.
All this made me appear smart for my age, but that doesn't mean I was. I merely appeared smart.
Can definitely relate to the dictionary thing. I enjoyed that exercise.
Age 14 is when I transitioned from primarily fiction books to almost exclusively non-fiction material, including history, news, biographies, STEM etc.
Fiction really stopped clicking for me, I appreciate the genre but it just no longer captivated my interest. Games and some visual media entirely consumed that need for fantasy. There's just so much more to nerd about with those formats.
Lots of little details that come from such massive collaborative efforts, whereas with fiction books I started to feel like I was encountering the same tropes over and over again.
> All this made me appear smart for my age, but that doesn't mean I was. I merely appeared smart.
I feel like I'm having the opposite effect. I'm looking backward at how intelligent I was during school and wondering where it all went. I think becoming jaded and traumatized from sheer stress and emotional pain really blunted my mind. I still consume lots of reading material but something just feels different.
This is odd. One of the ways kids learn to read early is by starting off being expiated to fairytales and other fiction then later learning to read those same stories. That useless sets them up to enjoy fiction.
Fairytales didn't do anything for me. I was more interested in books by authors such as Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, etc. as the focus was more on the manipulation of language itself. The substance mattered very little at the time, it was the form which entranced me. Which is funny, because with visual art I prefer substance over form.
Feels like something an LLM could help with, turn the sinoler texts with appropriate subject matter into slightly more advanced writing while retaining the appropriate subject matter?
My kid taught himself to read, but he's also on the spectrum. He was recognizing symbols and then words at the age of two - the first thing he really recognized was "Thank You". At some point he just learned to sound things out. It's been a mild issue with ABA for his age because a lot of the material includes words and he just reads things.
If I had to guess, I'd say it was probably either reading ever night, maybe Ms Rachel on Youtube, or something else on youtube, or some combination, but I didn't teach him how to sound out long words, he worked that out on his own. I'm not sure I could replicate it though. He's 4 now, recognizes 100+ flags, knows most objects in the universe, can read just about any word I've thrown at him. I'm not entirely sure he internalizes most of what he reads, but he can easily read anything my 9 year old can.
I also have ASD and learned to read by myself. I don’t remember exactly how old I was—my mom says it was around 2. I was frequently ready adult books by age 10.
However I can’t say it really helped me as an adult. It’s not like I can read more advanced shit now. There is still a plateau.
My parents taught me to read at age 2 and the more I read the more I wanted to read. By the time I got to kindergarten, I had already read more than all the other kids. It inculcated the love of reading in me which paid dividends throughout my life.
It helped me greatly as an adult. Most of my peers in the tech industry haven’t read a book since high school (because their upbringing didn’t emphasize reading). But reading books and believing you can actually learn things from them helps you enter fields outside of what you went to school for. I taught myself stuff from books. I learned from books how to navigate corporate culture (High Output Management), how business actually works (the Halo Effect, Hard Things), how charisma actually works (How to Win Friends), templates for doing things I’m not good at (Difficult Conversations, Getting to Yes) etc.
Arguably you can learn all these things by reading articles and by watching YouTube.
But books are special. Granted most books today have a lot of fluff but at least for the parts that are useful, books slow me down and help me absorb at a better pace.
Similar to the idea of bioavailability of nutrients, books to me are more “bio available” in that they’re the same nutrients, but are better and more deeply absorbed.
For parents who had pandemic babies, she was at times a digital co-parent. Questions of socialization or enough conversational development were fair questions as well, some kids genuinely saw far fewer family members, adults, or other children.
Not being huge fans of screen-time, exceptions for Miss Rachel were easier after seeing her home video style production quality (less addictive), and it was so focused on learning in a unique way that didn't seem about watch time.
Specifically, Miss Rachel's use of pronunciation, and music feels like it has helped in our case with unlocking a love for experiencing and learning, and without any extra rigour beyond reading books a lot, speaking and singing with them as much as possible, they have quickly grown bored of flash cards or the usual.
Tremendous work. I've spoken elsewhere about the massive benefits 12 years and counting of Anki has had on my intellectual growth, and how introducing it to my wife was the secret sauce that let her retake her high school math exams and get into a great university with a major in computer science - I'm fully on board with exposing children to this wonderful, powerful, free tool as early as possible.
It puts knowledge acquisition itself under statistical process control. I can think of nothing more which my child self wanted.
I've been thinking about incorporating more SR in my life (mostly toying with my own impls). Since you seem to be smitten with the practice, any tips you've discovered on writing, managing, etc SR cards?
> Hannah went through a phase where she didn't want to do it. We tried to compromise and work through it. Eventually, it became part of her "job" -- we told her that every human has a job, and her job was to do Anki.
In my personal experience, precociousness as a kid breeds alienation from your peers. I hope this kid gets plenty of exercise to train her social and emotional intelligence, too.
I've been doing this for the past 2 years with my two older kids (now 5.5 and 3.5) based on the same reddit post this article is about. I've found it works great, though I have high-focus kids. I call it "word cards".
For the older kid, he learned the letters at preschool and then we did the Bob Books together. That worked well for phonics, but we hit a wall with sight words that require memorization. That's where Anki saved the day. We'd do 5 minutes of word cards every morning, and he'd get a token on a reward tracker, which eventually added up to a toy. Worked great for both of us. He's now a fluent reader, and I add unusual words we encounter to the deck, though I've stopped pushing so hard on reading and we just do "fact cards".
For my middle child, I started with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (TYCTR100), in plain book form. That got her sounding out simple words at 2.5, but it's a really boring process, and I couldn't get her to do 20 minute lessons on a regular basis and didn't want to force it on her. But then I bought a set of TYCTR100 flashcards on Etsy and turned them into Anki cards, and that's worked great. Again, 5 minutes most mornings, though at her age it works better with a short term reward (eg, interleaving with Daniel Tiger).
Apparently my kids said they planned to do "word cards" with their kids when I wasn't around.
Anki is great at what it does, but the main enabler is finding a process your kids will pay attention to. I probably lucked out there.
Something that's really important but almost buried here:
> I was ready to stop at any moment.
As long as your kids are enjoying the experience and you're ready to stop if it becomes too much for them, you're probably doing good.
The moment you have some kind of schedule in mind, and you're trying to cram stuff into your kids' head because they're "falling behind schedule", consider you might be doing net harm.
> A four year old with a 3rd grade reading ability learns about a WHOLE lot more -- it opened up politics for her. She would read our junk mail, and learn who our council member was, who our representative is, the mayor, current events, history, etc.
This is great. Learning about the world is so much easier when you can read.
> As long as your kids are enjoying the experience and you're ready to stop if it becomes too much for them, you're probably doing good.
I’m sure you meant it in the kindest way - that respects your kid’s interests and abilities.
But being raised in a more rigid culture, this was not the case for me, and having a forcing function helped me develop foundations in areas I’m not naturally strong in.
I was a gifted child, and the way most gifted child lose their luster is they are given too much free rein to ignore things they’re not good at because they’re so exceptionally good at their narrow areas.
Many of the brightest kids I knew who amounted to nothing had this problem: they’re smart but they always give up when they encounter anything that doesn’t come easily to them. Maybe there’s ADHD involved but the core of it is that humans always want to do things that come easily and avoid things that are hard. I know many of them suffer depressions and end up in manual data entry jobs and jobs where they are underemployed.
But you need structure and persistence to do well in anything. In my case it was math. I did well in elementary school but high school math didn’t come easily to me (my giftedness was in languages). I was going to resign and study the humanities — nothing wrong with that, that is a worthy pursuit of its own - except my dad knew it was a cop out and I wasn’t giving my best. He was right, and he had the backing of the culture. He told me he would support me in anything I chose to do, but he was more concerned that I “gave up too easily without trying my best”.
So instead of giving up, I gave it my best shot and used my languages skills to get good at math. Math is one of those foundational skills that pays dividends in life, no matter what you choose to major in later. I kept trying and failing (it didn’t come naturally to me) but somehow after reaching a certain level, math clicked for me and made sense. It’s all about incremental improvement and pushing through the troughs.
(I now have a PhD in numerical optimization — not bad for a humanities and languages kid.)
Kids (and adults)don’t know what they’re capable of and many give up too eagerly because they “have lost interest” (common refrain). But I say adopt a growth mindset. Sometimes there are paths that are open but parents close them too quickly. We still have limits, and I for one will never be a world class mathematician (because I’m not naturally talented) but I am a far sight better than that kid in high school who thought he couldn’t do math.
Would I have done better going into the humanities? Maybe but I wouldn’t have the job I do now which allows me to do the breadth of things that I do and to emigrate to the country I’m in.
I agree with most of what you're saying. What I had in mind is if you have a kid that's not gifted, then trying to force them to learn reading at 2 will probably do more harm than good, when they could be learning to read just fine when they start school. At that point, unless they're showing signs of a learning disability, I'd absolutely be in favor of pushing them a bit.
I don't want a kid that's, for want of a better metaphor, at exactly 100 on the IQ chart to feel stupid because they failed at a reading program designed for 120+ IQ kids. Actually I don't want anyone to feel stupid and worthless, even if they're 80 IQ, but that's a harder problem.
I know that Maia Kobabe, author of the graphic novel memoir "Non-Binary" that's apparently among the most banned books in American schools, talks in said memoir about how e couldn't read at age 11 (apparently Waldorf schools go by "they'll learn when they're ready"), then Harry Potter came out and e suddenly had a successful motivation to learn to read (apparently Waldorf was right in this case). Now, e holds a masters in comics, and judging from the text in er memoir, e has no problems with reading and writing these days. (And yes, I respect people who use Spivak pronouns.)
I've also read a book by a therapist for autistic children where he talked about one case where the family was following some kind of ABA program to the letter and the kid was really not coping. They were starting to scream and have breakdowns the moment it looked like a "lesson" was coming up and was generally upset or angry most of the time. The new therapist's idea was if the program is working that badly, stop using it like that and do something else - and the kid's behavior improved soon to the point where they could start learning new things at their own pace. That's an extreme case of what I don't want to happen, ever.
The real tough skill for a parent is being able to distinguish between a kid who's giving up at the first sign of difficulties, and a kid that's genuinely overwhelmed and unable rather than unwilling to do what they're supposed to do at that time.
> The real tough skill for a parent is being able to distinguish between a kid who's giving up at the first sign of difficulties, and a kid that's genuinely overwhelmed and unable rather than unwilling to do what they're supposed to do at that time.
I appreciate this, and it's not easy for sure. Every kid is different and they all learn at different paces.
I'm more speaking to the problem of limiting beliefs, which were a shackle to me and to many kids who failed to launch. I think even kids on ASD spectrum have some limiting beliefs -- it is a spectrum, but our tendency is to over-accommodate rather than encourage growth.
Knowing where the limits exactly lie is really difficult -- the cases you mentioned above are Goldilocks cases where folks got it just right. Most of us have bias toward either overaccommodating or forcing -- I'm more in favor of a benevolent form of the latter i.e. not giving up on trying different things, adjusting to their pace of learning of course, but still believing that the kid can do better than they think. I'm against pressuring the kid to do anything of course, but gentle nudges, helping the kid develop a minimum foundation in the tools they'll need for life, I think we can do without burning the kid out.
I can't remember the studies but I seem to recall that better outcomes were predicted for kids who were neurodiverse but had people who kept believing they could do better and kept encouraging them (as opposed to resigning to the fact that they'll never be normal, which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy).
I meet folks on the spectrum frequently and although I know something in their brain makes it difficult for them to follow social cues, I try to treat them as normally as possible because I believe that many (not all, but many) of them can achieve higher social function than they believe. It's a spectrum and nobody really knows where on the spectrum they truly are.
I always recall this dialogue by Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady":
"I should never have known how ladies and gentlemen really behaved, if it hadn't been for Colonel Pickering. He always showed what he thought and felt about me as if I were something better than a common flower girl. You see, Mrs. Higgins, apart from the things one can pick up, the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated. I shall always be a common flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me like a common flower girl, and always will. But I know that I shall always be a lady to Colonel Pickering, because he always treats me like a lady, and always will."
But I do truly take your point that there is a difference between a kid who's giving up and a kid who is overwhelmed.
I also did badly in math for awhile, was forced to do it, then got really good at it again.
Sometimes people have stumbling blocks in their learning, or they just need someone to sit their butt down in a chair and say "study for 3 hours every day until this makes sense."
Not even IQ can substitute for hard work.
(I do have a few friends for whom math came naturally and they never had to study throughout college, but they are a tiny tiny minority!)
Our son showed an interest in letters before he was 2. He would point at an S and say Ssssss.
So at age two and some months, I made a set of flash cards for body parts. So we would play "the body parts game", where I show him a card and ask him to try to say the word and to point to the body part. He thoroughly enjoyed this game. We did it in both languages (we are raising him bilingually.)
I tried to use a bit of creative fontology (is that a word?) to de-emphasize silent letters, like thum(b) and (k)nee, and to mark letter combinations like ch and sh. When he asked about the silent letters, I could only say that (for English) spelling is different (and kind of stupid).
Obviously spoken language is the baseline in all this.
> I could only say that (for English) spelling is different (and kind of stupid).
One of my earliest memories is the unwelcome lesson that the printed word "ice" is the spoken word /aɪs/ but "police" is /pʊˈliːs/.
In retrospect, it helped me get an early start on accepting the notion that substantial parts of life involve putting up with network effects left lying around by previous generations.
(upon reflection, I did ultimately immigrate to someplace where "Eis" is /aɪ̯s/ and "Polizei" is /poliˈt͡saɪ̯/, so maybe I hadn't been as successful with acceptance as I believe?)
I found that reading easily and quickly left me more hours in the day to work at skills that are not easily conveyed via literacy.
I could easily be biased though: much of my adult life has involved reading large quantities of material and writing much shorter quantities afterwards; if my life were not text-centric I might've viewed the early start and subsequent advantage as a waste?
Coincidentally, the age when my mother taught me to read, via manual repetition (first flashcards, then books, then my own library card)
(being in the habit of reading for years before you get there also makes elementary school far more bearable, as you have time free to think your own thoughts while the rest of the class is still finishing the assigned reading)
> Whatever enhances child's model of the world will integrate with his "world" knowledge. It can even integrate at the physical neural level and last for a lifetime. All irrelevant and abstract material will be rejected. As a result, this is a perfect illustration of the fact that early teaching makes little sense. It is the child's brain that makes choices on what to remember. SuperMemo becomes useless because it does not have a contribution to the child's knowledge. That contribution will only slowly develop over time when memory improves, mnemonic capacity improves, and the ability for abstract reasoning shows up.
> The mechanism of educational dyslexia (or school-induced dyslexia) is the same as the formation of toxic memory in all forms of coercive learning. When a child learns to associate reading with displeasure, the learning process may grind to a halt. A regress in reading skills is also possible. Sensitive children with passions that do not involve reading are at particular risk.
> Optimum age for reading is not much different from the optimum age for learning multiplication or learning how to use a map. Optimum age is as absurd as the optimum time to learn the Beer's law in physics. Some people learn Beer's law at 3, some never learn it. In the same individual, Letter A may be familiar at the age of 1.5, while the distinction between U and Y can be made stable only at 7. Should that smart kid learn to read at 1.5? No! That would sure lead to toxic memories (unless under zero coercion). Perhaps at 7? No! Why wait? Knowing A may accelerate learning B.
> As long as it comes naturally, early is good but late is also nice, and always better than never.
This is really interesting. As a child I loved reading and I think I know why. It's the only way to acquire more information about the world at scale.
As a little child I grew up in a home the grounds of which had tropical birds (mynahs, hoopoes, massive eagles) of all sorts, snakes (vipers, cobras, pythons, garden snakes) of all sorts, cows and scorpions, peacocks and fish.
So there was no shortage of real life observation of the world but the variation you encounter in a book is far broader.
I'm grateful for my parents picking out so many books for me and helping me learn to read because it unlocked a huge world with no horizon. And when you're young all this learning doesn't feel like work.
I remember being excited to remember my tables, or to know trivia like the capitals of nations, and so on. Bizarrely, I was terrible with the exact placement of events in history and consequently hated it.
And a fun game I'd play with myself was the idea of figuring out things without remembering it. When did X happen? What is a Y? And I think that was possible because I read the things I read when young. And I decried rote memorization. It was obviously intelligence that gave me this ability. Looking back now that's funny because it's my good memory and all the things I shoved into it that did the trick.
Hurray to indulging children's curiosity.
Also, it's been illuminating following your blog, Jake. I check it every time I see your username. But I've recently gotten back into reading things through RSS so I'm glad you've got one.
Only focusing on spaced repetition here: you can't just get good by doing spaced repetition.
Learning (or reading in this context) is much more bigger than that. If it only take space repetition and Anki, everyone would be good at it.
That’s crazy. I haven’t heard of this. My son was reading like an adult by 4. I didn’t do anything structured but just did what made sense. He enjoyed the learning process and so did I, so I’m not sure why anyone would tell you not to do it. Where’s the harm?
That's great, and they're probably on to a cool learning technique. But it's really just another case of smart parents with a smart kid thinking they reinvented education because the kid is smart.
I have two kids and they have totally different skills of learning. My first kid learned numbers and arithmetic without teaching him by 3 years old. He discovered it himself using youtube. He learned to use the remote when he was 2 years old and knew which shows could teach him. My other kid is already 3 years old and he has problems understanding the concept of numbers and doesn't know how to use the remote control.
I'm curious, cause I have two young kids (< 3yo) , and the first is exceptionally smart (in our completely unbiased and nuanced opinion).
When did you get the remote/ allow them to watch YouTube, in this example? Could it be related to how long they're been able to use it relative to their age? (IE: remote is relatively new to the older, but 90% of life of the younger).
I have a hard time thinking that kids are just naturally "not clever" - I think any kid can be extremely clever if given the chance to explore and play and grow.
(Parents to parents talk is always laden with judgement, so in not doing that. I'm just curious and seeking info for what I think about for my kids. I hope you don't feel like I'm judging you or anything. )
> I have a hard time thinking that kids are just naturally "not clever" - I think any kid can be extremely clever if given the chance to explore and play and grow.
What makes you think this? Plenty of adults are naturally not clever. Half of all adults are below average. Why would it be any different for kids?
In my opinion, clever and motivated are two completely different things. Trying to get around the restrictions on video watching? Sure, he’ll spend an hour typing possible 4 number combinations and realize he’ll eventually get there.
Having to make the effort to actually look at the letters, read them, and figure out the word? Nope, that’s too much effort. Besides, if he can read himself, how is he going to get papa to read to him.
Youtube is youtube kids. The first one really have a curiosity to learn and explore. We were really surprised he got the idea of how to count almost unlimited numbers. We only taught him it just repeats and changes name once you reach the end of tens. He was also able to do arithmetic just by watching number blocks and learned multiplication by 3 yrs old just by explaining to him the concept of addition, subtraction and multiplication. The other guy is totally different he can memorize songs and retell stories on a book (he can't read) told to him. He likes to be babied don't even try to touch the remote for fear of losing what he is watching. They are both intelligent it just that the other guy is not interested in exploring by himself. I think language development was the key to early development because they could understand what you are explaining to them.
On HN we don't treat reposts as dupes unless the earlier thread got significant attention. That's on purpose, to give good articles multiple chances at making the front page. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. (I mention this because it's probably why your comment was downvoted.)
I've merged the comments from that thread into this one.
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