Monday, 04 August 2008
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When's the Best Age to Teach the ABC's?
by Mama Koala
As far as I can tell, I don't think there is a "best" age to start teaching children anything. With some things, Baby Koala seems to take her time learning. A good example is the way she hated shape sorters and chunky puzzles at 12 months. She would get frustrated after not being able to get it on the first try, and then give up. If I tried to encourage her to try again, she'd push it away whining. Other kids that age seemed to enjoy the challenge, so I was a bit concerned that Baby Koala was either lazy or just not interesting in learning anything that required a bit of effort.But then the time came for ABC's. I accidentally discovered Baby Koala's interest in letters when my friend taught her B and E using fridge magnets a few months ago. I had underestimated her ability to learn letters (I just never bothered to teach them to her because I thought she was too young), and I was so pleasantly surprised at how quickly she picked up her first two letters! I took out a couple of Leapfrog toys that I thought might help her learn independently, and also started showing her letters regularly during reading time (we both love the ABC Block Books shown above). I've been having so much fun seeing what a great learner my baby is. She loves repeating letters and words after me, and she'll quickly pick up the ones that she likes. For example, ever since she learned the letters I (she calls it "eye-eee") and Y ("whaa-eee"), she's been into the "eee" sound and has picked up a few words that end on that note, such as "bo-eee" (boy) and "hah-eee" (hi). At almost 19 months, Baby Koala can confidently name about 10 letters (she knows more, but gets them mixed up), and she'll point them out on store signs, logo tshirts, boxes, etc. I get super excited whenever she does this, because it shows me that she enjoys learning and practicing her letters throughout the day! She gets excited after seeing my reaction, and her love of learning is fed some more. I find it interesting that she's more eager to practice the letters and words that she knows she'll get right. It's funny how even at such a young age, confidence is so important. I'm reminded that as her mother and possibly the greatest influence in her life (for now, at least), I need to help build her confidence in all aspects of life... from learning her ABC's to making friends at the playground!
The other thing that all of this has taught me is that I should occasionally expose Baby Koala to different things to see if she's interested... and that it's perfectly okay for her to be more interested in one thing over another. She'll learn at her own pace, and that's fine by me. After all, she ignored her chunky puzzles for weeks and months, but these days she loves doing her "puzzuh" over and over again!
How do you know when your kids are ready to learn something new? Do you usually initiate with them first, or let them show you what they're interested in?
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Comments (20)
Yay for alphabet!
I mostly have things available and let the kids pick up/play with/show interest in them whenever they want to. I follow their lead with learning right now. I point them in a certain direction from time to time, expose them to many different things but I don't push it if they just don't care yet.
Very cool!
In Montessori we start teaching letters at about 3 years of age. We use more of a phonetic route, calling each letter by the sound it makes rather than its "name" (so A is "aah" B is "buh" etc). We'll also emphasize sounds in each word, so they can hear that the sounds of the word and the sounds of each letter we talk about are the same, and that words are made of sounds (i.e. letters). It's pretty cool watching the kids pick it all up in the classroom. =)
It's amazing watching D learn new things-- he seems to be picking up new abilities every day. I swear he's learned how to give me kisses... so cute!
My daughter is only 6 months old and I'm already starting to teach her ABCs.
@TornadoChaser - I do the same! I didn't think to leave things out that seemed advanced before, but now I know better. These days I'm just so happy that my daughter loves books, letters, and words. I hope this trend continues as she gets old enough for school!
@SwissMama - I have this Leapfrog bus toy that has 3 modes: letter names, letter sounds, and letter songs. Right now my daughter is focused on learning the letter names, but I think it's a great idea to teach the sounds early on since that's what they'll need to use to build words! It really is fun watching babies learn new things... just wait until D gets to the crawling stage, and then the walking stage - it's crazy how quickly they learn everything about the world around them!
@mamakoala - My boys really liked the Leap Frog Talking Letters and Talking Words Dvds. I get the songs stuck in my head a lot. Haha!
We have two different route for learning in our house. The older kiddo, P has a low tolerance for difficulty. On top of that, he has never been a child who mimics things. So your best bet is to expose him to as much as possible and then wait to see if he picks it up. He seems to need to absorb things for a while before he has the confidence to show you what he knows.
J on the other hand, will mimic you and is more tolerant of frustration. I generally wait for a teachable moment like having him repeat the letters in his name or working on pronunciation. I teach both boys the names of all kinds of weird things but Jason is usually the one to demonstrate skills first. It doesn't mean he's learning them first, just that he's showing to you. He's a bit of a show-off which is problematic when P is struggling and J keeps jumping in with the answers to questions.
My opinion is that it's never too early to start "teaching" (and my that I mean exposure). If your child will copy you then great. If not, they may be absorbing way more information that you realize so keep on trying as long as you are both having fun!
When our children were very little, both my wife and I frequently read children's stories to them from books we borrowed from the public library. We started doing this when they were just tiny babies. I'm sure many parents do this. SESAME STREET: When our firstborn was a baby, Sesame Street educational children's TV program was in its very early days. Geordie (and later his two sisters) watched this marvelous program faithfully every day. One day when our son was only about two, we were driving along a major street in our city when little Geordie suddenly pointed at an advertising sign and cried out,"There's an 'X' !" Sure enough, he was right. So when we got home, we pulled out and ABC book and Geordie identified and named all twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Even in First Grade, he would read a Reader's Digest article if it interested him. Even today as an adult,Geordie is a great reader.
We never deliberately sought to teach our children the alphabet. They picked it up quite naturally.
We let the kids show us what they are interested in. My son was probably about 16 or 17 months old when he picked up the alphabet book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom that I had (I'm an elementary school teacher so have tons of kids books) and started pointing at the letters. He wanted us to tell him what they were....over and over and over. He knew all his letters by sight when he was 18 months old.
But, again, it was because he WANTED to learn them.
My son lets me know what hes interested in, hes learning his letters with the fridge magnets, he loves those.
That is great! I think kids learn things a lot faster when it is put to music. I sing the calendar songs that we sang for my Pre-K class to my daughter every day and she is picking up on some of the days of the week and months of the year. It was just something fun to do during breakfast, not really meant for her to memorize the calendar stuff, but she's getting it. I recently started teaching her the numbers in Chinese and she is picking that up a lot faster than the English. I was surprised. Usually I let her take the lead on what she wants to learn, but we supply the opportunities by having the blocks, letters, etc for her.
my mom started teaching me at the age of 2... by 4 I could read and write and do simply math so I got to go straight into 1st grade at the age of 4 (2 years ahead). Certainly has helped me in the longrun. I just graduated from college and am taking a year off before med school... and I don't feel bad about it because I'm early anyway!
I guess the best time would be whenever they show interest or it happens to come up. My mom said that I knew my full ABCs and could count pretty high by the time I turned 2, so maybe between 1 and 2? :) As long as they learn it!
I let my daughter show me what she's up to at the time. Right now, she's really into copying actions, so I've been using that interest to teach her things. I also do general things on a (mostly) daily basis, such as read to her, sing her songs like ABC, play pat-a-cake, etc. She likes scribbling with pens, so when she's a little older with a little more hand control (she's 11 mo now) I'll try her with a pad of paper and some crayons. I'm not in a big rush to do any formal learning with her, she has a few years before school starts and she'll learn when she's ready.
Well I don't have kids but I did have a little brother...mmm he's still my little brother lol but he lives in another state now. Anyways, I raised him since he was born I was 11 and my parents both worked so I would get bored and teach him stuff. I'd lay a blanket out on the ground lay him on his stomach and I'd find something I knew he liked which was usually a phone or remote or a light and put it about a foot away from him. He was only 6 mths but he knew he wanted to get a hold of the object so he'd kick and bob his head and with time he learned how to push himself up off the floor with his hands and then let himself fall but he'd eventually get to his destination.
When he was one and started doing "bad" things he'd always try taking my markers and drawing on stuff when he saw me drawing. I thought maybe he was interested in learning how to make pictures like me so I'd make dotted lines for letters and he somehow knew that he was supposed to trace them I did this for all letters of the alphabet and his name then I'd draw little cars and he'd trace them too. When I did the alphabet thing I told him what letter he was tracing and teach him how to annunciate the letter and the sound that it makes (i also did this with animals).
He's 7 years old now. And my mom tells me he has really good hand writing and gets 100 on all his quizzes. He cried the first time he got a 90. He plays alot of video games but he shows interest when it comes to school and learning new things.
I'd say its always best to let the kid tell you what he wants to learn rather than forcing it on them. Also you might want to find out whats their way of learning. I personally learn through pictures and diagrams. A bunch of writing and reading does nothing for me because I'll forget what I read within minutes.
That's actually a great question... I learned the ABC's in kindergarden... so I was four or five. My neighbor is having a baby in September and since she's recruited me to be her baby sitter/ nanny I've been looking up some other things about child care, especially with infants, but this insight is great from all of you, and I think I'll be passing on some of this stuff to my neighbor!
From infancy, my father read to me to teach me language. And I'm talking Shakespeare and Socrates, not just Dr. Seuss.
I think when it comes to early childhood education, start with the reading, and he child progresses from there.
I don't think there is a "best age". I read to my daughter since birth. Actually before. I love to read and sometimes I'd read out loud while I was pregnant.... Maybe that's where her obsession with Harry Potter came from! Hah! She's 3 now. I sang her ABC's to her from birth as well. She could sing, recite, and reconize her ABC's by the time she was 16 months.
I usually initiate it first to teach her something new. Once she has been doing good and is pretty constant on whatever it is I'll do something else new but also review other things I've taught her. I mostly do body parts with my daughter. Or animal sounds. She loves to read though. I also talk to her and describe things constantly. Instead of just saying shoes. I'll say yellow shoe or left shoe.
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