Reading age of 3 (was: Re: Computers for children)

From: Philip.Belben_at_pgen.com <(Philip.Belben_at_pgen.com)>
Date: Thu Jan 14 06:32:20 1999

> Well, my parents were told by the local school _not_ to teach me to read,
> or to handle numbers as 'you won't do it the right way'. Fortunately they
> ignored this (it was too late anyway - I was already reading), and taught
> me the good old-fashioned way. Guess what? I never had any problems
> learning things, unlike some kids....
AAAAugh! You had a narrow escape. The arrogance of educators talking
about "the right way" to teach a child, when theories as to what this is
seem to change every three years, is amazing. I recall in 1975 (I think -
I was only about 8 at the time) we knew a retired teacher who sometimes did
supply work for a local school. She was given a remedial class to look
after, and started teaching them by traditional methods. Result, in a few
weeks they were ahead of the main class. Our retired friend quite
reasonably asked why the school couldn't adopt such methods as a matter of
course, and apparently they were "not allowed to". She could get away with
it since she was retired and not a permanent employee, or something.

I heard a story similar to yours from a friend (Tony - did you ever meet
ACAW1?) at university (last heard of doing a PhD in the history of German).
He told me that it is a commonly held belief in Germany that there is no
point in teaching a child to read until it is 6 years old - the age of
starting school in Germany - since children younger than that lack the
necessary development (unspecified). Apparently his German friends were
always amazed to discover that his parents, wanting him out of mischief at
age {nearly 4}, and unable to get him a school place until {nearly 5},
taught him to read. Any comments from our Geman readers? How prevalent is
this myth?

Two shorter comments to finish.

I too have heard that playing music to very small children (age <2) helps
them develop intelligence. The music has to be of the sort that takes some
thought to listen to, of course. Mozart, Beethoven etc. are good choices,
as are some of the better-thought-out pop styles, but minimal music or
thud-thud-thud pop music are probably not. (Sorry, as a mainly classical
listener, I don't know the correct terms for the pop music styles)

And finally a saying attributed to the Jesuit order: Give us a child till
he's 6 years old and we have him for life.

Philip.
Received on Thu Jan 14 1999 - 06:32:20 GMT