If you are
like me, your initial reaction to the question above was to
shake your head. At least, that would have been my
reaction a few years ago, but not now. The brain is an
amazing instrument. Recent discoveries in brain research
are revealing the enormous amount of brain development that
takes place from birth to three. And also the important
role the caregiver has in using this time for their young
child's optimal development.
I made a remarkable discovery following the birth of my
third child. I got this idea that I would show her ABC
cards while giving the letter's sounds. At the time I
thought I was just going to give her a little jumpstart on
reading by doing that. The outcome of my idea turned out to
be way beyond anything I had imagined and far beyond any
little jumpstart.
By simply exposing my infant, and then on through her young
toddler years, to the phonic sounds of the letters resulted
in her reading effortlessly and spontaneously at the age of
four. And how is it that that could have happened? Really
very simply, because her brain processes had formed at that
young age to recognize the sounds of the letters. When she,
for example, saw the word CAT on the page her brain
processed the sound of the C, the sound of the A, and the
sound of the T, and the word was read. But let me tell you
exactly how I discovered this so that you can understand
more readily.
As I said I had only shown her the letters, giving their
phonic sounds but nothing else. I had never attempted to
teach her to read in any way. When she was four I decided
to teach her to read. But I found out I didn't have to
because she could already read!
Here's how it happened: I bought a first grade reader and
read the first page to her. It was simple, of course, with
probably from ten to fifteen words in five or six simple
sentences. I handed her the book and she read it back to me
flawlessly. I thought, she has a good memory. I turned the
page and handed her the book. The same words were used on
this page but in a different order and in different
sentences. She read this page with no mistakes. I hadn't
read it to her first this time. And so it went.
Once a word was read to her once she was always able to
read it thereafter, in different places and different
contexts. And once her reading vocabulary had become large
enough, she could read words she had never learned before
by determining them from the context of the sentence.
Well, I hope I have wet your appetite. Visit me at The Toddler's Edge
and learn more about my theories based on this discovery that I made and look at the toddler
education programme I have written. email me, Jerrie Hewlett, if you wish to know more.
This information was kindly supplied by Eworldwire
