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> kids knew the alphabet before 1 year old Not to pick on you, but this seems like a completely superficial goal. As far as I can tell listening comprehension

> kids knew the alphabet before 1 year old Not to pick on you, but this seems like a completely superficial goal. As far as I can tell listening comprehension is by far the most important foundational language/reasoning skill. I would be quite surprised if, all else equal, there were any long-term difference between a kid who learns the alphabet at age 1 and a kid who learns the alphabet at age 4. On the other hand, the kids whose parents read to them for 1+ hours per day end up way ahead of their peers who aren’t read to.

klik99 7y ago
Getting off topic, since I just wanted to point out that screens CAN be good, and the more research lumps all "screen time" together the less research there is into HOW they can be better. But we didn't push it or anything - my older one was just into the endless alphabet app, and that basic desire to be an expert on something made him point it out - my younger one always to keep up with the older one. I doubt I would have forced them to do it if I wanted it as a goal - I just try to encourage them to get deep on what they're already showing an interest in at this point. And that usually just takes praising the work they put in (and not the results), and answering any questions they have. (edit) And yeah, there's no long-term differences, as a friend said "every adult knows how to st in a toilet". I say in another comment - advancement is more a random walk than a linear progression, in adulthood as well as toddlers.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  Fair enough. There’s certainly nothing wrong with knowing the alphabet. I’m just a bit jaded and fed up with a parenting culture / education system that focuses on rushing toward specific arbitrary milestones and memorizing lots of trivia, instead of trying to immerse little humans into a culture where skills and tools are learned through practical use and competence grows slowly over time. E.g., in a different domain, it isn’t going to especially help anything if a kid takes their first steps at 9 months, and all of those special-purpose baby walker tools are essentially useless, but the kid who has tremendous core strength/stamina because they get lots of exercise crawling all around is going to come out ahead of average even if they don’t start walking until 14 months.
  - klik99 7y ago
    Totally agree - and, generally, the adults I know who were raised this way may be super talented but have so little creativity - at music school I knew this Korean violinist who was just amazing classical player, she could tell you the pitch of the brake squeal on a subway, but watching her try to improvise was painful. There's a lot of pressure from other parents to compare kids, I think that's how that culture perpetuates at least here in the US. I just don't play that game. (edit) This is also why I hate standardized testing which places kids is "advanced" and "normal" (implicitly slow) classes - everyone develops at their own rates, but the system implicitly assumes that early advancement rates are indicative of future advancement rates, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
    - patmorgan23 7y ago
      I think the music one has to do with how she was taught music. lf she was taught from sheet music early on that can greatly impact the ability for someone to improvise. If they where taught the basic technique of the instrument and then given time to free play and figure out songs by earn /experiment they'll have much better improvisen skills.
madaxe_again 7y ago
I learned the alphabet at school, aged 5 or so, after I’d already been reading for a few years - I mean, I knew the letters and phonemes, but learning them in a specific order just seemed so arbitrary - because it is. My parents read to me from a very early age, with the specific goal of getting me reading as early as possible in mind - and it worked. I still remember the “holy shit” moment when I finally decrypted Spot the Dog, which they must have read to me three times a day for months on end. I was reading ladybird books by the time I was 2.5, and Enid Blyton from aged 3 or so. From then on I preferred reading for myself, as it was faster, and I wasn’t reliant on a narrator who got bored after a chapter. I was hooked on stories - tv wasn’t really a thing, as we lived overseas and I was getting confused enough between Cantonese and English as it was - so I read books. I was ahead throughout school, started university at 16 - I think mostly because my precocious and voracious reading had given me a store of knowledge and connections between concepts that my peers just didn’t have. I went through the entire popular science section at the junior school library in my first year, and then just coasted my way through class, while continuing to read on all subjects. There wasn’t much I was taught in class I didn’t already know. So, I think it’s very much about early investment in reading - it encourages curiosity, and giving a knowledge hungry child the tools to have an infinite world of deep information available to them forges lifelong habits. I still read a book a week, give or take, and still thirst for more knowledge.
- ddrdrck_ 7y ago
  You seem to believe that it is because your parents were reading a lot to you that you were able to read by yourself at the age of 4. We read books to our daughter at least 1 hour a day since she is maybe 1 year old. Yet she does not know or is even willing to read by herself, as most children of her age, which seems perfectly normal to us. But she already developed a love for books that will certainly be very useful to her for studies and entertainment. This is what we should aim for as parents.
  - jacobolus 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlexia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlexia is a rare but real thing. But if parents are super dedicated to the goal of getting their kid to read as early as possible, and spend hours per day on reading drills, it’s probably not impossible for most kids to start independently reading simple books by 2.5 or 3. I’m not convinced this is a goal particularly worth prioritizing, compared to development of other skills. YMMV. A lot surely comes down to the personality and preferences of the kid.

klik99 7y ago

Getting off topic, since I just wanted to point out that screens CAN be good, and the more research lumps all "screen time" together the less research there is into HOW they can be better. But we didn't push it or anything - my older one was just into the endless alphabet app, and that basic desire to be an expert on something made him point it out - my younger one always to keep up with the older one. I doubt I would have forced them to do it if I wanted it as a goal - I just try to encourage them to get deep on what they're already showing an interest in at this point. And that usually just takes praising the work they put in (and not the results), and answering any questions they have. (edit) And yeah, there's no long-term differences, as a friend said "every adult knows how to st in a toilet". I say in another comment - advancement is more a random walk than a linear progression, in adulthood as well as toddlers.

jacobolus 7y ago
Fair enough. There’s certainly nothing wrong with knowing the alphabet. I’m just a bit jaded and fed up with a parenting culture / education system that focuses on rushing toward specific arbitrary milestones and memorizing lots of trivia, instead of trying to immerse little humans into a culture where skills and tools are learned through practical use and competence grows slowly over time. E.g., in a different domain, it isn’t going to especially help anything if a kid takes their first steps at 9 months, and all of those special-purpose baby walker tools are essentially useless, but the kid who has tremendous core strength/stamina because they get lots of exercise crawling all around is going to come out ahead of average even if they don’t start walking until 14 months.
- klik99 7y ago
  Totally agree - and, generally, the adults I know who were raised this way may be super talented but have so little creativity - at music school I knew this Korean violinist who was just amazing classical player, she could tell you the pitch of the brake squeal on a subway, but watching her try to improvise was painful. There's a lot of pressure from other parents to compare kids, I think that's how that culture perpetuates at least here in the US. I just don't play that game. (edit) This is also why I hate standardized testing which places kids is "advanced" and "normal" (implicitly slow) classes - everyone develops at their own rates, but the system implicitly assumes that early advancement rates are indicative of future advancement rates, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  - patmorgan23 7y ago
    I think the music one has to do with how she was taught music. lf she was taught from sheet music early on that can greatly impact the ability for someone to improvise. If they where taught the basic technique of the instrument and then given time to free play and figure out songs by earn /experiment they'll have much better improvisen skills.

madaxe_again 7y ago

I learned the alphabet at school, aged 5 or so, after I’d already been reading for a few years - I mean, I knew the letters and phonemes, but learning them in a specific order just seemed so arbitrary - because it is. My parents read to me from a very early age, with the specific goal of getting me reading as early as possible in mind - and it worked. I still remember the “holy shit” moment when I finally decrypted Spot the Dog, which they must have read to me three times a day for months on end. I was reading ladybird books by the time I was 2.5, and Enid Blyton from aged 3 or so. From then on I preferred reading for myself, as it was faster, and I wasn’t reliant on a narrator who got bored after a chapter. I was hooked on stories - tv wasn’t really a thing, as we lived overseas and I was getting confused enough between Cantonese and English as it was - so I read books. I was ahead throughout school, started university at 16 - I think mostly because my precocious and voracious reading had given me a store of knowledge and connections between concepts that my peers just didn’t have. I went through the entire popular science section at the junior school library in my first year, and then just coasted my way through class, while continuing to read on all subjects. There wasn’t much I was taught in class I didn’t already know. So, I think it’s very much about early investment in reading - it encourages curiosity, and giving a knowledge hungry child the tools to have an infinite world of deep information available to them forges lifelong habits. I still read a book a week, give or take, and still thirst for more knowledge.

ddrdrck_ 7y ago
You seem to believe that it is because your parents were reading a lot to you that you were able to read by yourself at the age of 4. We read books to our daughter at least 1 hour a day since she is maybe 1 year old. Yet she does not know or is even willing to read by herself, as most children of her age, which seems perfectly normal to us. But she already developed a love for books that will certainly be very useful to her for studies and entertainment. This is what we should aim for as parents.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlexia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlexia is a rare but real thing. But if parents are super dedicated to the goal of getting their kid to read as early as possible, and spend hours per day on reading drills, it’s probably not impossible for most kids to start independently reading simple books by 2.5 or 3. I’m not convinced this is a goal particularly worth prioritizing, compared to development of other skills. YMMV. A lot surely comes down to the personality and preferences of the kid.