4 ms·

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 chi

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.

mikkom 2y ago
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.
kragen 2y ago
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
- hifromwork 2y ago
  >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.
  - XajniN 2y ago
    > I don't understand your point. Other 4 year olds are ignorant/impulsive/insensitive but not yours? There always has to be someone pretending to not understand.
  - devbent 2y ago
    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!)
  - kragen 2y ago
    > 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
- cpursley 2y ago
  Exactly. And kids should play with more than just the one age group.
kitd 2y ago
That wasn't the experience in the article: > 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.
- creshal 2y ago
  Let's follow up on then in 10 years, after kids started getting really into the "bully everyone who deviates from the mean" phase
  - cpursley 2y ago
    Or you know, instead of crab bucket mentality - let children develop instead of intentionally holding them back…
    - gandalfgreybeer 2y ago
      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.
    - newzisforsukas 2y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality
    - creshal 2y ago
      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.
episteme 2y ago
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.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  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.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - chrisdbanks 2y ago
    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.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
mrangle 2y ago
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.
- dimask 2y ago
  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.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - 2y ago

mikkom 2y ago

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.

kragen 2y ago

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

hifromwork 2y ago
>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.
- XajniN 2y ago
  > I don't understand your point. Other 4 year olds are ignorant/impulsive/insensitive but not yours? There always has to be someone pretending to not understand.
- devbent 2y ago
  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!)
- kragen 2y ago
  > 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
cpursley 2y ago
Exactly. And kids should play with more than just the one age group.

kitd 2y ago

That wasn't the experience in the article: > 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.

creshal 2y ago
Let's follow up on then in 10 years, after kids started getting really into the "bully everyone who deviates from the mean" phase
- cpursley 2y ago
  Or you know, instead of crab bucket mentality - let children develop instead of intentionally holding them back…
  - gandalfgreybeer 2y ago
    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.
  - newzisforsukas 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality
  - creshal 2y ago
    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.

episteme 2y ago

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.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
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.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisdbanks 2y ago
  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.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

mrangle 2y ago

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.

dimask 2y ago
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.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- 2y ago