Batgung

http://www.projectpro.com/ICR/Research/Phonics/Summary.htm

First off, thanks to Gweipo for the links/comments -- I couldn't agree more. I'm so glad my own childhood teachers were reactionary phonics-lovin' types; this was really not the case for many at the time. I'm also pleased to see it making a solid comeback, hopefully once and for all!

I came across another article today that's fascinating, and perfectly applicable to the debate we've been having on this site between the prevailing western style of education/teaching, which encourages more 'natural' learning with lots of attention paid to children's self-esteem, and the more traditional 'grind it out' approach to learning Chinese characters. Particularly apposite were some comments made by SKMama on another thread about how westerners tend to attribute academic success to innate ability, while Chinese people place a much higher value on sheer effort. This article takes up both of those themes, in ways we westerners might find very surprising indeed.

I'm right behind you on the hard work thing. Wasn't it Einstein who said that Genius was 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration?
What I am a little concerned about though is WHEN the hard work should start. I'm still behind the idea of "the age of reason" which seems throughout the ages to have stood at around 7, for the right time to start the hard work, practise and drilling.
And I'll quote the whole of Brazelton on "pushing" children too early academically. It is important for them to get emotional development, self control and social skills when they are young. Don't forget that HK and Japan and other Asian nations which put pressure on their children still have very high youth suidide rates! : here goes!

Touchpoints (Chapter 13 - 3 years) by T. Berry Brazelton
"Play, not reading, should be focus of early childhood. In the pressured world of families today, many parents of preschool-aged children wonder when to begin teaching them to read and write. My response: Don’t, until they demand it. It’s all too easy to overdo teaching letters and numbers. To me, the timing is not as important as the child’s own desire to learn. It’s so easy to push early learning on a child who is compliant at this age. But it does more harm than good. We’ve known this for some time. In the 1960s there was a movement toward early teaching, led by a professor at Yale, Dr. O.K. Moore. He felt that if children could be taught early to read and write, they’d be more competitive when they entered school. This was true – up to a point. In order to please adults around them, 3-year-olds could learn to read and write successfully. They didn’t seem to know what they were reading, but they could do it. When they reached first grade, they were ahead of other children, and they received the adult approval they needed. But many of these “precocious” children hadn’t learned the skills they needed to get along with peers. They were adult oriented. In the second and third grades, these children began to slip. The rote learning processes they’d used to learn earlier didn’t generalize to the more complex learning they needed in later grades. They seemed stuck with more primitive learning methods. These unfortunate children then hit bottom. They were not the stars any longer, other children had deserted them and adults were disappointed. This left them feeling sad and deserted. Despite this and later evidence that such precocious early training is costly, many parents are still eager to give children a “head start.” Books and programs promising ways to “teach your baby to read” continue to proliferate. I strongly urge parents to stay away from them. A child learns best who learns for herself, not others. Play is her way of learning. When she learns by play, she tries different techniques to find out what works for her. When she can’t achieve something she is interested in doing,she gets frustrated. Frustration drives her to find out how to do it.
When she finally does it, she gets a wonderful feeling: “I did it myself!”, that is the most rewarding fuel for future learning there is. Ambitious parents must learn to watch the child, to stay in the background and let her learn for herself. It’s difficult but necessary. A parent’s job is to admire, approve and even encourage, but not to push. Choosing a preschool can be done with the same philosophy in mind. Play is the powerful way children learn their most important tasks at this age – how to play with other children, how to handle other adults and how to learn about
themselves as social people. The tasks of this age group are enormous:

* experiencing socialization
* learning about aggression

*learning how to identify with everyone around them

They are emotional tasks, not cognitive ones. I'd choose a preschool for the people who run it and who interact with the children, not for the learning program. If there's pressure to perform and to learn, there may be too little time for children to learn about themselves. Parents should go to school and watch - see firsthand how much time the children have for undirected play and for learning about themselves as people. Learning about oneself and about one’s peers is the best learning that parents can provide in these preschool years. The one thing I’d like for all the children to feel about themselves at this age is, “I’m important! Everyone likes me!”