The other activity that I did more often but lesser now is “reading”. I used to read many books above her age since young. I always think to make her challenge the activities we taught is far more fruitful than to let her constantly doing activities that have lost the challeging lustrous. So I often read books to her that likely to impact her reading skill as well as literacy skill. So now she could write creative short stories on her own, such that she would always name her characters with creative names such as King Boratio and Queen Doratio and so on, frankly I don’t know where she pluck those names from… But she is only 5 and she enjoys reading books by Shakespeare ( student’s compilation) and the strange thing is she could understand its context. Very different from my time!
This is getting a little off-topic but I am finding your replies very intriguing!
Regarding mental math, I was wondering which method you used with your daughter - Doman, Shichida, Abacus/Anzan, or SEE’s maths method? Ella is taking soroban classes right now and she is getting better and better with it each day. I am hoping she will not have any trouble progressing to the visualization/anzan level. Before enrolling her in soroban, I had been very interested in SEE’s maths, but have not been able to find a lot of materials about it and I think there are also fewer teachers willing or able to teach this method because of all the effort required. That is why I settled on using the soroban to teach Ella mental math.
Regarding reading, I am also constantly surprised by Ella’s ability to understand concepts and context above her age level. And I notice this not only with English but also with Chinese literature. She loves reading Tang and Song Dynasty poems and can actually understand and verbalize the feelings and emotions surrounding each one she reads. Same with the Chinese proverb stories which I myself only started learning in 5th grade, she can actually use these proverbs in the right context in her everyday Chinese conversation with me! However, I do try to be very careful when selecting above-age level materials for her because, although she is emotionally mature for her age, she is also very emotionally sensitive and amazingly empathetic. When she was barely 3 years old, she once cried all the way home from daycare because she saw a dead dragonfly in the parking lot! Another effect of all those right brain activities???
Oh, it is not out of topic, initially I used See’s maths, I think this method is good for children compared to abacus, because after using both abacus and mental maths, I have noticed such limitation sometimes back after asking my daughter to do both the sums, for instance 4-5 or -5-(-10) and so on with abacus, abacus doesnt do sums like that, and she would tell " I cant do that because no rules could apply" but the same doesnt seem to happen in See’s Maths ( mental Maths). That was my experince after seeing how my daughter adopting both. I must say both are good training.
To be very frank you can teach See’s math yourself to your child…See’s math is a simple math within our knowledge, not something extraordinarily hard.
I see close relation between piano, reading and Maths, because she i’s doing theory too at young age of 5, so ceratin part of the theory needs the child to undertsand conceptually simple maths application or when the music notation is up and above the usual 5 stave lines…or why not all pieces are treble clefts… or be asked why this is 1/8, or 1/16 and so on and not 1/4, I notice it would be difficult for the music teachers to explain and to tell the young child the concept of fraction and so on if the child doesnt have that in mind initially.
That is why I think there is close relation between math, piano and reading, for instance it would be drilling if the child doesnt quite understand the meaning of andante, fff, mf, f, or lento, or andante or presto…silence or play adagio and that those terms often appeared in every music piece…so I personally feel it is always good if the child could grip the concept the moment she plays with it or has a feel of what she is taught to play…But what I just mentioned doesn’t appear to be a problem with kid who is 9/10/11/12 years old and so on…So age and understanding is my concern in early child education, the option to bridge this gap is to find interest in books she read…and you are perfectly right not all books are suitable to them.
My daughter develops perfect pitch through using Soft Mozart program. I believe it is through her singing solfege while playing the piano. Her teacher also recommended us to play games. Have the child stand back facing the piano and parents play a melody 5 -6 notes and more challenging will include sharps and chords. The child will then play the melody that she hears. This exercise will develop ear, memory and creativity. For a 3 year old, she can identify notes c, d,e,f,g,a,b some sharps and simple cords like c major and d major. According to her teacher once perfect pitch foundation is develop it will follow the child forever. It will develop further through playing the musical instruments.
You are absolutely right, singing solfege, I think this helps tremendously too.
After joining music group class: Harmony Road Music Course ( a US system), with a book comes with a CD, and the CDs also teaches the child to read the music notations in solfeggi. And I suspect too she must have developed her perfect pitch during the constant class practice by that very experienced music teacher, solfege singing together with Tuning Forks.
I recalled yesterday evening I asked her to do sight read and played new song composed by Mozart’s: “Non Piu Andrai”, and in the process often I notice she would try on the piano several rounds, get the notes herself ( I can’t play piano BUT I understand music language the “left-brain” way), get the rhythms and sing solfeggi while playing, and by doing so, for sure she has already mastered that new song, so today she is already able to play by memory to entertain me…that always make me inspired.
I can’t recall how many books I read by Dr Shichida, mostly in Chinese language because Chinese should be the closest to Japanese if those books were to be translated.
Most of the books are quite similar, with case studies, but I remembered this book that sets the very strict requirements of expectations of the young child of 5/6 to achieve if he/she were to use the right brain methods correctly, so back then I did cross check with my daughter’s levels with that book, would let you know the book soon cause can’t find it now.
The other I think is a must-have copy: presumably for children above 6 to adults i.e. for children who is able to receive instructions with no fuss: a HOW-TO-DO book: ISBN: 978-7-5442-4512-8, it comes with a CD.
The other emphasis by Shichida is raeding and math. In his books, my understanding is read as many books as possible, books with and without pictures, books with boring and/ or interesting contents such as simple understanding of law of nature, law of motion…books with in-depth knowledge, even sometimes books with religious philosophy. He ever cited one chanting phrase in that book I just above mentioned with ISBN.
He also emphasized a lot on math, so the school has a CD on multiplication, that said, I think what he wanted his young students to achieve perhaps is mental calculation… Whether it is dots math, See’s math, abacus, anzan, all that are the same because all stimulating the brains.
I got most of my books in Popular Bookstore, MPH and Border.
I have found these 2 books that I think is an-essential-to-have books:
(1): ISBN 978-7-5442-4255-4
(2): ISBN 957-452-891 X
In book no. 2 page 226 & 227, Dr Shichida had set up required expectations with regard to child who used right brain methods in Math Program. ( To my humble opinion, I think for kid who is able to do mental math would have reached the set expectation and I think this expectation is kind of reasonable.)
That said, I also read a book by Dr Shichida, there too he had set a very stringent standard in terms of language, in that case it was Japanese Language he mentioned about ie. I could recall he said the child at age of 5/6 should already be able to read, write and understand Secondary’s level textbooks and so on. In that, I am sure my daughter had yet to reach the set standard for Chinese, but for English I think it is possible for her to achieve that too. ( For this book, I can’t find the exact ISBN and pages for your reference, but I would cite the copy soon.)
Book no. 2 has a special passage on how to do ESP and achieve ESP for child between 0-6, if this is what concern you then you may check it out at page 96 onwards.
Book no. 1 is a mixture or HOW- to and WHY book.
I’m also very interested to know if these websites are helpful. $259 plus shipping is a bit to rich for my blood right at the moment, but I’d like to do something.
Perhaps you could search for: (1) second-hand… (2) you may borrow from someone you know who has good quality tuning forks…because you won’t use it very often especially after the child gets his pitch corrected, it is similar to swimming exercise, once the child learns how to swim then you would have to chuck the swimming ring away…something like that…
This is a really interesting thread. Thank you for all the information.
Dear Fiz, I am directing the questions to you because I am from Malaysia too. I have been looking for Scichida books in English and I am wondering is you have seen it on any online stores or any of the major bookstores you mentioned?
Right brain practise is a pain in the butt now that he is so assertive and his own boss. How did you do it when your daughter was around the same age?
My son is almost 21 months and we have been using the tuning forks regularly (home practise) for about 6 months now. He hums after the forks but he is not able to tell me the notes yet. Music class is in the pipeline when I feel he is ready and yes, I think solfege is the way to go.
For Shichida’s books in English, you may check Shenli’s blogpost. Not mistaken she bought several English copies… it doesn’t cross my mind to find out since I read Chinese and Chinese and Japanese are the closest in terms of language structure and meaning.
When my daughter was small, I never missed speed reading to her in math and factual information such as timetables, periodic tables, world maps, countries and capitals, brain’s anatomy, flash cards, lots of stories readings, simple sticker puzzle exercises ( MPH has many books in this nature) and swimming.
Speed reading on factual information helps cultivate child’s vastness of reading interest to learn less interesting subjects later because in reality not all subjects are interesting or pictorial, I believe it boils down to child’s " habitual" reading style since young…
Yeah, mum2tiger, music is in my list too…you can’t leave this out…I think it is normal to get no answer from a 21 months old baby but to listen to the forks’ vibration, what you need to do is to say clearly the music notes when you do the exercise with him, I believe he “definitely” has perfect pitch ability later when he is exposed to any musical instruments. You are wise to train his hearing though…
This is the link to order Shichida books in English. Simply contact them via their online submission, they will reply back with an excel spreadsheet to fill out with the items your request. Then, email it back to them and call with your credit card information. Yes, you will need to call Japan but it’s not a big deal, truly. I got my book within about 2 weeks sent by non-expedited airmail.