Current focus is Math, Vocabulary, and Reading, if I understood your question correctly.
Or are you asking about my focus as regards the Fowler program? If yes, that would be vocabulary development, cos that is what the program encourages.
Excellent question. First, I’m not familiar with Hart & Risley (yet) :biggrin:
I would say that yes, it does contradict somewhat (but I’m not really familiar with the research). Just thinking of this, I could try and explain this so many different ways so I’ll just type and hope for the best… Fowler uses a Vygotskian approach in that the goal is to simplify to enable the learning jump. In Vygotskian terms, this is the zone of proximal learning. Well, an infant fresh out of the womb has a very narrow zone. Sounds will be difficult to distinguish and isolate. Stage 1 is simply isolating (these are my terms now that I’m using not Fowlers) the sounds and encouraging the infant to listen and repeat. This is done in a playful dialogue.
If you turn to page 16 in Talking From Infancy, you’ll see box 3. It looks to me as though it over-emphasizes the overlap, but it at least shows how the stages overlap each other. There’s no way you’re going to graduate from level to level - you’re just going to introduce more complexity as the child is able to comprehend (or articulate depending on the stage).
You will also see on page 101, ch. 8, that stage 3 generally begins around age 9 months. This is where you start linking words together. My guess is that the pre-req is the child actually saying words… but I’m still working through the book meticulously. At worst, you’re curtailing a few months in favor of advancing the simple ideas of language. I’d say that Fowler’s research (his Potentials in Childhood demonstrated his vast amounts of research… and Talking from Infancy was written 10 years later!) is solid enough that I trust him… and his results, as referenced in Brain Rules for Baby (which says a lot since the author basically says don’t waste your time trying to advance your child) speaks for itself.
We’re still working on our sounds [which is done, generally, face to face] and will continue to do so for a long long while. He’s now ready to start linking sounds with objects and actions.
I will add that it’s not as though we’re not 1. having adult conversation while he’s around, and 2. reading, where more complex intonations, adjectives, nouns, and other words that won’t come up around the house are used.
He’s getting all that advanced stuff, it’s just I focus my effort on the stages at this point.
And funny thing about the book reading. I’ve noticed that he’s associated “talking” with the pages so that now when we start reading, he starts talking like crazy! It’s funny to hear him go while I try to read… and then I stop and try to let him talk… it’s funny.
Thanks for your response, PokerDad. I understand what you mean, that Fowler simplifies the word stages for babies. Anyway, I did not know about his work when my son was tiny, hence I was saying all sorts of complex things to him, there was no simplification whatsoever. He does not talk as much, so I wonder if the simplification process would have hastened his progress more. When he was Cub’s age, he was nowhere close Cub as regards language, inspite of all my complex and advanced talking. (After reading Fowler, I started simplifying/repeating things a bit more and I’m seeing much more progress).
Do you think complex sentences from birth help tiny babies, or do you think the simplification process works better? I think a combination of both works best – simplification (ala Fowler) for nuances and details of language; advanced speech (from conversation and books) for overall vocabulary.
I think that is also why LR and YBCR are effective, they simplify the process for children. So that a child gets to see an apple, a hat, etc., repeatedly and independently of other stuff, and therefore becomes able to identify those words and corresponding pictures easily. What do you think?
P.S.
Here is the Hart and Risley paper: http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/spring2003/TheEarlyCatastrophe.pdf.
Thanks for the paper, I’ll check it out!
Regarding simplifying vs not simplifying… my only real experience to this point was my puppy, so I’ll use this as a crude way to discuss.
I know plenty of people with stupid dogs. I should define that… a dog that doesn’t understand what you say when you talk to it. I think there are a few reasons, mainly that most people leave their dogs alone during the day just sitting, and more importantly, when there is interaction, the human uses complex syntax and vocabulary that is extremely difficult to grasp. Most dogs will know a few words such as “treat”… that one is easy… wanna treat? here you go (and dog eats, and associates the eating with the treat word after a few repetitions)
Instinctively, I adopted much of the phase 2 stuff with my puppy just by thinking the following “If I had a very limited capacity to understand language, how would I learn?”
My answer was to simplify. Even Fowler’s recommendation not to use plurals is something that I did. Or, you can go the opposite and not use singular (though Fowler never says this… but it’s the same principle). Because we’d encounter more than one person at a time usually, I started referring to strangers on the sidewalk as “people”… gotta say it was weird saying “people” when there was one person, but I instinctively understood not to change the word and keep it the same - always - the same.
In the end, my dog really understands language nicely. The remarkable part is that the dog can and does learn after a SINGLE repetition now. In addition to toys, she knows people’s names, dog’s names, places, activities and such. We still keep it simple… yesterday, to test this whole thing out, I asked her “where’s the raccoon?”… 18 months ago or so we had some raccoons in our fireplace. They haven’t been in there since, but when I asked, my dog looked around for a moment, then walked over to the fireplace and started looking UP at it… LOL. If I randomly mention a dog’s name, she’ll run to the window to see it…
My apologies for being long-winded here. I suppose to answer your question, using complexity will have an advantage: more sound and more diverse sound. The disadvantage is that it’s random and takes a lot of time to have the skill to distinguish one sound from another, and more importantly to be able to break the sound into words which then constitute meaning. If all you did was stop between words (which would be annoying as hell to do, and annoying to listen to), I think it would work far better - and this is a strategy I’m starting to use more with Cub. I’m also making sure I REALLY pronounce things.
PokerMom had a bad habit of baby talking - I had to talk to her about it a few times, but this morning congratulated her on the improvement I’ve noticed. She still uses the excited high pitch, but pronounces… LOL. Now I’m narrating my activities and am needing to remind myself to draw attention to a noun if I’m talking about “Now I’m cutting with the knife” (holds up knife to show Cub)
I’ll leave you with one quick note since Cub is waking up… in using Anki to learn to new words, I’ve found that I’ve sometimes had to repeat the same word in excess of 20 times before learning it!
How much more would a child that hasn’t mastered language yet?
Oh, you are not being long-winded at all. I understand your point completely - that complexity has the advantage of introducing lots of diverse sound to the baby, but has the disadvantage of making it difficult for the baby to distinguish sounds/words from each other. Thank you for that insight. Oh, and when I talk about about simplification, it has nothing to do with baby talk. I’m not a fan of baby talk. I’m sure you understand the sort of simplification I mean.
Please, if you have further insights on this matter, I’ll very much love to hear it. Thank you once again.
Lately, I’ve been reading, listening, watching a lot of cognitive psychology relating to education. A good summary is that learning is NOT linear.
It’s not linear because it’s actually exponential.
Doman says that all babies are born geniuses. I get what he’s saying - they’re all geared up to learn and learn a lot and learn rapidly. Without question this IS true, but in the grand scheme of things it’s not entirely true.
you see, when a baby is born, everything is new. Everywhere the baby looks there’s something to learn, and so learning is constantly taking place. In the adult world, very little (by percentage) is new, and very little learning, relatively speaking, is taking place. With this I will agree with Doman.
But the science shows tells us a different story. The more you know, the greater your capacity to learn!
By derivation, the less you know, the less your capacity to learn…
WOW.
So in that sense, Doman is actually wrong.
What’s that have to do with the subject matter? Well, starting small… LEARN SOMETHING, anything! and the next thing will be easier to learn, and so forth down the line.
If you’ll recall from the Moshe Kai thread, I mentioned that I happened to notice that his parents seemed to take this route. When they started flash cards with him, they took something he knew “airplane” and then added in only two other cards. They made sure… they made sure he KNEW a card before introducing a new card.
I’m not saying this method is superior to complete inundation, only that in the beginning it is probably beneficial to scale down and focus on smaller things and build up.
So with Cub, my very first objective from a few hours old, was to say a single sound and get him to perhaps try and mimic. That went on for weeks! Once he started getting one or two, then adding in others was easy. My other goal was “just get him talking, whatever it takes”. Practice practice practice. This is still my goal and will be until he can talk fluently. So if he’s babbling away, I won’t disrupt. When he stops, then I start on an activity (or in some cases, try and extend his talking - which is where the teddy bear started).
I found this principle absolutely held true with my dog. Once she understood one or two words, I knew she now had learned HOW to LEARN (yep, you have to learn how to learn) and that future words would come far easier… and they have.
If not for this forum, I would not know where to start, or where to go… the possibilities are endless and you CAN keep the pedal to the metal (just look at what H is doing for schooling… awesome work).
:biggrin:
EDIT: I’m reading through the link you gave me; I’m familiar with the 30 million word gap (but will read the article) - I wanted to point out something before I forget. There’s a part in Potential of Childhood where Fowler discusses IQ at various ages and socio-economic statuses (or perhaps I got this from somewhere else…) but if I recall, the IQ differences didn’t start emerging/diverging until a certain age. If this memory, or factoid if you will, is correct, it would go A LONG WAY to confirm all of the above… there’s a gap, but the difference is pronounced by school age. How much difference in IQ will there be at age 6 months? Guessing not a huge gap there ON AVERAGE (Obviously EL kids are going to be diverging already)…
I think I had read this article several months back while browsing old threads. Having read it, I do NOT think Fowler contradicts this particular research at all.
Look at the measurements they looked at: diversity of vocabulary, frequency of vocabulary, and encouragement.
Well, we’re knocking the cover off the ball with encouragement. Vocal play is ENCOURAGING - as in, massively so. I do not see why word play or sentence play would not be similar… actually, yes I do… sound play is definitely give and take setting the stage for frequent vocalizations. This is a habit I’m so thrilled to be forming for him…
(warning, unrelated tangent coming)…
My in-laws just came back from meeting my wife’s new niece from out of town. While on the trip, they observed the older cousin who is "E"s age (almost to day if I’m not mistaken)… and, my in-laws aren’t really aware of my EL interest at all… I did not solicit the info, but they couldn’t help but tell us that cousin barely utters a word and maybe says one or two things on occasion (while watching Toy Story will say “buzz”). They said, in particular, that this kid basically was mum.
Contrast that to Cub, only 9 weeks old, where I’m working very hard to get that kid babbling (which he’s doing very well with)… that’s the difference between encouragement and no encouragement. Socio-economic wise - they make more money than we do by a decent percentage.
(tangent over)…
The study concentrated on sheer number of word exposure. It could be the same word over and over (though obviously they measured how diverse the vocabulary was) - and the study didn’t begin until MONTH 10!! Look at the graph and you’ll see the starting points are very close together at 10 months. I’d say that the divergence starts earlier than this, but the massive gap isn’t impacted by diversity prior to this but rather AFTER/during language acquisition.
Frequency with Fowler will go WAY UP - you actually have something to talk about.
The only place that may suffer for a while is the diversity (skipping pronouns and such for a while)
Naw, Fowler doesn’t contradict this - he gives you added depth into what’s happening early on.
If there is a detriment in vocabulary, the easy way to fix it is to read… read… read…
EDIT: in reference to my prior post about linear learning, the article speaks of the trajectory “curve” and that enriched children were adding words at a much higher rate… question, why would this rate gap continue once in school?? Should it not normalize? I’m speaking specifically of RATE not actual numbers… should not both children start acquiring new words at the same rate once in school since their environments are similar now?
Trick question… learning is not linear, the more you know, the more capable you are of learning… enriched children had higher vocabularies going into school and were able to accumulate faster than welfare kids. Look at the graph, it’s a “curve” and not a line. Exponential growth…
and the big “AH HAH” that should be going off in your mind if you’re reading this is how EL will set your child up MASSIVELY especially if you continue with the hard effort up until grade school age and beyond… just wow. The only way to stop or hinder the potential is to throttle by failing to keep the environment enriched (ie, analogy of the adult world where nothing is new)
Thanks for the update on PokerCub’s progress. I bet he is trying to read to you when he sees the words 
You are doing an above and beyond amazing job with him. I look forward to more updates.
You may need to start your own forum for gifted pets
Loving this thread! Thanks for the summary of Fowler’s book as I don’t think I’ll spend €185 on it! I will definitely try to get it from the library though.
Pokerdad - the latest video on the blog is INCREDIBLE! You guys are doing such a terrific job. And Cooper is just so cute!
Thank you all for the encouragement… I really need it sometimes!
If not for this forum, I wouldn’t be cataloging his progress with the blog - and the videos are nice because I can notice his progress easier which, in turn, helps keep me from getting discouraged everything seems hectic.
I think every parent does, especially when you’re trying to do something different from the norm. I love to read about baby Cooper’s progress & that of the other children on the forum as it encourages me to keep going with our activities.
By the way, are you guys planning on using sign language? I feel it really helped my daughter’s speech, along with me constantly narrating what I was doing - she said her first meaningful word at 5 months, & I didn’t even know anything about early learning back then. I also read to her from the day she was born with the result that by 12 weeks she could attend for long periods during reading sessions & used to turn the pages for me. And you’re right, reading certainly leads to greater diversity of vocab, especially if you read books by many different authors - a point very well made in The Read Aloud Handbook.
With baby R I’m focusing on two signs, milk & potty. I also try to sign any words on YBCR & LR.
I definitely agree regarding the sound play. With my daughter, while I spoke to her constantly, I feel that focusing on sounds rather than words with my son has led to more vocalisations & more conversational units in our interactions.
Nee - your point about the simplification in LR is an interesting one. I feel that LR is responsible for my daughter’s excellent pronunciation & articulation as she hears each word enunciated so clearly.
I’m reading this thread. I just turned 43. I have a 17 y/o son and a two year old ooops baby. My husband wants more kids. Reading this almost and I do mean ALMOST makes me want to have another one.
Great job and loving your blog and this thread. I’m wondering what is going to happen when all these EL children come of age.
PokerDad,
Thank you so much for the detailed explanation. It’s clarified a lot of things for me and I’m grateful.
Any further insights are highly welcome. Thank you.
PokerCub Crushes a Milestone:
http://pokercub.blogspot.com/2012/09/pokercub-crushes-milestone.html
Very slow day with the Cub. I had him for about an hour and he wasn’t really active. It was a difficult day for me in general, but it feels good to post this and see some of the fun we had this week… this is his 10 week old update even though he turns 11 weeks tomorrow (video was from a few days ago - and I just now have the time to post… sigh, very challenging this parenting thing)
in other news, late next week, so around his 12, 13, or 14 week update, I plan on having another awesome milestone crushing… but I only post the teaser to make sure that I make an effort to follow through… I can’t guarantee it, obviously, as these things aren’t up to us parents 
Either way, I’ll make a post somewhere in the next week or so to discuss a few of the things we’re doing.
Ohhhh so cute, it brings back memories of DS. Hard to beleive he was that size 2 year ago. Poker cub is a very lucky cub, glad to see how much you are enjoying your time with him.
Good heavens, this is so impressive!!! At just 10 weeks of age!!! I’m shocked, honestly.
Seriously, you are a model DomanDad.
Thank you!
Things are beginning to turn a bit in the “Poker” household. To my shock and amazement (even though I actually did predict this would happen eventually) the wife has begun to put Cub on his potty during diaper changes this week - and to the best of my knowledge she’s had success every single time! She’s now FULLY on board our partial EC efforts (though she still makes me clean out the bowel, which is fine by me!)
I think most of the EL stuff will follow a similar pattern… eventually everything will speak for itself.
My wife literally told me this week “He wouldn’t be where he is today if I was home with him instead of you”
Now… let’s be truthful for a moment. Some of this is just Cub, but much of it IS that I give him loads of opportunity and there are days that I “work” him hard. My guess is that we’re active the amount of time the average parent is passive - which is perhaps 80% or so of his wake time. A part of me has started to see different progress rates when he’s with me vs his mom, and certainly home vs. not at home or home vs other relatives. It’s that noticeable!
So when my wife said that to me, in my mind I know it’s true - but I will never say that out loud and frankly have never ever met a mom that didn’t think she was the best thing for her child… so I looked at her and said “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”
Cub’s mom is very interactive with him and loves him a lot, as do all the family members… it’s just none of them are willing to give him all the opportunity that I do. So, it’s not as though he’d be lagging behind with mommy… but this work does come at a cost to me - I was close to a break down yesterday, and not because of my efforts per se, but rather that Cub takes 20 to 30 minutes naps once or twice during the day which is only long enough for me to eat and rest a little. Over the course of a few weeks, I started feeling so behind in work and very stressed with some deadlines. Poker, for me, is totally caput right now, which hurts… it’s like watching a dream drive off faster than you can run to keep up… but, it’s okay. I cannot wait for the day when Cub and I start playing each other hard like the epic chess matches I used to have with my great uncle when I was a kid (we stayed up one night until like 2 am until I think he finally won)
Anyway - I guess I post all that unnecessary information because I have no one else to talk to about it, and to sort of show that my efforts ARE going noticed… we’re making progress as a family, and for that, I’m very pleased.
You are doing great, PokerDad, really, really great. And I promise, you won’t always feel so tired. Once he gets on a predictable routine of sleep, wake, eat, play, it will give you enough time to catch up on work. And once he starts sleeping through the night, you’re free, I mean, free, no more (or very little) tiredness, etc. Things will improve, it really will. Life with a newborn is always very hectic, lots of coping by the parents, lots of adjustments, etc. But before long, things do stabilise, and you’ll have your life back. I promise.
And don’t think the information you post is unnecessary, no it isn’t. It’s inspirational, and most of us are using you as role models for our current kids/ future babies. Be encouraged, you are doing really great.
Really, I am so jealous that I didn’t do more with Ian. You are doing an awesome job as a dad. Your son is very lucky. And, I am glad you are sharing your journey with us so I can learn for the next one.
When Ian was born I was totally overwhelmed as I took care of him almost 100% of the time. My husband worked long hours. But, I was fortunate not to have to work myself. So I am grateful for that. I wish I had known about this forum then too. I think that would have helped me when feeling overwhelmed. I dropped many of the things I had planned on doing for him. We did almost no physical program in the beginning. Although, I did let him stand a lot so he ended up walking at 9 months. Unfortunately, he barely ever crawled though. He always HATED tummy time. I happen to think he is still a pretty amazing guy and I know what I have done for him is helping him so I am not too worried about it. But, yeah, hang in there. You are doing great.
It’s damn refreshing to hear a DAD admit to the same feeling us mums have! Fear not pokerdad you are not alone. Inadequate feelings are part of the parcel as are the meltdowns, near meltdowns, cold dinners, lost opportunities and self life sacrifices. Sometimes it may not feel like it but it is definately all worth it in the long run!