I read an article in a baby magazine recently that was about whether parents should teach their child to read - on the positive side they said that if your child asks then don’t hold them back, but I disagreed with a lot that that article had to say.
Specifically they mentioned all the skills needed to read and some of them included fine and gross motor skills. WHile these skills are necessary to write, they are not necessary to read. So with my 2.5 year old, not being able to write and yet wanting to (she sits and scribbles “letters” all the time) I decided to see if she could type.
I opened a new blank file and just let her push buttons - she read all the letters she was typing back to me. She did however always hold the key in and type a row of each letter.
Next I typed her name for her - she got cross and said she had already typed her name (she had typed many of the first letter of her name)
I showed her how to backspace and delete things she didn’t like
I asked her if she wanted to type her own name - I helped with putting the caps lock on every time she needed a capital letter. I then told her which letters to type and showed her where they were. Once I had shown her twice she seemed to remember. I corrected any mistakes she made without pointing them out to her (eg pushing a button twice instead of once)so that she could read the word when she was done.
We typed her name and then the names of other people she choose. She read each of the names after typing them. Some were words she did not know.
Thats as far as we got today. Later I would like to see if she can spell words herself using only basic phonics. Since a keyboard is only capital letters I was quite surprised by how well she did knowing which letter was which even though they appeared as small letters on her open file.
I am still considering writing in to tha magazine and saying how I feel about things, but need to find out a few things first - hence the typing experiment. My daughter likes typing very much and getting control over the keyboard. Yes, she musty still learn to write, but that can come a bit later.
I had starting teaching my lo keys on the keyboard, i have bought her a leap frog clickstart and she seems to be getting there. she is only 18months and enjoys keying very much.
Looking forward to hearing the results of your experiment.
I imagine it wouldn’t be very hard if your child knows his/her letters. My son knows how to move the mouse to wherever he wants and click on something. He has a computer game for pre-k that he can play all by himself. He also knows how to press the space bar to advance LR and LM lessons. I’m sure he would pick up “typing” very easily. I think the hardest part would be finding a letter out of all of them. He gets frustrated when there is a bunch of stuff and he can’t easily pick one thing out.
how silly!! I feel the same way…Catalina can actually press the next clicl, or the space bar, volume up,down and the silence key. So I can cook while she is enjoying LR…isn’t it great!!
My son loves typing on the computer too. He also has a few games he plays on the computer and has great click drag and drop skills. He uses delete/ backspace really wel to correct himself. He will sit and spell his own name since a couple of the games he is into either begin with entering your name or end with a certificate where you have to type your name. He seems to really love it. He first started mouse skills because he wanted to choose his own Thomas videos on youtube. Then he got into the Thomas and friends Special Delivery cd-rom game where he’s mastered the first level and needs very little assistance with the second level. This cd rom is great for any child that loves Thomas. It teaches great introductory keyboard skills. Literactive.com has a couple of games that require some drag and drop that he also seems to love. I’ve been sort of busy on my computer with work recently so hopefully soon I will be able to let him back on to explore further skills.
And Tanikit, I believe they must have made a mistake with the argument that gross and fine motor skills are a necessary component for reading readiness. It does not seem relevant. For writing, yes, but for reading…how could it possibly…?
I must admit my daughter has been using the computer for a while too - she uses the mouse to control LR on her own and we have also played games with her where she has had to use the arrow keys to move and press certain number buttons to get her character to do things. She still needs some work on good mouse control though but I think part of the problem is that we are using two screens and so what would have worked with only one screen is a bit of a problem. I have also allowed her to paint and draw pictures on the computer.
The typing however seems to be a bit different. I did not allow her to search too long for the correct key because of the numerous choices - if it took even a very short time I would show her, but she learnt where they are placed very quickly.
I have written a response to that article I read, but am still debating whether to send it to them. I think there would be some horror if I repeated the article itself here as it was rather anti teaching your child to read. Some of what it said I thought was contradictory - as in children have all these skills by 4-5 years of age (skills that are actually not needed) but then they tell us not to teach them and leave them to learn at school at age 7! They also say that you shouldn’t push your child to learn to read which I do agree with, but then surely at school that is exactly what will happen - they will be pushed so isn’t it better that a child learns at home.
Finally the one thing that really upsety me was that they said that parents are not trained to teach reading (as a teacher is) but then they said that children who can read in grade 1 can help other children with reading. Now if a parent is not qualified to teach reading then how on earth is it possible foir a grade 1 child to teach reading to a friend? If a grade 1 child can help then surely a parent can help far far more?
Now who can honestly argue that a teacher that instructs 10-24 kids is going to be more successful than a parent with a 1: 1 or even a 1:4 ratio. And your point about the 1st grader being touted as a more acceptable teacher than a parent seems really out of place with the argument you say they are making. Honestly, I like to read all opinions and take whatever I think is suitable for me and my child and leave the rest behind. I have to admit that it bother me just a little when I read articles from those that take road A OR B rather than try to see all points of view and accept that what works for one group of children or parents doesn’t necessarily work for others. I don’t know about you but sometimes you can see right through their “opinions” and clearly see the vehement judgement against anyone that deviates from what they consider acceptable. Not all children left to learn to read when they are “supposed” to are successful readers or great literature lovers. Just like not all children who learn early will be able to read and write novels by the time they’re 5. If my child is happy and shows signs of enjoying everything we do whether it involves reading, flashcards, videos, computers, sports etc, then leave me alone and mind your own child is what I say. There’s many a things that will contribute to the degrees of success or failure our children will encounter growing up, I am quite sure his ability to read and therefore open up a whole world of “early” knowledge is not going to ultimately result in him being a complete failure. Give me a break. Some people can be so close minded. Like those that think our children must me locked in all day studying, being quizzed and punished to learn. If anything, so many of us seem very concerned with making sure that our children are very well rounded, maximizing their experiences in all facets of their lives. Even when it involves reading opinions that deviate from what we do, we are quite open to taking from everything whatever little bit we think might help our endeavor to help our children develop this natural passions and abilities. That’s my vent for the day, slightly off track but there it is.
Well, in this techno world, we must teach them to type, first because it´s their reality. In my case, my child typed the name and only now she knows how to write it.
My 2 year old son is now able to use the laptop mouse pad to move the arrow to things he wants to click on. I only showed him twice and he can really do it now. He also got some sort of Leapfrog toy for Christmas that is like a blackberry. I wasn’t thrilled with it because here in Alaska we never text or use cellphones. But he really tuned into the letters which are the same as on a keyboard. I had never taught him the names of the letters because we were doing the Doman method. But he played around with this toy briefly and when he pressed on a letter it would tell him the name and it’s sounds. The other day a friend who is a special ed teacher was over at our house and was asking him what the letters were. He knew them all! I was shocked. Anyhow, now I can ask him to spell his name on the leapfrog thing and he can do it. So… I think he will have no problem typing and that the keyboard isn’t too confusing. The manual dexterity is a bit of a thing for now but he can one finger it.
But I am letting him explore with pencils - and play dough is really important for developing the muscles in the hand to be able to write with a pencil. So at age 2 I would emphasize playing with dough or clay more than holding the pencil. I see a lot of kids at age 8 who just have horrible handwriting because they never developed those muscles. (I’m a 2nd grade teacher) But like someone else said - we now write more on computer than on paper. But it still is an important skill to have.
We also love the LeapFrog ClickStart - they keys are layed out the same way they are on a computer, and they have some fun typing games.
I like having him play with this rather than our personal computer because, well, you know kids always seem to find the delete button and delete the most important stuff on your computer :o)
Which is great as it usually goes with ‘More! More!’