Educational psychology
In truth, Glenn Doman bothered the academic world back in the 70s since he broke with paradigms that established and predetermined that learning was promoted by “that which is taught, and not by who learns”. Importantly, he innovated when he demonstrated that the baby, once assisted by the mother, could have access to knowledge much earlier than what had been accepted in the past. Some preconceived notions, such as the following, have been broken with to allow early reading and literacy and we will discuss here how this was achieved, by parents, for the good of their babies.
Preconceived notion #1 – Parents should not stimulate their babies.
o How has this been broken with?
When the child arrives at school, s/he has already been through a whole world of experiences, of being exposed to technological and informational society (visual pollution). The parents are teaching their babies to speak, to observe, to walk and to listen. The brain learn what it sees, hears, smells and feels. With each passing day, the baby builds knowledge of the culture in which s/he’s immersed.
Today’s society provides stimuli through colors, and the size of advertisements, through television and the urge to sell products for profits’ sake. Families have access to means of communication, and almost every home has a computer, a TV, and telephones among other products that communicate without asking whoever it is the communication aims to reach whether or not it’s been authorized to do so. Within this context, babies are stimulated. It is the parents’ role to administer that which can be shown to them. If parents do not care for what stimuli the baby can be exposed to, then society trespasses the intimacy of the home, determining that which must be learned. It is thus the parents’ initial responsibility to resolve the issue. It is neither up to the State, nor the institutions with teaching attributions to resolve who and what is stimulating the brain.
Preconceived notion #2 – Parents should not force their babies, stealing their childhood away as they teach them as if they were teachers
o How has this been broken with?
Teaching babies to read is not nor has it ever been a reason for “losing” childhood. Reading time consists of quality moments of joy, play, and enjoyment between parent and baby. The baby learns via affection, and thus for wanting to play the reading game. To steal a childhood away is, for example, to leave children in front of the TV without activities that develop the imagination, that is, without giving them the opportunity to engage in creative games.
Preconceived notion #3 – It is not the parents who teach, but the schools
o How has this been broken with?
Schools are no longer being able to teach our children. There are difficulties in bringing knowledge, innovations and information from the community to the classroom at the same pace in which they happen outside of the school system. It is a question of updating the quantity of information that occurs in real life, in real time.
Furthermore, the works of identification of gifted/children with specific dispositions show that the stimuli in the home environment provide for the gifts in ‘gifted’. Children already arrive at school with talents and dispositions developed in environments made rich for inhabited by the parents. Teaching at home shows that is possible to develop teaching outside of school. After all, there exist many parents in different countries with more time and better training than many of the teachers inserted in both public and private school systems. With such a realization and within the desire to provide them with the best opportunities as early as possible, parents can indeed teach their babies how to read.
Preconceived notion #4 – The child should learn only when s/he’s ready. Every precocious stimulus is harmful.
o How has this been broken with?
Once again, a preconceived notion underestimated the baby’s capabilities. Why is it that only those who show talent in music or sport can be stimulated early? When is it, then, that the child is ready? What possible reference pointing in terms of social levels, countries, communities? Who determines when to teach? Only the child’s curiosity. The parents must stay alert as to when; the moments. But much more than this, they have to try and see how easy it is to teach a baby to read.
Once the preconceived notion are overcome, we start to witness that the baby can and does do much more than out small capacity to understand the human brain, as well as what it will be able to do in the future. After all, do we believe or not in evolution?
Glen Doman was a visionary. We pay him our respects. If the miracle of reading as a baby has been witnessed by me through the development of my own children, I believe that all babies born in the last century – and who will be born in this one – can do the same.
Here’s to the baby revolution! In the search for peace and solutions for the world’s problems, and in favor of all man and womankind, may this be the end of the Jurassic illiteracy era.
After exposing these four key preconceived notions, and the discussion above, we can affirm that:
1 – The baby can learn at home with the parents;
2 – The baby learns without the understanding of reading rules because s/he learns as s/he plays; and he brain is open to the learning of the word for s/he already knows the concept;
3 – The words are shown and the brain learns through the building of mental schemes, structures that will be used throughout his/her life;
4 – In this process, there is no training, because it is not possible to “train” a baby. It is s/he who learns.
5 – The baby understands and identifies that which s/he sees. His/her knowledge of the world is relative to the knowledge of the world s/he built. It is not ours!;
6 – A baby, when s/he reads a word, s/he identifies and recognizes it;
7 – The parents should stimulate their babies before the community without responsibility does so;
8 – In this process, they are not stealing away the baby’s childhood; they are, instead, guaranteeing that the latter is being preserved through play, in the development of creativity, and the enjoyment in a teaching and learning relationship;
9 – Yes, parents do teach. They can teach. It is the primordial duty. To have a child is not simply to feed, shelter, and care for. It is to assist so that s/he may build a healthy knowledge of the world. For the future. Schools come to help us socialize the child and promote the updating of all content needed for life within society; and
10 – Let us not underestimate babies’ capacity to build a knowledge of the world, in their own way, and as soon as they can.
Translation by: Inessa Leao Figueiredo, MS.
Educational psychology
Source by Eliane Leao
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