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"I HATE CHINESE!" - flyer write-up

This is a common phenomenon in Singapore and many parts of the world. Solve this problem fast and early.

“I HATE CHINESE!”

Sounds familiar? We can help.

By Lee Hann Yang (Founder of WINK to LEARN Chinese program)

Yes. It’s tough.

Our kids in Singapore today have a tough time learning Chinese. Everything is in English – signboards, menus, road signs, brochures and etc. Even parents are no longer conversing in Mandarin with their kids.

So what should I do as a parent?

The degree to which a child can fulfil her potential depends on the quality and frequency of stimulation she receives from birth.

The best people to provide this stimulation are the child’s mother and father, because no one knows the child better or adores the child more than her parents. Parents shower love and bring joy to the child's learning journey.

Start your child on WINK to LEARN Chinese Flashcard program as young as possible. Learn together with them.

Flashcards Method – Proven over 45 years of research in USA

The method of teaching children with flash cards was pioneered by Glenn Doman, founder of the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP), a non-profit organization that teaches parents how to maximize the potential of their brain-injured or normal child. IAHP believes that most people get nowhere near to realising their full genetic potential and every child born has a greater potential intelligence than Leonardo da Vinci ever used in his lifetime.

Children, and especially babies, learn at an extremely rapid pace – much faster than adults; much faster even than adults can imagine. WINK to LEARN Chinese DVD program keeps a child’s attention with different series of thematic fast-moving flashcards.

WINK to LEARN creates a breakthrough!

WINK to LEARN Flashcard DVDs use bright colours to separate different Chinese radicals. This improves memorization by 25%!

Spare your child 5 mins a day

WINK to LEARN DVD Flashcard lessons are intentionally short to captivate your child’s attention and sustain their interest. Your child is able to read and recognize more than 700 words.

More than words

The first 4 levels help your child to recognise and read Chinese words. 5th and 6th levels teaches your child to form phrases and construct sentences using the words learnt in the first 4 levels. WINK to LEARN Flashcard DVDs help your child to converse confidently in Chinese after six months of learning fun.

Now or never!

Research has proven children’s accelerated learning window closes by age 6. Once closed, opportunity will never return. Start your child on WINK to LEARN Flashcard DVD program as young as possible. 5 minutes a day lays a firm foundation and creates a passion in Chinese for life.

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Research Related to Early Literacy

Early Readers Increase the Gap Over Other Students Over Time

Stainthorp, R., & Hughes, D., (2004). An illustrative case study of precocious reading ability. Gifted Child Quarterly, 48, 107-120 

This comprehensive and longitudinal study explored the reading performance of a precocious reader, a group of early readers, and regular students. . . . The differences between their skills and those of the regular readers did not level out but continued to increase, comprehensions continued to improve, and an upward spiral in reading and LA and a secondary impact on other subjects (called the Matthews Effect). Some gifted students come to school as early or even precocious readers. Schools should identify this early reading and provide reading instruction and language arts opportunities that match the level of reading of each advanced child. The study shows that the early readers and especially the precocious reader not only continue to hold their advantage in reading skills, but improve at an increasingly fast rate when provided appropriate interventions.

The Neural Circuitry for Reading is Developed Early in Life

A study by Yale professors found that adults who could not read well in 2nd or 4th grade and in high school have “…neural circuitry for reading [that] was present but improperly connected.” This study, by Yale pediatricians, points out to parents and teachers that activating children's neural circuitry for reading early on is key. 

An author of the study, Lyon, says: "We have to have preschool and early education programs that know how to identify kids at risk and know how to provide them with substantial language and literacy interactions that are warm and nurturing--replicating what ideally they should find at home." 

http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov03/study.html

Your Child's Brain Develops Differently Based on the Age that Language Skills are Learned

It is important that the child have many different language experiences in order for these areas of the brain to be developed. My hypothesis is that learning to read as a baby leads to more efficient and more coordinated brain development for all of the language areas of the brain. I believe that it is similar to learning two languages as a baby where the child's brain has a smaller area of the brain that is active the later the child learns the language skills. Just like babies who learn a second language are able to speak without a foreign accent and they learn the patterns of the second language, babies who learn to read have often learned to read faster and with better comprehension -- probably because they learned during this period of rapid brain development and during the child's natural window of opportunity for learning language.

The Earlier the Child Learns to Read, the Better the Child Reads and the More Likely the Child Wants to Read

Children who were taught to read at age three or four read better than children who were taught at age five or six. Those taught at age seven or eight were farther behind. This was true even when comparing children of the same IQ and same socio-economic status. After eight years, the children taught earlier were ahead of children who were taught later. The children who were taught to read earlier were more likely to “devour books.” 

Durkin, D. (1966). Children who read early: Two longitudinal studies. New York: Teachers College Press. 

Durkin, D. (1974–1975). A six year study of children who learned to read in school at the age of four. Reading Research Quarterly, 1, 9–61.

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Tips to raise bilingual children

Bilingual & Multilingual Children's Association
Your practical web-guide to raising multilingual children. Expert advice and real world wisdom with parent discussions, tips and articles on kids growing up with multiple languages. From birth through school.

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When is my child able to start learning?

Quote from Dr. Robert Titzer, infant learning expert from United States, in June 2008 (Singapore):

Infants should be exposed to words as early as second month or third month - at the time when they get their visual tracking. There is a window of opportunity for learning languages - written and spoken - for babies, which begins to close by age four. Infants have tens of thousands of new brain connectors forming every single second. I don't think it's a good idea to wait until they are older.

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Will my child be stressed if they start reading/learning young?

Conversely, children from age of three months enjoy learning and reading. These are great bonding activities between the parents/caretakers and the children.

Quote from Glenn Doman & Janet Doman's book - How to teach your baby to read? The gentle revolution : While , naturally, no child wans specifically to learn to read until he knows that reading exists, all children want to absorb information about everything around them, and under the proper circumstances reading is one of these things. (Chapter 2: tiny children want to learn to read)

This is a highly recommended book which shares four basic facts with the reader:

1. Tiny children want to learn to read.

2. Tiny children can learn to read.

3. Tiny children are learning to read.

4. Tiny children should learn to read.

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What experts say about early learning?

Scientists have demonstrated that the first years of life are very important for the stimulation of a child's brain. This stimulation must be appropriate, precise and effective in order to obtain benefits and achievements in our children.

Approximately 100,000 million brain cells develop in the baby's brain between the sixth week and the fifth month of pregnancy. Some cells are already connected when the baby is born, but the majority are not. The ideal time for these cells to connect to each other is during the period between birth and 6 years of age, when they form increasingly complex neuronal networks. Hence the importance of early learning.

"Children have a furious desire to learn. They want to learn everything about everything and they want to learn it straightaway." - Glenn Doman

"Educating means encouraging the creation of the largest possible number of cerebral connections, surrounding the child with a caring atmosphere, and giving him or her an appropriate role model" - Francisco Kovacks

"Every child has the spontaneous urge to learn" - Maria Montessori

"We believe that from the child's birth until six years old is the most important stage in the development of character, personality and learning skills." - Makato Shichida

"I didn't invent an education method, I simply gave some children the opportunity to live" - Maria Montessori

"Nobody wants to or can learn as much or as well as a child aged under three years old." - Victor Estalayo

"Every child has the ability to excel, it is just a question of giving them the opportunity to bring out the intellectual potential that they have within them." - Glenn Doman

"At the moment it is born, every child has a higher potential intelligence than Leonardo da Vinci used in his entire life." - Glenn Doman

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Imaginative Play by Glenn Doman

Whether it's Halloween, Shakespeare, or pretending to be

a princess, is there a value to imaginative play?

From a kid's point of view, all play is imaginative, otherwise it is not play at all. The benefits of exercising one's imagination are huge. It has been said that anything one can imagine, one can do! Imaginative play is the basis of all creativity. Every poem, painting, and beautiful piece of music is a product of imaginative play. Mozart was famous for his irrepressible imaginative play. He never outgrew it. Every child is born with the exact same sense of imaginative play. This is native to human beings, we do not have to create it. However, we do need to appreciate it and encourage it.

How many adults have made it through their childhoods with their imaginative play intact? Not many. The few who have done so create wonderful things. What is more, they always seem to be having a great time doing it. This is the way we were all meant to grow up. When a child is raised in a household where his desire to explore, discover and create is respected, he will be given ample opportunity to explore, discover and create. Parents can aid and abet the child by providing data and a wide playing field on which the child can exercise his creative muscle.

Exercise for the Cortex

Imaginative play gives the child the opportunity to exercise his cortical muscle and to experiment with the data. The child naturally wishes to create an effect of some kind. Usually the bigger the effect created the better. When he plays he can see what experiments produce the biggest effect and which ones fall flat. He will certainly store what works and discard what does not. Data that has not been tested is not as easy to retrieve as data that has been tested and found to be useful. This tested data will be stored in the front files and will be much easier to access when he needs it in the future. This means his data bank and processor (the brain) will be more useful to him. He will develop the idea that exploration, discovery and creativity are easy for him and fun. He will seek to do more.

Poetry and the Arts are the Springboard

Children understand that they can be anything, do anything and have anything as long as we do not convince them otherwise. Being a prince or a princess is just the beginning of trying out "being anything". Once a little child is introduced to Shakespeare, he can be "Oberon," or she can be "Titania," or "Puck" or "Bottom". Thus begins a life-long love of poetry and the arts. The benefits of pretending to be anything and everything at the earliest possible moment are gigantic.

Shrew Wedding

Students from the The International School perform Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew

Poetry Challenge: Think of all the poems you love. Choose the one that you think your child may like best. Recite that poem every day for your child. Be consistent. After a few weeks, if your child has not already begun to recite it with you, leave out the last word of the last line and see if he joins in.

Yesterday upon the stair
I saw a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
Gee I wish he'd go away!
- Hugh Means (1875 - 1965)

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What Does Your Child Really Want? By Glenn Doman

Here's a great idea - Ask him!

Whether you have a 8-month-old who uses the birth cry when he wants to ask for something, or a severely brain-injured 8-year-old who has meaningful sounds but no words yet, knowing what your child really needs and wants can be a challenge. Mothers often agonize over what new reading words would be best, what print size is best right now, or whether or not the new homemade book is sophisticated enough for her child. The heart of a great home program is knowing what your child really wants every time.

Here's a great idea - ask him.

Yes, ask him.

Your child is the leading authority in the world on what he needs and wants. Ask him and he will tell you. Children always know what they want but they very often can not express it. Very young children and hurt children cannot always retrieve the word they want when they want it. Their ideas come quickly but the words do not. Sometimes they have no words at all yet, but they have big ideas and many needs. This creates frustration, which is deepened by the fact that adults are not good listeners and are often not willing to wait for an answer.

Can we blame the baby or the hurt child for using the birth cry to get what he wants? It always gets our full attention immediately. Often the more civilized attempts to communicate were missed or ignored. How can we change this? A simple question and a choice board can help enormously. We say quietly to the screaming child, "Are you hungry?" and then we hold up a little choice board with YES, NO, and OTHER written on it in large print. We gently move his hand to touch each word. "Is it YES, NO, or OTHER?" we ask. Now we bring his hand back and let him choose. He chooses OTHER, so we say "OK, thank you for helping me find out what you need."

Different examples of choice boards

We make a second choice board with THIRSTY, TIRED, or OTHER. Again, we move his hand to each word as we say them, then we bring his hand back and let him choose. He chooses TIRED.

"Are you tired?" we ask. Then we hold up the right hand and say YES and the left hand and say NO. He immediately looks at the right hand (indicating YES). "Ok, let's take a little nap together!" we say. He is now content and happy to take a little nap.
Problem solved. Case closed.

Our mothers often use little white erasable boards so that they can quickly and easily keep changing the choices to find out what their child wants. This is not substitute for speech, but rather a powerful bridge to develop it. Giving choices enhances the development of language and increases the child's willingness and desire to communicate.

It opens the door to better communication so that mother is certain that she is doing the right thing for her child. There is no more guessing. Those reading words she is teaching now were chosen by the child, the print size is the one he picked, and she knows that the homemade book she created last week was a hit.

CHALLENGE

This week when your child is crying or angry make a little choice board. Be gentle, be patient, and trust him. He is a very bright fellow he knows what he wants. Be a good detective and find out what he wants.