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http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/oct/14/childhood-stimulation-key-brain-development

Some quotes:

Farah’s results showed that the development of the cortex in late teens was closely correlated with a child’s cognitive stimulation at the age of four. All other factors including parental nurturance at all ages and cognitive stimulation at age eight – had no effect. Farah said her results were evidence for the existence of a sensitive period, early in a person’s life, that determined the optimal development of the cortex. “It really does support the idea that those early years are especially influential.”

Andrea Danese, a clinical lecturer in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, said … that this kind of research highlighted the “tremendous role” that parents and carers had to play in enabling children to develop their cognitive, social, and emotional skills by providing safe, predictable, stimulating, and responsive personal interactions with children.

It’s a bit of a pity that the study only started on the children when they were 4.  Do we need to wait for another 20 years for science to do another longitudinal study to prove what we already witness ourselves all the time – that early learning for babies and toddlers will also have a long term beneficial impact?

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Feel free to discuss this blog post in the comments here or in this Forum post:
http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/latest-research-showing-long-term-benefits-of-early-learning/

KL Wong is the Founder and CEO of BrillKids, and also father of Felicity, aged 6. He can be contacted at KL(at)brillkids(dot)com.

Cultural shifts in society usually happen over decades. Then along comes new technology and everything changes overnight. That’s exactly what seems to be happening in the world of baby/toddler reading. Lap reading alone is “out,” and software-driven reading lessons are “in.”

Good parenting skills include instilling babies and toddlers with a life-long sense of curiosity and exploration. What about a life-long sense of curiosity and exploration of words and reading? Wouldn’t it be nice if more kids loved reading from the beginning? Many new parents who are pressed for time and who embrace technology themselves are welcoming babies and toddlers into a new world for experiencing words and language in addition to the tried and true comfortable world of lap reading.

I bumped head-on into the world of baby/toddler reading technology myself mostly after the publication of my book for parents and caregivers, Raising Confident Readers: How to Teach Your Child to Read and Write—From Baby to Age 7 . (The book made me a “go to” person for baby/toddler reading products such as Your Baby Can Read, Little Reader, WatchKnow and others.) Now, only two years after the book’s publication, I get tons of questions from parents and caregivers about baby/toddler readers and new technology. Here are five most frequently asked questions with answers.

1) Can babies really read and is it natural?

Most parents and even some educators don’t understand that the young child’s brain is hard-wired for early reading, but advances in brain imaging are changing that misconception. Scientist Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the University of Washington Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, and her colleagues have shown images of white matter in the 9-month-old brain connecting areas used for talking, grammar, reading, and social interaction with areas for listening and understanding. Dr. Kuhl reports that the track that connects areas of the brain used for reading is present in infants before 12 months of age.1 The first stage in baby/toddler reading is learning to read words without knowledge of letters and sounds. Many toddlers can read by decoding new words by 2 or 3 years of age. Four-year olds can read chapter books. A change in the culture in schools is already needed to accommodate early readers.

Baby/toddler reading is as natural as language learning. These early readers aren’t just geniuses with special capacities; every child’s brain appears to be wired for early reading, just as it’s wired for learning language. The window of opportunity for acquiring languages is understood to be between 0 and 7, when virtually any language you put in front of a child can be acquired with great skill. In fact, babies and toddlers can learn languages better and more easily than adults. Beyond age 7, the language-learning skill diminishes. While a new language can be learned after age 7—just as one can learn to read later in life—it’s learned differently and not automatically or with the same ease of production. When a parent or caregiver stimulates the reading brain through social interaction, babies and toddlers who crack the reading code likely use special brain-based computational skills similar to the way they crack the speech code and build concepts and vocabulary.2

2) What’s wrong with learning to read in school?

Waiting until age 6 to learn to read presents problems, especially in America where 88% of poor readers in first grade will be poor readers in fourth grade.3 The root of the problem is that one third of the kids entering kindergarten aren’t ready for success with reading. They haven’t reached a pivotal benchmark for beginning reading: They can’t write their names, clap out syllables, name some letters, recognize even a few words in print, or tell about a favorite book that has been read to them over and over.4 This year in America, 33% or about 1.5 million children entered kindergarten without these preschool skills. Why? Because nobody taught them. Sadly, many kindergarten and first grade teachers are not well prepared to teach beginning reading and in poor communities they often have too many students who come to them underprepared.

3) Why not just lap read?

Reading aloud and talking to preschoolers is fundamental, but lap reading or bedtime stories may not be sufficient to enable young children to pick up reading. Longitudinal results from a recent study show that drawing attention to print in explicit ways during book reading to preschoolers enhanced the child’s reading, comprehension, and spelling scores two years later.5 The point of the study was that during lap reading, the child’s attention had to be drawn to how words work.

So the lap reading question becomes “Where are your baby’s eyes looking?” It’s well established that children don’t learn to read by looking at the pictures or at Mommy’s or Daddy’s face during lap reading.6 Some of the new soft-ware driven reading tools use overt means to evoke the child’s visual and verbal attention to the printed word, making this important quality of first good teaching easy for parents because attention to word properties is built directly into word games. For example, the programs use subtle and informal introduction of letter-sound correspondence and left-to-right directionality of spelling. Parents make sure the child’s eyes are in the right spot for reading simply by pointing to a curser that tracks a word’s spelling from left to right on the computer screen in concert with vocal presentation of the word.

4) What about phonics?

Some software driven programs order word presentation and sequence easy-books so that the reader can “pick up” knowledge of phonics patterns. How toddlers do this is not well understood, but it likely involves capacities for pattern recognition and inductive learning. It does not involve the deductive memorization of phonics rules and applications associated with formal instruction. That’s much too hard for toddlers.

This ordered presentation helps kids learn chunks of letter-sound correspondence just as they inductively learn the rules of grammar when learning to speak in phrases and sentences. That is to say, they learn to apply phonics rules by experiencing printed language in use, rather than by having the rules explained or by consciously deducing the rules. Along with the word games, engaging illustrated little stories contrasting words and patterns such as pink pig, pig wig, two pigs, and two wigs enable kids to intuit letter-sound correspondences for letters such a p, w, the ending s sound, and the –ig and –ink chunk. By 2 or 3 years of age, many early readers astonish their parents as they begin to use pattern phonics to unlock words they have never seen.

5) Is it safe?

Teaching early reading requires intimate physical contact, such as snuggling with a book or cuddling with the baby or toddler at the computer. Perhaps the best thing about either lap reading or cuddling at the computer with word games is that the activities build positive parent-child social interactions and expand opportunity for the parent and the child to talk and have fun with books, concepts, and words. The big question is how is the baby/toddler responding? Is the child having fun while learning? If the technology makes it easy for parents to customize reading “lessons” and present them in a brief game-type format that a child enjoys, it’s safe. If your 2-year old can read the word grandpa on a cell phone ap along with a pic of grandpa waving, you have found your mojo as a reading teacher. If you are using the DVD as a baby sitter, it’s harmful. Babies don’t learn language or reading by watching TV alone, they are people persons.

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Discuss this by posting a comment below, or on the BrillKids Forum:

http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-to-read/’cultural-shift-in-babytoddler-reading’-by-dr-richard-gentry/

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(First published on June 21, 2012 by J. Richard Gentry, Ph.D. in Raising Readers, Writers, and Spellers)

1 http://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=3ED60AA6-E899-11E0-B00E000C296BA163

2  Patricia Kuhl, “Cracking the Speech Code: Language and the Infant Brain” Pinkel Lecture, Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, University of Pennsylvania. April 16, 2010. For the full lecture go tohttp://www.ircs.upenn.edu/pinkel/lectures/kuhl/index.shtml .

3 Connie Juel, “Learning to Read and Write: A Longitudinal Study of 54 Children from First Through Fourth Grades.” Journal of Educational Psychology, 80 (4) 443–47. 1988.

4 J. Richard Gentry, Raising Confident Readers: How to Teach your Child to Read and Write—From Baby to Age 7. New York: Da Cappo Press, 2010.

6 Shayne B. Piasta, Laura M. Justice, Anita S. McGinty, & Joan N. Kaderavek, (2012). Increasing young children’s contact with print during shared reading: Longitudinal effects on literacy achievement. Child Development, 83(3), 810–820.

Dr. J. Richard Gentry is the author of Raising Confident Readers, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Write–From Baby to Age 7 . Follow him on Facebook , Twitter , and LinkedIn and find out more information about his work on his website .

A former University professor and elementary school teacher, Dr. Gentry brings to BrillKids over thirty years of experience in the field of early education. He is also the author of many books including Raising Confident Readers: How to Teach Your Child to Read—From Baby to Age 7.

Dr. Gentry joined the BrillKids Foundation team earlier this year to help with our “early education for every child” mission. Now, he will also be contributing his thoughts on early childhood education on the BrillKids Blog.

By way of introduction, we took the opportunity to conduct a written interview with Dr. Gentry for the benefit of BrillKids members:

I’ve studied beginning reading for over thirty years and have written books about how very young children learn to read in school. Although I knew many children learned to read as babies and toddlers before entering school, there is little research on 2- and 3-year-old readers and I had not worked with them, so like most reading professors and researchers, baby/toddler reading was an academic blind spot. After being invited to write a book for parents about raising readers, my first thoughts were “Get to work!” I had waited too long to investigate this important topic. It took me three years to write the book!

Almost everything I learned surprised me—there were new discoveries about beginning reading with great potential for the reading world. The work I did with parents who were successful teaching their babies and toddlers to read opened new doors to my thinking. I learned that babies learn to read differently and more easily than children who learn to read in school from formal instruction and that the most important aspect of early reading was interaction with loving parents and bonding. I’m convinced that baby/toddler reading has long-term positive effects on children such as better facility with language, building intelligence, and boosting academic success in school.

Some experts don’t understand the importance of early “word reading.” Baby/toddler readers likely go through a different set of steps for organizing the reading brain circuitry than six-year-old nonreaders who learn to read from formal instruction in school. Some experts don’t recognize that babies pick up reading easily from developmentally appropriate interactions with parents and they have special language capacities from birth to age three, just as they do with learning multiple languages, enabling them to do remarkable things with learning to read during this special window of opportunity for brain development. Most of the experts who are skeptical think real reading begins with phonics and they don’t recognize that given the right exposure, toddlers can intuit the rules of phonics over time just like they intuit the rules of grammar which are necessary to speak in sentences. I predict that new discoveries from brain scanning will soon show development of the beginnings of brain circuitry for reading in babies and toddlers. Magnetic electroencepholography has potential to show changes in brain architecture with babies reading words as early as eight months of age and perhaps potential to track how the toddler’s reading brain circuitry grows over time. My hypothesis is that the studies will show development as baby/toddler readers move from reading words to couplets to sentences along with other language related developments. (For more on this see my blog post, “Revolutionary Machine Reveals Baby Geniuses“.)

We know that early reading also includes a lot of early memory reading by children who love reading their favorite books over and over with their parents. But surprisingly, teaching babies and toddlers to read need only take little time—five or ten minutes a day along with routine story reading and book sharing. It’s really about brief lessons that are more like word games to the child, lessons that are fun to play with mom, dad or a care giver along with enjoying books together. All children should have these experiences as babies and toddlers. Experts who aren’t in favor of baby/toddler reading don’t get the concept. They usually think it’s forced, formal, or beyond the babies capacity to read. Of course, it isn’t.

From an instructional standpoint the keys to success are found in the acronym READ: Repetition—Enthusiasm—Attention—Drawing. (Early pencil and paper activity often leads the child to try writing and to think about how the system works.) But the real keys to success are simple: parent interaction and bonding, enjoying books and word games, never using force. Reading? If you put it out there and let babies and toddlers have fun with it they soak it up.

I would probably ask to talk to Michelle. I’d say let’s do for baby toddler reading what you have done for childhood obesity—make it a national priority. I would explain how baby/toddler reading could revolutionize educational reform in America and do more than any other single concept to erase the achievement gap (because the achievement gap starts before kids enter school), and then I would explain why America needs to lead a campaign for baby/toddler reading worldwide. Coupled with today’s technology, imagine a world where every child learns to read joyfully and has a chance at self-fulfillment. Everyone benefits. Baby/toddler reading is a powerful concept for a bright world future.

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Feel free to leave comments here or discuss this topic in this Forum thread:
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-to-read/please-welcome-dr-richard-gentry-to-brillkids!-(interview-re-early-reading)/

You may find out more about Dr. Richard Gentry at his website: http://www.jrichardgentry.com

What have we been up to?  Quite a lot!

US Infomercial

The main thing that has been occupying my time, since the beginning of this year, actually, is the production of a 30-minute infomercial on Little Reader, for the US market.  I’m happy to announce that it’s just been launched, and we just finished our first week of test airings!  As we continue to make adjustments to the show and re-test it, those of you in the US and Canada might see the show on and off over the next few months.

For those of you interested to see the show, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmKyiTGvSp4

(This is an edited version with repeated segments removed.)

I also talked about the testimonials that we got from parents in this Forum thread:

http://forum.brillkids.com/little-reader/the-little-reader-testimonial-project!/

Little Musician

As many of you may know, we started beta testing of Little Musician a few months back.  Since then, we’ve continued to add more features to it based on your feedback, and most importantly, we’ve been working on putting together a curriculum that takes you by the hand and guides you what you show to your child each day.  This is especially crucial for parents who have little or no music background.

There are many enhancements that have been added, but the 2 main features you will see are:

- Rhythm syllables – ie., Ta, Ta-ah, Ti, Tika, etc.

- Customizable icons to replace note heads – Similar to how you can use all sorts of icons instead of dots in Little Math, you can now use your own icons instead of the note heads too!

Little Reader

We’re very excited with what we’ve been doing with Little Reader. In the next major update (tentatively called “v3″), you will see new features including:

- Child Profiles – Keep track of different children’s progress

- Game mode – Show different words and have your child choose the correct one

- Split Audio – Audio files can be split so that each phoneme, syllable or word can be sounded out separately

- Course Creator – Edit our curricula, and create your own course!

For full details, see my Forum post here:

http://forum.brillkids.com/little-reader/little-reader-v3-0-look-what’s-coming-next!/

Little Reader Touch for iPad

We will soon be launching our iPad version of Little Reader, called Little Reader Touch (“LRT”).

LRT is designed to be the iPad companion to Little Reader for the PC, so that existing LR users can play back their lessons using the iPad instead of the PC.  This is similar to how the BrillKids Presentation Binder Set also allows you to teach your child away from the PC and in the comfort of your living room.

The functions of LRT are currently still limited, so you still have to rely on the PC version to do many things such as editing lessons.

Further details on what this means for existing LR users will be announced in due course.

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Feel free to discuss this blog post in the comments here or in this Forum post:
http://forum.brillkids.com/announcements/what-have-we-been-up-to-at-brillkids/

KL Wong is the Founder and CEO of BrillKids, and also father of Felicity, aged 6. He can be contacted at KL(at)brillkids(dot)com.

As promised in an earlier blog post (Why I Avoid Classical Piano Teaching For My Daughter), here is an update on Little Musician.

Over the recent weeks, we’ve been working feverishly hard to get this out. One reason Little Musician has taken so long is that we kept wanting to add more features to it to enhance the experience.

Although I was a classically trained pianist many years ago, I’ve been learning a lot of new things about music education over the years, and the more I learned, the more I felt compelled to add new features to Little Musician. We’ve now got to a stage where I’m very happy with the features we have in it, and I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Here are some of the key features:

MUSIC NOTES

The core section of the system displays musical notes in their written form (on the grand staff), with the sound of the notes played simultaneously. Notes are displayed on the treble and/or bass clefs, along with key signatures and accidentals. Sounds can be one or many different instruments, or can be a voice file, like a voice saying “C”, or singing “Do”.

Notes and sounds can also be displayed as how they are played on a musical keyboard.

Through this system, some of the things a child will learn to do include:

-          Hearing a note and knowing what it is called, in terms of the note name and solfege syllable.

-          Seeing a note in written form and knowing what it is called, in terms of the note name and solfege syllable.

-          Seeing a note in written form and being able to sing out the pitch in solfege.

-          Sight-singing multiple notes / melodies

-          Singing popular nursery rhymes in solfege

-          Developing a strong sense of relative pitch, and hopefully even absolute/perfect pitch

The child will also become familiar with:

-          Different keys and their key signatures

-          Scales and arpeggios (major, harmonic minor, etc.) in different keys

-          Chords in different keys

-          The musical keyboard

Like with Little Reader and Little Math, there are a lot of different options and display varieties. For example, the staff and notes can be displayed with different colors to make it more visually appealing, and notes can also be displayed with labels within the note head (like “C” or “Do”). The musical keyboard can also be similarly labeled, and even colored. Instruments used can also be set to random, so that a random instrument plays each time.

Lessons are structured as presets, and they are in many ways similar to how presets work in Little Math.

RHYTHM

Another section of Little Musician focus on helping a child acquire a sense of rhythm. Nursery rhymes (or any song in midi format) can be played, and the child is encouraged to clap along to different beat rhythms. What the child sees will be a series of falling balls or icons, bursting when they hit a line at the bottom (which is when they are supposed to clap). There is also an animation of a child clapping along to that beat.

KNOWLEDGE

This is a bonus feature that will be available to those with Little Reader installed. They are essentially LR-style lessons relating to musical knowledge and concepts, such as musical instruments, music styles, composers, etc.

FREE PLAY MODE

This feature has two modes.

The keyboard mode allows you to play out music notes on an on-screen musical keyboard. You can play out the notes by using your computer keyboard to simulate a musical keyboard, or by using your mouse to press on the musical keyboard on the screen.

As you press on the keys, you can also show the notes on the grand staff, so it’s an instant display of the written note according to what key(s) you press.

What’s more, you can even click anywhere on the staff view and the relevant note will display on the staff and sound out.

The sound played can be chosen from a large variety of instruments, or even voice files like the solfege set – eg., by pressing the “C” key, you would hear “Do” sung out. Play out any tune on the keyboard and hear it sung out in solfege!

You can also switch from keyboard mode to ‘chord trainer mode’. There are 9 chords that you can choose to play back (C, F, and G chords in three different inversions). Pressing on one will display the chord in staff view and have the chord played out by an instrument, or sung out in solfege (eg., “Do mi so”).  This is useful for chord recognition exercises which is perhaps the best way to train a child to develop absolute pitch.

IMPORT/EXPORT

Like with Little Reader and Little Math, you can import and export a number of things, such as presets or lessons that you create (which could be a simple melody, or even a fully-arranged song in midi format), and sound sets.

So, when will it be released?

We are looking good for a June or July beta release. This beta will likely be a ‘closed’ beta initially where only selected members will be asked to participate. More details will be announced but we are hoping to have people with a certain level of music understanding and experience to test it out first.

Not sure how long the beta testing period will last, but it’ll probably be around 2-3 months, I think.

Stay tuned for further announcements concerning the beta testing launch!

Ask questions or leave comments here, or on this Forum discussion thread:
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-music/little-musician-update/

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KL Wong is the Founder and CEO of BrillKids, and also father of Felicity, aged 5. He can be contacted at KL(at)brillkids(dot)com.