Early education – this is something I’ve had in mind to post about for some time now but since it is a huge topic I’ve kept putting it off. Today I got inspired to write it because of something that happened with Logan. I won’t go into a long dissertation on the benefits of early education; there is way too much to say on the topic. I’m just going to give you the proof that it works.

When Logan was 7 months old, I decided I needed to start him on the joys of learning. I know from everything that I’ve studied on the topic (thousands of pages over the past 15 years or so) that there is no better time than babyhood for a child to learn things simply. I pulled out the flashcards, math dots, picture facts  and I went to work.

The basic idea of early learning is that you give the child input, even if you think they aren’t capable of learning it yet. Glenn Doman was a pioneer in this area of early learning, working first with brain-injured children and later with well children. You can learn more here.

Ok, we all know that a baby’s brain is the greatest computer ever built and that the more information you give it, the more space is available on that “hard drive” to store even more stuff, unlike conventional computers that have limited space, even if it is 100 or so GB. Once it’s full, that’s it, won’t hold more. But a baby’s brain will expand to hold everything you put into it. How cool is that?

I’ve taught many children from young ages, but somehow it is different when you have your own child. As much as I wanted to pour so much into him, I was being held back by, “I need to do one more thing, wash one more load of laundry, clean one more thing” so that by the time I was ready to give him attention, he was ready to sleep and the opportunity was missed.

About one month ago I was discouraged with my lack of being able to give him the input I know I am capable of giving him, so I made a plan for how to go about it. I typed out exactly what I want to do with him, made sure the materials were all together in one place, and then committed to giving him at least ½ hr. of focused time every day.

I would sit with him and show him all the flashcards, math dots and picture facts, plus things like reading a baby book together or watching a video.

Then the magic began to take place.

Today we were going over the words he has been doing for the past week. I decided for fun to see if he knew them by holding up two and asking him to pick the right one. Guess what? HE GOT THEM ALL RIGHT! I’m not joking. After doing this week’s words, I took last week’s words which he hasn’t reviewed all week and checked him on them and he also got those right. He can read about 20 words now.
Then I checked him on the math dots using the same method. He can identify any number up to 60 (that’s as far as he’s done) and HE CAN ADD! I’ve been doing addition with him for the past two weeks and he gets right every problem I ask him. He just grabs the card with the correct answer every time.

He also has a great time when I show him the alphabet and phonics flashcards. He has just begun those, but I feel that these will help him with learning to read faster.

He likes to see picture facts on a variety of topics, will watch a Baby Einstein or Kiddie Viddie video all the way through, and is now watching videos in Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and Hindi in order to be ground in the basics of these languages.

Seeing him learn these things has me so excited. He is just too smart for only being 9 months, but then again, any baby can be as smart if they receive the same input. On the physical side, he can now clap his hands on his own. When he gets excited he waves his arms around and makes all the noise he can. He is the most adorable person around and I can’t get enough of him.

Mr. Smartypants

Watching a spanish Baby Einstein on food.

This is from our trip that I talked about in my last post. He fell asleep on daddy’s shoulder while waiting for the bus.

Logan and his best friend, Eric.