It is a common question that comes up time and again – which Math program is best? Rather than asking which is “best”, I believe we should focus on what works best for you and your child. The answer to this question will vary from family to family. To help you figure out what might work best for your family, we’ve highlighted some of the pros and cons of Doman Math (which will be the same for Shichida Math) vs Little Math.
Doman Math
Pros:
- Face to face – parent and child are face to face when you use the flashcards.
- Parent’s voice provides extra bonding rather than listening to a recorded voice.
Cons:
- Fiddly – handling the cards can be cumbersome, especially when your baby grows older and starts to get more mobile.
- Older babies may grab at the cards and want to play with them.
- Need to arrange the cards in readiness for the next session.
Little Math
Pros:
- Full year program pre-loaded. No lesson planning required before hand – unless you specifically want to teach your child something unique. You can run each lesson with the click of a button – no further preparation required.
- Flashcards are shown at random each time, so no shuffling required.
- There is more variety to the objects shown. Instead of representing quantities with red dots, you can have apples, planets, a baby’s face, etc. Different lessons show the quantities randomly scattered and ordered in different arrangements (e.g. in a grid). Although Doman believes this isn’t necessary, Shichida encourages it.
- Program records where you are up to so you know what you have taught even if you take a break from the program.
- Easily customised – if you want to make it more personal, you can use a picture of your baby’s face, or members of the family as the individual objects. I used Thomas characters for my older son and Mickey characters for my younger son. You can use your own voice recording if you don’t want some random voice saying the numbers.
- When your baby grows older and begins to be distracted easily by other objects, you can dim the lights to help your child focus on the flashcards.
- You can hold your baby while showing him the flashcards (you can even nurse him, if he’s still breastfeeding!) and this is very hard to do with physical flashcards.
Cons:
- Runs on the computer so there is no face-to-face element.