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Hi Shruti Mittal – may I ask if this has always been the case since your daughter was little or has this only started recently? I ask because 27 months is close to the 3-year-old mark where the dot program can lose its effectiveness. It does vary from child to child. My firstborn did not like dots but I tried to start it when he was nearly 3. My second child loved the dot program and BrillKids Little Math (he enjoyed it more than Little Reader).
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The problem with Dots is that some children find it boring and lose interest in the program because they don’t want to see red dots. Some mums get creative and used other images, like ladybugs, flowers, cars, or any other image that your child might fancy. They also set them up in fancy patterns instead. For my firstborn, I was able to get back his interest when I used Thomas the tank engine trains instead of red dots.
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One of the issues about “problem-solving” is that children dislike being tested. Doman strictly tells us not to test the child but to play games. My problem with games is that our emotions come into play. When the child is not doing what we want them to do, we get anxious and frustrated. Young children are adept at reading your emotions because this is the only form of communication they have. These emotions can make them anxious and frustrated, too, and then they don’t want to do the activity anymore. It is so easy to lose your child’s attention and so hard to bring it back after it’s lost. When I can’t trust myself to behave appropriately, I choose not to do the activity rather than jeopardise my connection with my child because it is important for both Mum and child to be happy, connected, and relaxed.
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The thing about subitising… It is worth being aware of the following from BrillKids – https://www.brillbaby.com/teaching-baby/math/subitizing/subitize-this.php:
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“The ability to subitize large quantities will typically fade away as a child grows older. The exact age at which children lose this ability varies from person to person. However, it is safe to say that children retain the ability to perceive large quantities at least up to the age of two and a half…
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…The ability to perceive quantity – or to name a perceived quantity – does not of course automatically give your child the ability to do math. But if you can get your child doing equations before he loses the ability to subitize large quantities, then your child should always understand the reality of such equations – even after he has lost the ability to subitize their components. His brain will have been trained to manipulate dozens, even hundreds of items, just as effortlessly as the rest of us can visually subtract 5 items from 7 to make 2.
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What will this mean in the long run? It may not be possible to train your child to become one of the world’s greatest mathematicians. What you can do, however, is give your child the gift of feeling comfortable with numbers and numerical concepts starting from before school – and for the rest of her life.”
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I hope that helps.
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Palace memory is a little like Peg memory, except, instead of using numbers and images for the pegs, we use a place. For it to be effective, it should be a place that is very familiar, like your home. Usually, I recommend starting palace memory with an older child so they can understand the process.
If you’re using your home, think of a route that you would travel through your house. It must be the same route each time. Let’s say you come home, the front door will be your first stop as you will need to unlock the door to enter the house. Similar to the peg memory, this would be Peg 1 – front door.
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Once you’re through the front door, what do you do next? Maybe you take off your shoes and put it into the shoe cabinet. This is Peg 2 – shoes.
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Next, you want to rest for a while so you go to your living room and sit in your big armchair. This is Peg 3 – armchair.
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As you’re relaxing in your chair, you turn on the TV for a little while. This is Peg 4 – TV.
It’s going to be dinner time soon, so you have to go to the kitchen to start cooking. There you must open the fridge to collect your food items. This is Peg 5 – fridge.-
Keep going in this manner until you have created a complete route through your house. You must remember this route in the same way that we memorise the pegs from peg memory.
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When you need to remember say your shopping list, you will peg each item on your list to one of the memory palace pegs.
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Say you need to remember lemons, spinach, chicken, milk and rice. The first stop is the front door, so you have to create a vivid image linking your lemons to the front door. It could be something as silly as finding a lemon as a door knob on your front door.
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The next stop is your shoes and we need to link spinach to your shoes. You can imagine a big bunch of spinach growing out of your shoes.
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The next stop is your armchair. You want to sit in it but you can’t because a big chicken has stolen your spot.
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The next stop is the TV. Let’s imagine the TV melting into a big puddle of milk.
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The next stop is the fridge. You open the fridge door and rice keeps spilling out all over the kitchen floor.
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Remember the wilder the imagery, the easier it is to remember. Then when you’re at the supermarket, you go through your “memory palace” and collect all the items you need to remember.
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This is just a simple example. I hope it helps to clarify. Please let me know if you need me to explain further.
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Hi Ekta Agarwal – Usually, most children start writing from about 3 years. Some can start earlier and others later. It depends on the child.
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You can start introducing “mark-making” from 1 to 2 years. At this age, your child will be able to hold a crayon and make marks on paper. It is good to encourage this as it helps them develop the muscles in their hands. You can encourage colouring as well using those large colouring books with big pictures. Don’t worry about colouring within the lines, just encourage the action.
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There are also activities you encourage your child to practice which help build the hand muscles and teach your child the “pincer grip” which is needed for holding a pencil. Activities like threading beads, using a pair of tweezers, and pinching clothes pegs are great for helping children to practice their pincer grip. Activities like kneading play dough, pressing LEGO-type blocks together, and cutting paper with a pair of scissors are terrific hand strengthening activities.
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You can also read more here:
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https://figur8.net/2014/11/02/mark-making-and-emergent-writing-supporting-childrens-writing-at-home/
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and here:
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If your child is moving more it may be that this is now her interest to develop. Children go through phases of intense development where their focus is on that one thing they want to master. This can be more intense in some children and that may be why she isn’t interested in books right now because she wants to move and has discovered that movement allows her freedom to explore.
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What you can do is find a quieter time to bring out the books. For instance when she’s having her milk bottle or nursing time? Winding down before bedtime.
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Sometimes it can be the topic. When a child is intently focused on one topic, they are not interested to hear about other things. My elder boy was like that. His focuses were so intense, I could only hold his attention if I brought out things about trains. He would only wear clothes that were the colours of his favourite trains. When he went to playschool, his uniform was the wrong colour and he wouldn’t wear it. In the end, I bought iron-on train appliqués to put on his uniform so he would wear it. I could only teach him things if I could find a way to relate them to trains.
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From Nidhi Nidhi:
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This is a follow up questions related to the above post. It is specific to the homemade books…
My child is going to be one year. Since last 1-2 months my child is not showing interest in homemade books. There was a phase when she wanted more and more. I am not sure if mobility is the reason or the type of the book that I am choosing is the reason.-
Initially (3-4 months back), the books that I used to show her were related to her and family. Gradually, I moved to rhymes and very short conversation types ( related to colour, animals etc).
Could you please advise ?-
Hi Nidhi Nidhi
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1. There is nothing stipulated for the limit on the pages. Just as we put down longer novels to resume later, you can also do the same for your infant if the book is too long for your child’s attention. Since these are books you will come back to again and again, I would focus on creating a book that covers exactly what you want it to cover. For example, if your book is about family members, make sure it includes all your family members. You don’t need to stop halfway because you’re worried it will become too long.
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2. Repetition is fine. In fact, repetition is necessary sometimes as a part of the learning process. When a topic is interesting to your child, you will find that the person who gets bored with repetition will actually be you – when your child wants to read the same book for the 100th time because it’s their favourite.
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If a book is boring a child, then perhaps it is the topic that needs to change. It is the same for a child as it is for us – just as we don’t immediately want to read every single book we see, there are some books we can’t put down because we are so captivated by the content. Your child will be the same. They are not going to love every single book you pick up and that’s fine. Just find the ones that interest them.
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One of my son’s favourite first books (when he was learning to read) was Go Dog Go – a Dr Seuss book. It had a LOT of repetitions in it but for some reason, he really enjoyed it. When he was obsessed with trains, we read Thomas the Tank Engine until I never wanted to see it again.
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3. Yes. Always, always read books. Even ones your child doesn’t know all the words. You can do this alongside your reading flashcards. Your child learns a lot when you read together – new words that aren’t typically spoken in conversation, the flow of words as they are read together in a sentence, new ideas and information that are taught through the stories, the purpose and meaning of learning to read with the flashcards (which is eventually to be able to decode books for themselves without your help), it helps them step into the shoes of a character and experience their emotions. Too many benefits. If you are ever out of time to do all the things you want, the one thing I would never trade is reading time together.
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Consistency – breaks are definitely okay. When you’re busy with other things, if your child is sick – there will be many reasons why you might need to stop your program. You can just pick it back up when things settle back down. Sometimes a break is what’s needed to help your child get back into the rhythm, sometimes it can be a little more tricky to get back into the swing of things so you will have to modify a little to get back on track. Whichever it is, just be prepared to adjust things as necessary.
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A break isn’t a bad thing. Breaks are actually important because learning doesn’t only happen during the “on” periods when your child is exposed to new things. During the “off” periods, like when your child is sleeping or doing something passive (daydreaming or an automatic activity that doesn’t require high-order processes), the subconscious brain is actively processing the information that was learned. This is the only time it gets to do that – when the brain is on a break. So if there are no breaks, the brain doesn’t get to process the learning which can be bad.
Hi Mas – no it is not necessary for the words in the couplets to be formed from the single words shown. Even Doman’s couplets and phrases contain new words that the child would not have seen before.
Sight words are intended to be used as part of an extension for the reading cards. Their main purpose is to expand your child’s reading vocabulary and to provide more examples for decoding reading. You can use them in the same way as the reading cards. If your child is older, you can use a smaller card. If you would prefer to save on paper, using them digitally is fine, too.
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Hi Haritha Madhu – this is a good post to read “How to Use Flashcards in Early Learning”, in particular, question 8: https://rightbrainchild.com/2021/07/10/how-to-use-flashcards-in-early-learning/#8
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A couple of points to consider – how quickly you’re flashing your cards (the goal is at least one card a second). Sometimes, too slow can put off your child.
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For the math cards, you can also consider using other images in place of red dots. Sometimes, using an image from a topic that your child is interested in can help, for example, cars.
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When teaching words, you can try focusing on a set of words that would interest your child. Words that are in your child’s daily life – favourite foods and toys, names of people in your child’s life, etc. Sometimes using a combined word and picture card can help – the picture with the word together on the same card (as your child sees the picture, the word will also be in your child’s vision).
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Follow up your flashcards with a physical activity that relates to the flashcards. For example, if your flashcards are about fruits, bring out the fruits (or even toy fruits). Also, make sure you read together regularly – stories and picture books (Shichida recommends five a day) as this helps to link the value of words and the purpose of squiggly lines on a piece of paper.
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Omika Shrivastava – When I created the flashcards, I tried to get white backgrounds where possible. Unfortunately, sometimes it wasn’t possible, so I used the image that was the clearest with minimal background clutter. I did a check for updated images and have found some better ones. I have edited the flashcards with the new images.
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In my personal opinion, I do not believe a white background is essential but I do think it looks neater which is why I try to use a white background where possible. However, if the image is not clear, my preference would be to go for the image that is sharper even if it has a coloured background.
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Hi Divya Singhania Agarwal – there is no need to do three times a day. I agree that it is too much repetition and many children will get bored. The recommendation to repeat three times a day came from Doman who started his program with brain-injured children. This might be why the repetitions are so high.
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My recommendation is to flash just once a day. If you cannot maintain your child’s attention, then split the session up across the day (but you would not repeat the cards you have already shown).
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What would be valuable is to flash the same series of flashcards further down the line, like after three months, 6 months, or a year later. You can read more about that here in our post “Right Brain Education Schedule Planning” under spaced learning – https://rightbrainchild.com/2020/11/15/right-brain-education-schedule-planning/
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Hi Nidhi Nidhi – if you are already doing physical cards, there is no need to double up with digital cards. It really depends on what you and your child are comfortable with. As for repeats, I personally feel it is worth repeating after a period of time has lapsed as it helps with reinforcing the learning.
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If physical cards is working well for you, there is no need to add little reader or math. Little musician is good because it covers a broad range of musical knowledge.
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I have not put exact timelines for a number of a reasons. If you follow RBE classes – they accept children as young as 5-6months. Even at this age, they can’t really do any of the activities. In class, the teacher will ask the questions and parents will answer for the child. This goes on until the child is able to do it alone. Then when the child is old enough, parents no longer attend classes.
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At home, it is a different environment so I know it cannot be practiced like in class. And when each child is ready to do an activity really depends on that child. The difference between even my own children is so great that it isn’t right to say by age 18 months your child must do these activities. Some children are ready earlier and others need more time. Even the kind of activities they focus on will be different for each child because they have their own little personalities.
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My elder son spoke early but walked late. My younger son was moving very early but spoke late. Even two brothers can be so different. Their abilities are different. What they excel in is different.
What I do believe is important is that your child must observe these activities being done even before they can do it themselves because there is learning taking place that we cannot see. They are also learning that these activities are important.-
If you have ever seen younger children watching other children play games, you will notice that they also want to join in.
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When my eldest son was 7 months, we visited his grandparents in Australia. There, he met his second cousin for the first time. I put in him the gumbo chair for babies so he could sit up and look around. His cousin who was older, was playing with a Thomas the tank engine train. The train was chugging around the chair and my son watched it go around and around even though he couldn’t reach it, touch it or play with it. That was the only time he ever saw that train.
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My son was a slow walker, he didn’t start walking until he was one year plus. When he was over a year old (I remember because he was already able to walk confidently on his own), I took him to a toy shop. He ran straight to the Thomas the Tank engine display and wouldn’t leave. He just kept looking at the pictures on the boxes like he was mesmerized. The only other time he has seen that train was when he was 7 months old during that trip to Australia. After that, everything was trains and Thomas.
I believe that if he hadn’t seen his cousin playing with that train, he wouldn’t have been as fascinated. It is this beginning interest that we are trying to build in our children from their early exposure to new things – games, topics, and activities.-
I would suggest starting the other activities early and letting your child observe how it works but do not require them to participate. You can do a running commentary as you play the activity so your child can hear and observe what is happening. You don’t have to do it every day but from time to time, bring out the activities and do them while your child watches.
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You will know what your child is capable of by observing them daily. When you feel a certain activity should be within their capacity, try it with them and encourage them to try it themselves. If they aren’t ready, no stress, try again another day. When your child is ready, they’ll join in.
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Regarding linking memory and mandala for your 4-month-old, this is still an early age which I think is a tad early to start either of these activities. I feel it would be of greater benefit to play games, talk and sing with your child. E.g. Pat-a-cake – take your baby’s hands and clap to the rhythm as you sing the rhyme. This is just one example. You can use any other rhymes or songs.
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From Jyoti Agarwal:
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ya i did read this before posting the question but exact timeline of which activity apart from the flash when it should start isnt really specified.
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Hi Jyoti Agarwal – Have you seen these posts:
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Feel free to ask any other questions you may have.
