Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1.chuqui 4/7/84; site apple.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!amd!pesnta!hplabs!intelca!qantel!dual!apple!cutter From: cutter@apple.UUCP (Mark Cutter) Newsgroups: net.kids Subject: Re: Better Baby Institute Message-ID: <56789@apple.UUCP> Date: Fri, 10-May-85 14:51:48 EDT Article-I.D.: apple.56789 Posted: Fri May 10 14:51:48 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 14-May-85 07:20:26 EDT References: <49983@apple.UUCP> Reply-To: cutter@apple.UUCP (Mark Cutter) Organization: Apple Education Research Group, Cupertino CA Lines: 98 In article mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) writes: >I beg to differ. We've had Matt on Doman's reading and math programs >for about 6 months now. I started out doing it "by the book", and >after a couple of weeks I discovered that the real motivation behind >"don't test your child" is "if you test your child, you'll discover >he really isn't learning any of this." Six months is a *very* small sample time to be making such broad generalizations. Having seen kids that have been on the program for years, I can assure you that kids do learn all of it, and have an uncanny ability to intuit the rules behind the facts. However, I can also sympathize with your comments. My own experience is that kids grow incredibly fast, and will respond differently to parts of the program as they grow. In our case, Justin initially showed little interest in words and dots. After 6 weeks of very little exposure he suddenly became very interested and would even bring the words or dots to me to show him. Then after 3 months we started showing him bits (pictures). He took off like a rocket on the bits, and for four months didn't want to have anything to do with words or dots. Now he is very into words again, learning them rapidly. I asked people at the institute about this, and they said 'if he doesn't want to do words, then DON'T do the words! He'll come back around sooner or later.' And he did. >We had to make a fairly drastic change to the program after discovering >that it just won't work as written. We now do lots of testing. We too started sneaking in testing, quite by accident. Showing him a book of dogs one day, I said 'Pyrenean Mountain Dog', and before I could point it out on a page of 8 other dogs, he pointed to it himself. I went through six pages of dogs, with six to eight dogs per page, and he pointed each one out as I said its name, with no prompting. We thought this was pretty neat, and for a week or two showed his grandparents, our friends, etc. This eventually got to be counter-productive. Doman says that kids get tired of the whole thing if you keep it up, and we found that Justin would lose interest when asking him things that he already knew, and would sometimes walk away. My tendency is still to test him, but I do it much more subtly and very infrequently. When showing a series of words, bits, etc, every so randomly often I'll hesitate in saying the thing, and he'll often fill in the word. He is just now beginning to talk, and loves to try and articulate. He even repeats the word if I say it first. >and what actually happens are quite different. Doman claims that the >child is subconciously counting the dots, so that when he sees 37 sheep >or 37 cars or 37 pennies he'll instantly know there are 37 there; he I don't believe that Doman would actually say this, since counting involves a sequential activity. Doman says that kids learn quantity without having to count. Initially kids learn by pattern recognition, but so do all human beings. We are really just elaborate pattern recognizers. What makes it so elaborate is that we learn to intuit the rules. In the case of the dots, yes, initially the kids learn the patterns, but later on learn a more abstract level of the pattern, namely quantity. I have seen kids first hand that can differentiate 96 dots from 93 dots, regardless of how they are arranged. Keep at it and your kid will one day surprise you. >Doman's reading program has an undocumented weakness, too. While the >child learns to recognize words by their overall pattern, this pattern >is recognized (and stored away) as a picture, not as a sequence of letters. >This may be good for the program, but you quickly discover that the >child is only able to read the word "mommy" if it is a particular size, >color, font, and capitalization. This is categorically inaccurate. Maybe initially kids have trouble with different fonts, sizes, etc, but it goes away as they are exposed to different character styles. They learn one further level of abstraction. I have seen three-year-old kids that read words whether serif, sans-serif, bold, capital, or hand-printed. It is a very common tendency for adults to believe that because kids can't talk very well yet, or don't have a lot of manual dexterity that they can't possibly learn such abstract things. But they can. Learning to recognize words in different fonts is simple for kids. Wait until he starts reading words that he has never seen before! After seeing literally thousands of words, he begins to recognize common parts of words, and will sound out words he hasn't been exposed to yet, based on familiarity with the parts. Now that is amazing! Congratulations on having done the program for six months. Many parents don't even have an open enough mind to look into it at all. Of those that do, many don't stick with it for more than six weeks. You are definitely over the biggest hurdle. Do try out bits, and if you are ever near Phila, definitely stop by the institute. mark cutter