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oloriel"No, I don't want to teach Felix to write before he reaches school age," I've always said. "I mean, if he teaches himself, that's fine, but I won't make any efforts - otherwise, elementary school will bore him to tears."
(Been there, done that.)
Now, Felix has been fascinated by letters and numbers for a while. He loves to "do the crossword" (i.e., take a pen and black out all the blank fields in the newspaper crosswords, sudokus and what-have-you). He insists that I write "FELIX" on each of his paintings. He likes to hijack my laptop, start Open Office and type what's called Buchstabensalat ("alphabet salad") in German. He also quickly found out how to play with font sizes and colours, how to change fonts, how to use capslock, how to bold and underline text or put it in italics, how to play with backgrounds, how to insert symbols and graphics, and how to create tables. In short, his computer skills are already beyond those of his grandmothers, though that's mostly because he isn't afraid of experimenting (seriously! Both my mom and mom-in-law firmly believe that computers are so volatile that clicking one "wrong" thing will forever shut the machine down, which means they call for help as soon as the computer asks to do a Flash or Java update, i.e., pretty much daily.). And it's only been a game for him so far.
(Yes, I let him use my computer. Initially, I was against it, but of course he sees me and Jörg use our computers so there's that natural "it's what grown-ups do" attraction. And he only ever uses Open Office and closes every other window that pops up. (By now. Originally, he dragged a few files into the Waste Basket and randomly started Firefox or iTunes, but he has since learned to limit his computering to alphabet salad.)
And I've tried to treat it as a game, but of course other people had to turn it into a learning game by saying things like "Ooooh, you wrote an 'A'" [or other letter]. As the brains of a two-and-a-half-years old are still blessedly hungry for knowledge and not yet stuffed with More Important Things, he immediately latched on to such information. So he now knows the names of several (capital) letters. "Ooooh, can you write FELIX/OMA/OPA?" Of course he wouldn't rest until he knew how to write those words!
Now I thought that would be it, for a while.
Then yesterday, I came in from the kitchen with supper and saw this:
"Huh, that's odd," I thought. "Why does it say 'Extras' and ---"
And then I realised why. Because Felix had apparently taken the task bar as a primer and wrote all the words from it into the document. And then he realised he'd forgotten one and added that, too. (And then he returned to his normal alphabet salad as if nothing had happened.)
Now this is scaring me more than a little. I mean, being able to type a few words like his own name, or knowing the names of a few letters, that's one thing. But being able to reliably copy pretty much any word, with no emotional attachment or without knowing what it means? And then, so far he's always used all-caps for the words he knew (like FELIX or MAMA). That's simple enough, because all the keys on the keyboard are marked with capital letters, right? But he also managed to find the lower-key forms! I don't care whether he extrapolated them from the caps, or whether he found them by trial and error, either way is an accomplishment. And not one that a healthy two-and-a-half-years old should necessarily have. :/
I guess it's a good thing that everything that requires money, also requires a password. :P
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no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 12:03 pm (UTC)Ich finde es übrigens gut, dass du ihn an den Computer lässt, wenn er das will.
Schließlich wird das Ding - oder wahrscheinlich eher seine Nachfolger - in seinem Leben eine gewaltige Rolle spielen. Ich finde das wichtig, ein Kind auch früh schon da heran zu führen.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 03:11 pm (UTC)Aber da er nun einmal großes Interesse an dem Ding hat und ja auch offensichtlich verantwortungsbewusst damit umgeht, habe ich meinen Widerstand halt aufgegeben und lasse ihn gelegentlich tippen. Wenigstens verspreche ich mir davon, dass gar nicht erst der Reiz des Verbotenen aufkommt...
Und ich seh ja ein, dass für ein buchstabeninteressiertes Kind, das aber feinmotorisch noch nicht in der Lage ist, mit einem Stift auf Papier Buchstaben zu malen (was er allerdings auch regelmäßig probiert), so eine leichtgängige Computertastatur natürlich ein fantastisches Hilfsmittel ist. ^^
no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 03:18 pm (UTC)I taught myself to read (capital) letters when I was five (here, you normally learn to read when you get to elementary school, i.e. between 6 and 7 -- in pre-school, you learn how to safely cross streets and how to tie your shoelaces and that sort of thing), and I found both "Language" classes and arithmetics (only numbers up to 20!) comfortably boring. Nice, because I liked the classroom situation and the teacher, but not challenging; and I suspect that a lot of my later laziness and difficulties in coping with more challenging subjects are at least partly due to having grown into a system where I could ace classes without ever doing something.
Having learned a lot about the pre-/non-literate mind during my linguistics studies, I also believe that it's desirable that people should at least spend a certain amount of (conscious, self-aware) time in that state before their way of seeing the world is forever altered. That time can only be between 2 and 5... and in this case, it seems to be over almost before it began.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 03:24 pm (UTC)Ich würde das durchaus schonmal als Förderung sehen. Weil er ja auch lernt, dass er darf und dass das normal ist und dass es aber auch Regeln gibt.
Ganz abgesehen von 'Das ist eine Tastatur, da sind Buchstaben und damit kann man schreiben' - ist ja alles ein Lernprozess. Du musst ja nicht unbedingt eine pädagogische Agenda haben.
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Date: 2014-03-27 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 05:46 pm (UTC)My children aren't specially lazy, and they also aced in those areas (as I did) because they knew how to read and count before the others. My daughter is also a university professor and is getting her PhD in USA right now. My son is working in the university and specializes in management, mostly social corporate responsibility. I believe that every case is different.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 06:43 pm (UTC)Some subjects are more geared towards those who acquired analytic thinking early on, and who also didn't have to put much effort into learning basic skills that may have been a challenge to others. And then some may be more friendly towards those who had a harder start and thus learned to cope with learning challenges early on.
Naturally, every case is different. Still, my son's got my genes rather than yours... ;)
But as you say, can't change it. I guess I can try to raise the bar when he's bored by the normal curriculum...
no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 06:47 pm (UTC)I started learning Japanese just because I love languages, which is why I am learning French. English is the language I need for my career. Already know it.
Might be. I wanted to be an archaeologist first, then I actually studied Civil Engineering for a while. Then I wondered if I could be a Historian and ended up in Economics. Truth is that when something is too challenging for me, I continue trying but I also feel frustrated because I didn't have to make much effort in school.
Of course, but he also has his father's genes. ;)
(smile)
no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 07:02 pm (UTC)I love languages as well, but I hate learning vocabulary. Back in school, my mom regularly sat down with me to stuff English, Latin and French words into my brain, so I managed to do OK. In university, I no longer had anyone who regularly forced me to study Kanji and vocabulary, so I just did some pre-exam cramming that my brain happily forgot pretty much as soon as the exam was over. So I don't give up on it, but I do make it as easy as possible, but it's very hard to get myself to make a long-term investment, so to say!
There you go! I should've found subjects more suitable to my way of learning (even though I loved many aspects of my subjects. But, well, only the good bits. Not the many less exciting and more tedious things that unfortunately had to be learned as well... *rolls eyes at self*).
Fortunately! :)
no subject
Date: 2014-03-27 07:06 pm (UTC)Eccentric is good. All interesting people are some form of eccentric. "Normal" is boring. ^^
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Date: 2014-03-27 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-28 12:50 am (UTC)Children who are read to a lot often learn to read on their own before preschool. I was three when my mother realized I could read when I sounded out the name of a street on a sign, Pergamente, a word I wouldn't have seen at home. It's quite possible that Felix has already figured out the basics of phonics, and can not only recognize some familiar words, but is beginning to sound out unfamiliar ones.
Writing is another matter, because small-muscle control has to develop before a child can form letters. There's really no use trying to teach it before about age 6, when the child can manage a pencil with some facility - having plenty of art supplies helps foster this, but it's mostly just developmental. There are neurological reasons why it's good for children to learn to write by hand - penmanship is getting to be a 'lost art' these days, but even if a person doesn't use it much in later life, I'd still count it an essential skill. On the other hand, children who aren't constrained by the need to use a pencil all the time often blossom into using writing as communication much earlier.
If you want to turn Felix's attention to less word-oriented play on the computer, I recommend the Boobah Zone (http://www.boohbah.tv/zone.html) -LOL, I bet he figures out how to play all the games without even having to be shown how. The only down-side is that the sound-effects may drive you buggy - he will probably love them, though. Enjoy!
no subject
Date: 2014-03-28 09:43 am (UTC)Hoffentlich. Ich find's immer noch ein bisschen gruselig.
(Fairerweise muss man sagen, wenn er das von Hand geschrieben hätte - was entwicklungstechnisch ja viel schwieriger ist - fände ich es wahrscheinlich weniger unheimlich. Teil meines Erstaunens/Schreckens ist wirklich der sichere und total selbstverständliche Umgang mit dem Rechner...)
no subject
Date: 2014-03-28 07:32 pm (UTC)But then again, a computer is the perfect thing for a kid to learn. You do X, Y happens.
I'm curious what he will learn next. He's a promising little fellow, that's for sure!
no subject
Date: 2014-03-28 07:38 pm (UTC)Yeah, same here! My parents are both teachers, both humanity subjects, so lots of books everywhere. I taught myself to read with 4, by having my parents read me books until they nearly dropped dead. According to my parents I didn't want anything else, it was READ ALL THE BOOKS ALL THE TIME. I read stories to the other kids in kindergarden and could write my name and those of my family before I went to school.
And I wasn't bored in preschool,