Do you want to know what your child is thinking? Sit and observe your child while he is playing or engaging with any materials and you will notice that he will often mutter and talk to himself. These monologues are called private speech and peak…
Reading means understanding a passage, understanding the vocabulary, making connections with life, and decoding words like c-a-t. Before a child can get to that, though, he needs oral language, alphabet knowledge, book knowledge, phonics, and phonological awareness. Phonics, which you hear everyone talking about, means recognizing symbols and connecting them…
When your child does something positive, give him a specific complimentary adjective. This is different from saying “good boy”. Why not say “good boy”? Say you ask your child to clean his room. You walk in and the floor is clean and it seems everything…
Your Aunt Maria says that all you have to do is set boundaries. Your uncle says that it doesn’t matter what you do, kids will just turn out the way they are going to. People are often bombarded with a wide range of parenting suggestions…
Play is a natural promoter of intellectual growth, literacy, creativity, imagination, and social/emotional development. Play promotes intellectual growth. Children, while playing, develop the ability to learn to think symbolically and abstractly. The development of symbolic and abstract thought is the ability to represent thoughts, feelings…
The definition of intelligence depends on the time and culture you live in. During Socrates’ day, intelligent people were those who could memorize extensive passages and then recite them. There were hardly any written texts in 500 BC so this ability to memorize was valued.…
The process a child undergoes to learn to speak, read, and write is interesting to consider in light of how oral and written language have evolved throughout history. Our little kids will master the basics of written language in three or so years. Yet it…
The holidays are often the times when you and your child are with relatives you don’t see very often. Of course, you want your child to be on their best behavior. So, then why does she sometimes act her worst? Think about the whole thing from…
You ask your child to clean his room, and the result is tears, frustration, or tantrums. There are many things you can do to prevent this response. It is essential that you understand that children have cognitive limitations in organizing and to work within those…
MRI studies, longitudinal observational studies and input from tens of thousands of educators of young children have changed the way most view how one should appropriately interact with and guide very young children. Historical discipline has given way to strong guidance. Some historical discipline approaches…
ROLE MODELS Children need role models to show them how to behave in specific situations. They also absorb the behavior they see from others in every day life or in videos. Very young children need direct guidance to know how to behave in…
Sometimes it feels like you cannot change your child’s behavior so try focusing on changing your own behavior instead. For this, use “I messages”. This only works in certain situations, though, but can be an extremely effective tool. “I messages” are about controlling your own…