Parents
Pointing to print preps the brain for reading
Years before children actually learn to read, they begin to realize that letters and written text carry meaning. Tell Me More Research has shown that most toddlers and preschool children don’t pay attention to printed text unless they are encouraged to do so by the person reading the book. Simply by pointing to the text
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Thinking “outside the box” has roots in early experiences
Like many other skills, creative thinking can be strengthened by early environments. Tell Me More Seeing things from different angles is considered a form of abstract thinking, but it has concrete roots in visual-spatial perception. For example, being able to see an object in two different ways of finding objects hidden in drawings. These skills
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5 Steps to Help Your Children Overcome Fear
As parents, our greatest vision is to have children who have a positive sense of self with enough self-confidence to navigate the challenges of life. Life experience has taught us that at times, we are faced with situations which create fear preventing us from moving forward. One of the greatest gifts you can give to
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Early multilingualism builds stronger learning skills
Learning an additional language, especially in early childhood, improves certain brain functions besides language, including overall learning abilities. Tell Me More The old myths that bilingual children are somehow more intelligent than other monolingual counterparts, or that early bilingualism causes speech delays, are simply unproven. Speaking two or more languages doesn’t increase general intelligence measures,
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9 Tips for Raising Boys
Being the only female in a family consisting of a husband and five sons taught me a little about males and rearing boys. What I’ve learned over the years can be summarized into one sentence: Boys want to act like grown men, and grown men sometimes want to act like boys. So what’s a mom
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PC’s and Preschoolers
Carefully collected observations indicate that judicious computer use may offer gains for children over three years of age. Tell Me More Many researchers recommend against exposing children under three years old to computers. Computers simply do not match children’s learning style at this age, where learning occurs predominantly through the eyes, ears, mouths, hands, and
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Good sleep behaviors linked to cognitive benefits
During sleep, our brains, especially those of babies and young children, aren’t actually resting – in fact, quite the opposite: the brain continues to be extremely active, laying down pathways and forging new connections while you slumber. Tell Me More It’s no big surprise that adequate rest is an important component of child development. One
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Home language environment is the biggest determinant of future language skills
No matter how much time children spend in daycare or preschool, research clearly shows that the home environment exerts the most influence on language development. Tell Me More Depending on the home environment, there may be significant differences in the number of words and quality of speech that a child hears. These differences can have
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Most parents and caregivers unknowingly underestimate a child’s language skills
Children’s word comprehension develops far faster than speaking ability – even from the first month’s children are capable of understanding far more than we realize Tell Me More It’s no surprise that speaking to babies from their very first days supports and stimulates early language development. Thanks to recent research, we now know just how
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Talkative toddler, master of math?
Strong early verbal skills have been linked to greater conceptual understanding of mathematics. Tell Me More By now, the advice to speak to your children as much as possible from even the earliest days has reached most parents. However, much less known is that vocabulary size during the preschool years, influenced heavily by parents, is
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