Core knowledge. Create an environment that encourages a love of reading as soon as possible and help them develop core knowledge about the world around them. This includes both language and facts/concepts about everything from ancient history to the solar system.
Domain-specific background knowledge is incredibly important. It turns out (for the most part) there are no general purpose cognitive skills... it's all domain specific. A student that knows about baseball will comprehend an article about baseball much better than one that doesn't have the core knowledge of what a run, base, double, home run, etc. means. Decoding strategies be damned.
Helping your young child develop said background knowledge will put them in a fantastic spot as they enter school. They'll 'get the joke' - it's a bit like velcro for the brain. Nothing sticks for the students that enter school without the cognitive velcro that is domain-specific background knowledge.
I know this sounds completely contrary to the progressive education philosophies that domain our culture about teaching kids how to think vs what to think... no memorization, etc. It surprised me too.
Check out the work of cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham, Natalie Wexler (The Knowledge gap is a great book) or E.D. Hirsch for a deep dive.
Domain-specific background knowledge is incredibly important.
You see that when you hand word problems with more than one step to the poor kids. They use "solution strategies", that is they circle numbers and what they think are keywords, and they full well don't know what those words mean.
They circle "concentration", and they even can calculate a concentration given a mass of solute and volume of solvent, but they never thought about solutions and what solutions of different concentrations might do for you.
There is a paper somewhere in the Journal of Chemical Education where they handed numerical and conceptual questions to kids from Yale and FAMU. Quite contrary to expectations, the Yale kids did much better on the number questions, but on the questions what it all means both cohorts did equally lousy - 1/3 of kids at either school had an idea what those numbers they just calculated meant.
> It turns out (for the most part) there are no general purpose cognitive skills
There has to be at least one, even on your own account: knowing how to learn the domain specific knowledge for a new domain.
I would also add another: knowing how to spot and make use of common features between domains. But it's true that this skill can't even be developed until you've learned the domain specific knowledge in quite a few domains.
I am in no way saying you are doing this, comment is for the thread as well as you.
As others have mentioned in this discussion, I think giving the child both a sense and actual control over what they work on is one of the keys.
Children want to please their parents, so they might work on things that they think you would like. They are extremely good at reading people even if other actions seem uncoordinated. It is best to listen, in all senses of the word, to child and find out what they really like. Once you have found that, you have to make enough space for it to bloom.
One example for me was in getting my very adventurous athletic child to ride a scooter and a bike. I thought she would be one of those badass three year olds skating around with the big kids. She didn't really take to it, I tried to push it a little bit and I found myself a little deflated when said she didn't like it.
I sat back and figured out that I wanted it, and it wasn't fair for me to put that on to her. A smile isn't always a smile and encouragement is always what it seems. i backed off, would ask about it once in awhile but didn't pressure her again.
About 6 months ago she asked to ride the bike again, that she really wanted to learn. I told her she is gonna crash, it might hurt, but that anyone can do it. In 5 days of two 20-30 minute sessions a day, she was starting, stopping and turning all on her own. She was so excited to have learned it, I could see the accomplishment on her whole being.
Humans are wonderful all purpose devices, the spark that guides us the leads to our differentiation is the interest reward function. Capabilities are one thing, but interest, genuine interest is where the magic lies. The most interesting people are to me are the ones that ask the best questions, or give the answer you weren't expecting.
Our job as parents, I believe is to be a social and metacognitive mirror so that everyone can get a different perspective to explore and understand the world.
>Children want to please their parents, so they might work on things that they think you would like.
I think this is known as the Pygmalion effect. It is very powerful, and we as parents/teachers have to be very careful with this.
Knowing what each of us really wants is a difficult question to answer.
I often wonder how much of what my parents were and were not shaped what I have become.
My daughter actually just taught herself to ride this past weekend. Her biggest hurdle was getting over the fear of crashing. She started out balancing for a few days before she just magically started pedaling.
Riding a bike is hard. It is a lot like swimming, so many motions at the same time. The body has to think it, not the cortex. There is this great smarter everyday segment on a reverse bike. I recommend it for everyone.
My kids first word was, "no". Her first sentence was, "help me no". I use those as guides to maintain the distance she desires.
Athletics like art are one of those accomplishments and outlets that kids can embrace at a young age w/o having the "when I grow up" statements. They can start living their lives in the now w/o adults putting it off to a later date.
Watching a kid finally get riding a bike is a wonderful thing.
Domain-specific background knowledge is incredibly important. It turns out (for the most part) there are no general purpose cognitive skills... it's all domain specific. A student that knows about baseball will comprehend an article about baseball much better than one that doesn't have the core knowledge of what a run, base, double, home run, etc. means. Decoding strategies be damned.
Helping your young child develop said background knowledge will put them in a fantastic spot as they enter school. They'll 'get the joke' - it's a bit like velcro for the brain. Nothing sticks for the students that enter school without the cognitive velcro that is domain-specific background knowledge.
I know this sounds completely contrary to the progressive education philosophies that domain our culture about teaching kids how to think vs what to think... no memorization, etc. It surprised me too.
Check out the work of cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham, Natalie Wexler (The Knowledge gap is a great book) or E.D. Hirsch for a deep dive.