Musings

This is probably the final segment on my gleamings from the book ‘Nurture Shock’ by PO Bronson & Ashley Merryman.

A disclaimer here first – I’m no linguist and definitely not anywhere close to being regarded as a language expert. Where the English language is concerned, Yang speaks and writes better than I do. I had to sit for a English proficiency test in order to gain entry to a local university. You get the idea :)

The authors of the book has a chapter devoted to exploring why some children pick up language skills sooner as compared to others. In other words, why do some children speak sooner, better and more confidently than others? According to findings, baby DVDs did little to encourage infants to grow in the area of speech. So, save your moola on buying into all that hype. It was observed that infants learn faster from watching real humans speak than being parked in front of the black box watching educational videos. They learn best by watching how your mouth and facial muscles move as you speak. Monkey see, monkey do. That’s the current wisdom. :)

Hannah has taught Pluto how to surf board. We did not teach her how to do this though.=)

Another interesting observation was that children progress faster when other persons around them respond to topics that interest them. For example, if a child point her finger excitedly at a dead flower on the ground and her grandmother picks it up and talks about it in a similar tone of excitement, the child will often quickly absorb new vocabulary associated with the moment. I’ve seen a mother who put her daughter down when her kid alerted her to a little bird that flew over them. The mother dismissed her daughter’s interest and observational skill and muttered something like her daughter was only interested in birds. Perhaps the mother was not in the right mood. But it was an opportunity lost.

I noticed that Hannah learn better when I let her rope me into her daily chatter about her nursery school, toys, games, etc. I simply ‘played’ along with her enthusiasm in various subjects. I’d casually slip in new words or proper grammar in my communication with her and leave it up to her to pick them up. And she would almost always subconsciously or consciously copycat me to express herself in the topic too. And it has been amazing how the young brain could so effortlessly remember those new words which were uttered only once sometimes.

Since the beginning of nursery school this year, Hannah has developed a positive attitude towards learning the Chinese language. I don’t know what is her Chinese teacher’s secret formula but I do know that Hannah is fond of this particular teacher. She often mentions her in our conversations. My guess is that this Chinese teacher practises “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” (quote by John C Maxwell). Children are also sensitive and sensible towards the level of care shown by people around them. In the area of language, I believe that head knowledge and the heart must work hand-in-hand to bring out the best in a child’s development. And a head start in language acquisition should help a child communicate her needs and feelings better and reduce unnecessary frustration that growing up brings.