Helping Our Children Achieve Academic Success

There was an article in this morning's Los Angeles Times about the rising demand for private tutoring for children as young as 3 years-old.  These days, parents aren't just concerned about whether or not little Susie's going to get into Harvard.  Now, they're worried about whether not she'll get accepted to the "right" kindergarten. 

To ensure acceptance to the "right" elementary school, preschoolers are being sent to learning centers where they sit at desks and complete worksheets.  They're taught to count dots on a page, name body parts and animals, and write their name, skills usually expected of a first-grader.  Thanks to acts like No Child Left Behind, academic standards have "elevated" to the point where, kindergarten, at least according to this article, is now "the new first grade." 

Personally, it makes me sad and angry that children so young are trading in time at the park for sitting behind a desk.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm all for academic achievement.  I'd be thrilled if my kids went to Harvard because they'd have more opportunities.  But is private tutoring really the way to help them achieve the academic success necessary to gain more career opportunities?  I don't think so.

As parents, we're proud when our little ones can count and recite their ABC's.  We beam with pride when they suddenly speak new words and correctly name objects.  But sometimes I think it's good to remember that monkeys can be taught these things as well.  Just because a child can recite her ABC's, count to 30, and identify a baboon doesn't mean she's smart.  It doesn't mean she'll develop critical thinking skills.  And it certainly doesn't mean she'll make good life choices. 

This is why we really need to think consciously about what we want for our children.  What does "success" mean?

To me, success is being emotionally, not just academically, intelligent.  I've known people who have the best education money can buy, yet they're estranged from their children, they've had several horrible marriages, their employees despise them because they're mercurial and incapable of controlling their emotional outbursts, and if you ask them if they're happy, they're not.  Yet, if you were to meet them at a cocktail party, you'd judge them as being successful because they're a lawyer with a good trial record at a well-renowned law firm, making a ton of money, and they own a large house on the expensive side of town.  Frankly, I want more for my kids than cocktail party success. 

Having a high EQ (as opposed to IQ) provides a good foundation for academic and overall life success.  It involves, according to Daniel Goleman, "self-control, zeal and persistence, and the ability to motivate oneself," requirements for high academic achievement.  Self-control, as I understand it, is not just about impulse-control, it's about being able to recognize our own emotions and manage them effectively.  Knowing how to manage our emotions and use them wisely in our rational decision-making process leads to better choices in life, and, as I've said before, better problem-solving skills. 

How do we help our children achieve higher EQ's?  We spend time with them, offer them empathy, and coach them through their frustration, anger, sadness, fear, and even excitement (see Gottman's book on our recommended reading list).  Not only does this teach self-control, it also promotes zeal and persistence.   They may feel excited about doing something, but the frustration of successfully completing the task may be too overwhelming if we don't emotionally coach them through it.  And, their eventual success with that and other tasks promotes further internal motivation to try and accomplish new things. 

How else can we help prepare our children for academic success?

The LA Times article suggests playing with our children.  As I've mentioned before, when we play with our children, their level of play becomes more complex.  Plus, play is an opportunity to do emotion coaching as described above.  But there are other things we can do, and may even already be doing, in our everyday interactions with them.

One of my favorite longitudinal studies was conducted by a Standford linguistic anthropologist, Shirley Brice Heath (1982).  She examined the use of bedtime stories and interactions between children and parents in three different communities: "Maintown," a mixed middle class town, "Roadville" a primarily white working class town, and "Trackton," an African American rural community.  Maintown and Roadville children were at an advantage academically because these communities had more literary traditions than Trackton, which engaged in a more oral tradition.  (Keep in mind one tradition is not better than another, they're just different.  The differences, however, do contribute to one's ability to sit in a classroom, which is a very particular type of environment.  For the purposes of this post, I will not be discussing Trackton because my point only involves comparing the two communities with more literary traditions.) 

However, Heath also found that the Maintown kids were at an even bigger advantage because of how their parents spoke with them.  Maintown parents asked their kids a lot "rehearsal questions," questions where the mother knew the answer.  They asked questions that were genuine requests for new information (where the mother didn't know the answer).  And they asked a lot of open-ended questions, where the child was allowed to relate experiences.  Additionally, Maintown parents verbalized connections between what the child saw in the real world with what they read about in their bedtime stories.  They also allowed their children to read the book as he or she wished.  If the child wanted to skip pages, move ahead, or read from back to front, the parents acquiesced.  Finally, when Heath looked at the reading materials of the Maintown parents, she found they had far more critical and educational sources than Roadville parents.  In other words, Maintown parents were more interested in gaining new perspectives through reading and didn't only read books reinforcing their already held beliefs.

The Roadville parents, on the other hand, insisted the children read books from beginning to end, with no skipping ahead.  Rather than rehearsal questions, the number one communication parents had "with" their children was "running commentary" involving "rhetorical questions."  Parents would comment on their own behavior or tasks and would ask questions like, "where are my keys?" without expecting any kind of answer from their kids.  Essentially, their main communication wasn't really an interaction.  Parents did ask rehearsal questions but far fewer than Maintown parents.  The third most common communication was a "question directive," where the parent gave an order in the form of a question.  The least type of question Roadville parents asked was that which involved requests for new information.  Finally, Roadville parents rarely made connections between what the child saw or experienced in real life and what was read at story-time.

Are you seeing a pattern here? 

In a nutshell, Maintown parents promoted critical thinking in their children.  True, they gave them rehearsal questions to practice learning new facts or new words, but they also wanted to know what their children thought beyond the "right" answer.  They got their kids in the habit of thinking about connections between different things, which promotes thinking beyond the information given and developing more sophisticated inferences.  Teaching critical thinking at home, I think, is what prepares our children for academic achievement, not sitting behind a desk doing worksheets.  Remember, they're not little adults.  They're very young kids.

If you really want your child to achieve academically, don't spend a couple hundred dollars a month on some learning center.  Put that money towards maybe working an hour or two less a week and spending some interactive time with your kids.

-----

Heath, Shirley Brice (1982).  What no bedtime story means: Narrative skills at home and school.  Language and Society, 11, 49-76

Comments

[Shelley]

Amen.

[Mary P]

This is excellent. I recall being told in teacher's college (no source, so possibly apocryphal) that the head of the original Head Start program was once quoted as saying that "everything we do with these children all day long could be accomplished in 20 minutes on a parent's knee, being read to." I'll bet the Maintown style of interactive reading was exactly what he had in mind.

Three-year-olds being subjected to worksheets as their sole means of "education" are three-year-olds whose minds are being impoverished, not enriched.

Well said, Laura!

[Kristen]

I love the information about the types of interaction that promote critical thinking. And I think you're exactly right that the skills these young kids are learning can be taught to anyone, even monkeys.

I will say, though, that I don't think all kids learning how to write their names and count to 100 by age 4 are necessarily trading in park time for tutor time. If the kid enjoys the activity and is honing some fine motor skills and learning some new things, I don't think it's a problem. I think it BECOMES a problem when the parents are using this not as a supplement to their child's development, but as some sort of competitive edge, especially when the really extreme ones forego the types of interactions and play experiences that you're suggesting.

So I don't think it's a black and white issue at all. Bryce attends a private school where he works on writing and math every day. BUT, that school also highly values art, nature, play time, and - to your point - critical thinking skills. I don't have any problem with them working with him on math and reading when I know he's getting just as much focus on more important, long-term developmental skills.

[Daydreams and Musings]

I agree with Kristen. This extra "schooling" shouldn't replace time at the park but if the parents have the means, the child has the motivation (and ability to sit still) it isn't a bad thing. It's only bad if parents are using it as a substitute for actually parenting their child.

[Mary P]

The aggressive competition Laura describes of getting into the "right" school is so wrong-headed, and so contrary to how children actually learn! (This is close to my heart: remember that in my previous career, I was a teacher.)

Yes, there are children out there who enjoy paperwork. There are kids who like to accumulate facts; they like to write them down and/or recite them by rote. This is one style of learning, and it's a perfectly valid one.

However, there are many styles of learning, and this style, the verbal/analytical, is not the type for which most toddlers have capabilities. Nor does it mean that your child is destined for academic greatness when they CAN learn that way at a mere three years old. Perhaps they are, but other characteristics - self-control, determination, focus, delayed gratification - are equal, if not better, determinants of academic (and life) success.

It is far, far more important that children learn to explore, to indulge in a little lateral thinking, to explore relationships of ideas, to stretch and expand their rapidly developing brain through mental and physical play, than that they learn to parrot facts and fill in worksheets, which are only the most obvious and least significant of academic abilities.

None of this is to say that it is wrong to challenge a child academically - if it is done as a form of play, if the child loves it, if it's never burdensome, or, as Kristen points out, as long as it's not some form of parental competition, so skewed that the child misses out on other aspects of development.

I would further like to reassure those who must count their pennies, that EVERY parent "has the means" to enrich their child's life (and mind!) I'm not telling a parent how to spend their money if they have it, but I AM saying that for the vast majority of young children, it is entirely unnecessary to spend large chunks of money - indeed, any money at all - to provide all the enrichment, stimulation, and mental challenge that's required to produce a really great thinker.

[steph]

Thank you for another great post and comments too...What a fantastic site this is. I really appreciate what you are doing here.

[Laura S.]

Hi Everyone!

I have to run off to class, so I can't properly address everyone's comments. Sorry!

But I wanted to say that the main problem I have with this is that the mere fact that they're having kids count from worksheets as opposed to using blocks shows me their program isn't even developmentally appropriate. Older children and adults learn from worksheets. 3 and 4 year-olds learn better from play activities. Those kids should at the very LEAST be counting blocks, not dots on a page.

Additionally, using CANDY as a reward for doing the work -- that alone just makes me want to scream. This only promotes external motivation, not internal motivation. Not to mention all the other issues surrounding that (I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be too excited about picking up my kids after they've eaten Laffy Taffy!). Again, this just shows that the learning centers (like the school superintendent who wanted to do away with naps because he thought they were "a waste of time" -- naps are necessary for brain development and LEARNING, hello!) don't know enough about how very young kids develop and shouldn't be selling parents this . . . crap.

Gotta run!

[mo-wo]

First I love that you have a FAVORITE longitudinal study.

And the monkey thing is a key reminder for parents overly addicted to milestones for children.

Finally, my work as a librarian is steeped in literacy.. and literacy fads of the moment. We currently have something locally I like to call 'summer school for kindergarten' -- gets me throwing things, too. Among other factors (e.g it is not just the parents) the explosion of very early childhood education can be tied to a lot of governmental bean counting about what great care our society is taking of our children -- Commence more tossing of items and rolling of eyes over here.

Well, blogged. Of course.

[mo-wo]

And on play -- consider the following from my pending recommended title list:

Child's Play / by Silken Laumann

http://www.silkenlaumann.com/silkenBook.htm

[merseydotes]

Last night, when we were discussing what kind of birthday party my soon-to-be-3 daughter wanted, we talked about a cookie party where everyone would decorate already-baked sugar cookies. My daughter said, 'But, what about...we don't have enough, um, you know...those things.' I had no idea what she was talking about. Then she ran her hands back in forth in front of her belly and around her neck and I said, 'Aprons?' She replied, 'Yeah! But we don't have enough aprons!'

What a genius. Not even three, and she's already thinking things through to their logical conclusions and spotting problems along the way. She may not know the difference between an M and a W yet, but I'll take her critical thinking anyday.

[supra for kids]

Ban on women driving should be considered world wide... :-) I would never allow my wife driving my car.. :-)