Today, parents and educators observe with pride and wonder children who still can not speak or walk, but with skill and security distinguish the remote control from the air conditioning and quickly turn on PCs and mobile phones, identifying without problems the right button to press (the so-called digital natives ).
ARE WE FACING SMALL GENES ?
Children – even very young ones – are “bombarded” by information and stimuli coming from the reality that surrounds them and simply repeat the actions they see adults doing. They are like sponges and they learn continuously, regardless of our real educational purpose, and for this it is important to provide them with the right stimuli.
The first years of life are fundamental for learning and it is a big mistake to think that a newborn does not understand “why it is small”, since in reality it already has unimaginable potential and an exceptional capacity for comprehension and assimilation. We must not forget that intelligence is also the result of the opportunities provided and of the stimuli coming from the surrounding environment and that the brain “grows with use” . To those who believe that learning at an early age may represent an excessive effort and that can steal something from childhood, scholars reply that for children learning is the most beautiful, unconscious and at the same time natural activity there is.
They are greedy and eager to know , attracted by the news and full of satisfaction and joy when they show their progress. We are adults who, over time and with our attitude, we lead them to believe that studying is just a boring and hard work.
HOW CAN ONE STIMULATE THE INTELLIGENCE OF ONE’S CHILD ?
Obviously, you can not go to the desk and give lessons in the “classic” way and the parent should not charge the child with excessive apprehensions and expectations, or personal ambitions. The purpose of early learning is not to become the first in the class, but to have the opportunity to transform one’s potentials into knowledge and skills. The starting point is the scientific result that after two to three years learning to read, to speak a foreign language or to get to grips becomes more and more difficult and this means that, paradoxically, when the child at six years officially begins his course of study, the immense learning capacity of which he was gifted at birth is already beginning to decrease.
STIMULATE TO READ
As for READING , it is important to favor a pleasant meeting between the book and the child from the first months of life . This will not only encourage the acquisition of the skills necessary to learn how to read and write, but will also help to create a special moment to share with mom and dad.
At the beginning the child will participate in the reading only trying to nibble the pages or to appropriate the book, but then slowly begin to observe the figures and feel through the different materials of which the game books are designed specifically for the little ones . Pages cardboard, of cloth or wood, noises and rustles coming from the sheets, windows that open and allow to animate the reading … The first books allow a multisensory reading . The child will love the rhythm of the stories he will listen to and learn to read the figures and then the words associated with them in an almost natural way, recognizing actions and objects familiar to him and learning to know others. According to the Glenn Doman method (founder of the Institutes for the Development of Human Potential) children are even able to read single words at one year, sentences at two years and entire books at three years.
STIMULATE TO LEARNING FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Even LANGUAGES are learned much more easily and with more success in preschool and in addition to songs, rhymes, games and multilingual cartoons, are increasing the foreign language courses for mothers and children. The ear of the little ones is much more attentive and their mind is much more open and malleable, which allows learning the right pronunciation and intonation, a capacity that is reduced by growing.
