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Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#51

Post by a-priori »

jph wrote: post #34
a-priori wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baby Sign Language can jumpstart learning and communication. Is there any evidence that this actually has any benefit?

Yes. Dr. Marilyn Daniels at Penn State University has found that hearing students in pre-kindergarten classes who receive instruction in both English and ASL score significantly higher on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test than hearing students in classes with no sign instruction. Her studies demonstrate that adding visual and kinesthetic elements to verbal communication helps enhance a preschool child's vocabulary,…

Dr. Marilyn Daniels at Penn State University has found that hearing students in pre-kindergarten classes who receive instruction in both English and ASL score significantly higher on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test than hearing students in classes with no sign instruction.

Thanks for providing these articles. I don't doubt that children can learn to sign before they can learn to speak (not a big leap considering that babies can understand language before they can move their vocal muscles well enough to produce it), or that they'd be happier being able to communicate earlier.

What I do doubt is that this has any long-term effects on their development, above and beyond the effect of learning more than one language. In any of the longitudinal studies, do they control by having a second group of infants learn two spoken languages?

Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#52

Post by dcbell »

iworkforthem wrote: post #9

I would definitely teach 3yr & 1yr a lot of Mathematics & Finance. Flashcard and iPhone apps definitely helped. IT skills become more of a necessity once they hit school. I see Programming as a form of art, unless you are interested in it. It's not going to be of any interest to them, like it is to me.

Finance? I'm extremely skeptical, but my time on HN has taught me to be curious instead. Expand?

Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#53

Post by potatolicious »

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #31

I would just forget about computers and programming completely and focus on the building blocks by a playful approach to solving day-to-day problems with logic and reasoning. Like how do we decide which things belong together? You can also play progressively more complicated iteration games like for-each-time-this-happens-let's-do-this-this-and-this! Or make complicated rube goldberg devices out of household objects…

This. Your child may or may not work in IT in the future - IMHO it'd be unwise to steer him/her down a particular career path so early.

What your child will need regardless of where he/she goes is critical thinking and problem solving skills. After all, all the desirable jobs in the world center around this.

Strong associative ability, strong spatial skills, organization, learning attitude, critical thinking, logic, all of those things you should encourage in your kid. Particularly learning attitude - if your child starts hating learning, you're basically screwed.

Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#54

Post by steveklabnik »

systema wrote: post #39
steveklabnik wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don't force anything on him. This is absolutely true. One of the risks that you take when you have a child is that he'll turn out totally different than you. My father was a farmer, and so we're from basically two different worlds. He could never understand why I wanted to be on the computer on the time, I couldn't understand why he wanted to be outside all the time. But since neither of us tried to force each othe…

Certainly, Ruby is a fine first option. I'd recommend any Lisp derivative, or Javascript also. I see no reason to learn Pascal, or BASIC, nor do I see its effectiveness.

Absolutely. I wrote a post about "Why Ruby?" a little while ago, but almost all of the arguments apply equally well to Python.

Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#56

Post by coliveira »

Teaching how to program may be a fun experience, and I think it is valuable, but I don't know if it is such a big advantage. Because programming takes a lot of time, and that is subtracted from other activities that may be more important in the long run, like reading, socializing and playing. In my case, I will show my son the basics, but I don't think it is important that he really learns that at an young age.

Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#57

Post by justlearning »

bdfh42 wrote: post #14

1. Restrict TV consumption - help him become selective and not a slave to that time waster. 2. Play music - it probably does not matter what type. 3. Think very hard about schooling.

when you say "think very hard about schooling" - are you saying you should really focus on it or think very hard to delay schooling?

Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#58

Post by edw519 »

Love him. Unconditionally. And make sure he always knows it.

Everything else is just details.

With this, things will inevitably fall nicely into place, no matter what tactics you take.

Without it, he will be fucked up no matter what you do and will be coming to hacker news in 2028 posting, "Ask HN: I'm confused and depressed and don't know why."

Re: Ask HN: How do I give my son a head start?

#59

Post by Calamitous »

aidenn0 wrote: post #27
patio11 wrote: post #7

Read to him when he is young, with him when older. It is the most stupidly effective academic intervention I'm aware of.

Agreed. Also, you can start on non-picture books earlier than you think; my dad read "The Hobbit" to my sister and I before I started kindergarten (a little bit each night).

We got "The Chronicles of Narnia" :) I still have lots of fond memories around that series.
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