So, American child psychologists have concluded that reading children a bedtime story does nothing to help a child learn language skills. Having the child read the story increases their language development by a factor of six. Whoop-de-do! But, talk about missing the point of something....
How depressing must it be to see every hour of your child's day as an opportunity to engage in formal, structured learning activities? When getting them their breakfast in the morning you could be lecturing them about grain production in the USA and describing the milling process that produces cornflakes. Why not hide their school shoes under one of three baskets and make them guess where the shoes are while engaging them in a discussion on probability? Honestly, the possibilities are endless!
Or, perhaps you might want to consider that play is an important part of learning to be a person and that reading a story to a child at bedtime doesn't have to be all about a learning opportunity but could, instead, be about bonding, comforting and reassurance - telling the child that things are OK in their world.
As one of a generation of children that had bed time stories (following generations of children read to at bed time), I think I've turned out pretty well and I dont't feel deprived by missing out on having to solve ten calculus problems before lights out every night. Shouldn't whatever you do before you lay down to sleep be the opposite of stimulating? You want to go to sleep after all...
Actually, I quite fancy a cup of hot chocolate and a betime story tonight!
No comments:
Post a Comment