Who Am I? Developing a Sense of Self

Monique, the author of our first entry on chapter 7, loved Barney when she was a little girl -- can you tell?! She has connected her experiences with that purple dinosaur to the chapter information, and I think you'll enjoy her insight.

When I was in grade school, I remember being told that I was a bright person and that if I earned good grades, I would succeed at what ever it was that I set out to achieve. The encouragement and support that I received motivated me to do well in my studies. Did it work? Yes. I did make it far academically. The motivation and support I received are what helped me stay focused. Do I believe that my family’s encouragement helped me cognitively? Not directly. If I am taking a test their support would not help me to answer those questions correctly. Their support would, however, encourage me to study hard so that I could answer the questions correctly. All of these accomplishments were achieved through studying and doing homework. How well I understood the subject and how much I understood the material is what earned me those answers or grades. If I do not comprehend the material that is given to me, it does not matter how many times someone tells me that I am intelligent, I am not going to excel in that category. I have seen firsthand that when a child receives poor grades, it is automatically assumed that the parent is not stepping up to the plate and playing their role.

Children are different and they learn at different levels. When outside sources put added pressure on the child and the parents, the child comes to feel inadequate, and the parents begin to feel that they also are incompetent to properly guide their children. In the book, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff state that parents act as if they are the sculptors of their children’s character and self-concept, they strive to be perfect, and they believe that any shortcoming their child undergoes must be their fault. Furthermore, parents believe that if they praise their children for their intelligence, they will have children who will excel academically. I agree with the book that praise for intelligence works paradoxically. Praising children for their intelligence can cause children to become conservative learners who are afraid to push themselves to the limit when they understand that there is always a possibility of failure.

Before reading this chapter, I was unaware that babies develop self-concept from birth. I am not surprised that it does not take literacy-based toys or classes for development to take place. All it takes is everyday life experiences. I am convinced that when and if I ever have children, that playing with them and talking to them will be the best way for them to develop a sense of themselves.

In a sociology course that I took, I became familiar with the fact that gender begins in the cradle, and even before a baby is ever born. I know that in my family when the gender of the baby is announced, our family goes shopping. If it’s a boy, we’re buying blue blankets, strollers, clothing, etc. If it’s a girl the same rules apply: We are shopping for pink outfits, nursery designs, booties and bottles, and so forth.

The book is suggesting that our gender identity is shaped before we can speak for ourselves. I agree, but in my own childhood I remember things a bit differently. I was one of those children who was all for Barney. I had to have everything Barney. My room was Barney, my stuffed animals were Barney, and my bathroom was Barney. Although there was Baby Bop (the female Dinosaur), I preferred Barney. A question I asked my dad before writing this paper was, “Did I choose to have Barney, or did you all make my room to be Barney for me”? According to my dad, I liked Barney and I wanted it to be Barney. The book’s suggestion that parents are the purchasers and the outfitters that decorate their children’s rooms with many sex specific items, does not apply to my childhood situation. I am curious to find out what was happening during that stage of my development. Clearly, Barney is the male Dinosaur and Baby Bop is the female Dinosaur. However, I also had Barbie dolls, toys, and play houses. I had a boy-gendered bedroom with tons of Barbie dolls, cars, and houses.

When it came to my racial identity as a child, I was very confused. I agree with Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff that there is no off-the-shelf training program to speed this process up. It was not until I was older in age when I would identify as just an African American. It was hard for me because I was a biracial child who looked different from everyone else around me in my family. My dad raised me and he is African American, I had no connection to my Filipino culture at all, and there were always people asking questions about my ethnicity. My hair was a different texture from my cousins, and this was really confusing to me as a child. When kids at school asked me what ethnicity I was, I would say “Black,” but I had no way of explaining why my hair was so fine, curly, and very different from the other black children in the class. My grandma would comfort me the most during these times. She helped with my upbringing, so I always received the nurture and support that I needed. I was also the first grandbaby in the family, so I was highly spoiled. I suppose this nurturing helped me form my easy going temperament as it is described in the book. Grandma would sit me on her lap and we would talk and play, and just have a jolly good time.

The book describes emotional regulation as the strategies we use to adjust our emotional capacity to continue our livelihood. For example, if I was being read a book and there was a boy in the book who fell off of his bike and began to cry, I would say the boy is sad. I would use these techniques at the daycare I worked at. Asking questions about the emotions and acting them out is a helpful way to engage the children about how to express their emotions. After reading this chapter, I have come to the conclusion that in order for a child to reach their peak of intellectual development, parents should engage in play with the child, nurture the child, and accept academic achievement as a process, and not as the validation of their ability.
Not Barney

IQ DON'T MEAN A THING

This is Kodi, and he wrote our second and last entry on chapter 6. "The picture I sent is me with my dog Joey," he wrote. "I was in my backyard and I was probably 6, maybe 7 -- I can't remember -- but he was one of my favorite dogs, and I loved playing with him everyday." I think you'll enjoy reading Kodi's thoughts about IQ.

The authors in the beginning of this chapter talk about a fictional town called Lake Wobegon, Minnesota where “all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average” (p.126). Like the author and many others this sounded like a great place to me, but we get fixated on trying to make our children geniuses. Parents have tried different ways to fabricate or increase their child's IQ. I was shocked to hear about the mother who faked her child's IQ to be 298+, and later the child became suicidal and was put into foster care. There are also supplements and formulas that you can buy to increase your child's IQ so that they will become a “genius.” All of this reminded me of the old method of a mother listening to Mozart while she's pregnant to increase IQ. All of this brought up questions: Do these parents even know what intelligence is? What are the effects of focusing so much on this test score? Does IQ even matter?

What is intelligence? Is it a high test score? Is it the ability to memorize ABC's and your 123's at an early age? The authors of the book gave the commonly accepted definition as “The ability to learn or cope with new situations and challenges or to think abstractly” (p.127). Looking at this definition and what the IQ test really measures, these are completely different intelligences that we’re talking about. The IQ test seems to be how much you can memorize or remember, such as vocabulary. Don't get me wrong, memorization is not the easiest thing for everybody. If I can memorize a 2500 word speech in a week’s time, this doesn't necessarily make me a genius; it means I have a good memory. These parents who use flash cards so the child can memorize words do not help them think abstractly or use their coping abilities.

The effects of focusing too much on IQ are that we start to focus more on test scores and the child's creativity and enthusiasm about learning decrease. Shakespeare said, “How my achievements mock me!” and this is what I feel many parents will be saying about their children when they are focusing too much on a test score. Yes their child will achieve high test scores and that will be a great achievement, but what does that really do for them? We need to look at the reality of what the children are losing by this and what we are taking away from them.

IQ doesn't mean a thing to your child's intelligence. Everything that we want our children to learn at early ages they will learn through life and at the proper stage. A 6 month old child does not need to know 100 different vocabulary words. A child's vocabulary, as the authors point out, will increase with everyday talk. In this time we are a very technological society so even babies have touch screen toys and little computers to play with and help them learn. A child learns about the world through tangible objects, not a touch screen. A child cannot learn physics by dropping blocks in a game screen. They need to hold the block in their hands and throw and drop them.

In conclusion, this chapter showed me how pointless the IQ test really is. Parents need to stop worrying about being “above average” on test scores and just let the child be exactly that, a child. Many great minds such as Piaget believed in a stage approach. When I read about all of these IQ “enhancers” it seems like companies are telling you that your child can skip stages. This is impossible. Stages cannot be skipped and we need to stop trying to change the natural course of things. The natural, original way of raising our children is the best way. Our intelligence is not what a piece of paper says, and the number of words, numbers, signs, etc. you can remember does not determine who or what you can be in life.

Got IQ?

This ISN'T Gustavo, the author of our first chapter 6 entry...but it is his "first nephew in the family. His name is Isaiah Escalante born on September 24th, 2010. He weighed 8 pounds 6 ounces and his height is 22 inches." Can you tell that Gustavo is a proud uncle?! Can't blame him...this little guy is CUTE!

And I think that when you read Gustavo's response to this chapter, you'll see that he feels strongly that all children should be valued. Enjoy!

While reading this chapter I think I really agreed with pretty much everything the author talked about. I do believe that society puts way too much emphasis on children’s IQ. After reading this chapter I did stop and think about the author’s point about what IQ really measures. I believe that sometimes it’s more important to let children learn on their own. They should be able to learn from their own experiences, and now they rarely do that because parents as well as the society focus more on academic learning. Parents worry about having their child be one of the smartest. I agree when the author talks about how this way of thinking can have a negative effect on overall life success. I also think that parents now are not happy with their children being just normal. I think that there are many factors that contribute to being intelligent, and they are not all necessarily intellectual. Kids learn things in other ways; I think that kids learn about life by learning to socialize with others.

When I read this chapter I noticed some things that I really never saw before. For example, I live in the same household with my sister, who is older than me; she has a daughter that is 7 years old. After reading this chapter I noticed that my sister is really hard on my niece when it comes to education. When my sister is doing homework with her daughter she puts a lot of pressure on her to get the answers right. When my niece makes a mistake, my sister gets frustrated, and my niece gets upset. I think my sister does wrong by putting so much pressure on my niece. The way I see it my niece is a smart girl. She is involved in many things including soccer and Girl Scouts. I feel like my sister devalues the importance of my niece learning from her own mistakes. I think that my sister should look more carefully to see if there are other ways my niece can learn.

By talking to my sister I have also realized that sometimes parents are too hard on their own children. My sister works at a preschool and one day I went to observe in her classroom. I noticed that my sister is very different with the children in the preschool. She is definitely not hard on those children. Talking to my sister I also realized that the demands even at the preschool level have really gone higher than they used to be. My sister mentioned that now even in the preschool level they have to follow a curriculum. This means that now 3 and 4 year olds are expected to know more. My sister said that they are expected to know all their letters, sounds, numbers, colors, shapes, and many other things. They also have to know how to write their name by the time they leave preschool to go on to kindergarten.

When I went to observe at the preschool my sister works at, I noticed that they do have free play, but not too much because the time is limited because of all the academic learning they have to do. This chapter only leaves me with one question: What do we have to do to make our society understand that a child’s IQ will not determine if that child will be successful or not? After reading this chapter I think I will talk to my sister about being more careful with her daughter, and not putting too much pressure on her. I am going to tell her to let my niece be a child while she still can. I am going to make sure I let her know that it is important for my niece to live happily.

How Best to Promote Reading

Our second and final entry on chapter 5 was written by Bradlee. Like Alex, she had been familiar with much of the information in this chapter, but also gained new and valuable insight into the young child's emergent literacy. Happy reading!

This chapter was extremely interesting to me. The chapter starts off by making examples of two families. One family would read to their daughter every night but not engage the child; when she asked questions, her mother would keep reading and disregard anything that she said. Her mother would also go over flash cards with the child. The flash cards had the letters of the alphabet on them. The other family read to their son every night as well, but they would talk to the child while they read to him. His parents do worry, though, that they do not do enough. Both these families are prime examples of how many parents struggle with teaching their children to read.

I never knew whether trying to teach a young child to read would be beneficial or not. Even though I do not have a child, it is a question that I have asked myself before. Daily, I see ads on television and in magazines that show children reading because they used a certain product. An example of this is “Hooked on Phonics.” This chapter explains that a child will learn to read when they are ready. Reading to the child is a helpful tool that will help the process. When a child is even 6 months old, they are interested in books, not because of the letters, but because of the colors and pictures that are on the book.

I struggle with reading and I do not fully enjoy it. Even though I do not know how I was taught to read, I always wondered what would have helped. That is the part of the chapter that I enjoyed the most. Making reading FUN is so important when teaching a child to read. Many parents believe that using all types of materials to help their child read is the answer. Yes, it will help the child learn letters and many sounds. The only problem is that it may not appear fun to the child because it is not enjoyable, and it could hinder the child’s reading abilities later on.

When I first started reading this, I had heard of most of the issues being presented to me. I did learn something new while reading this. I had never heard of phonemes before reading this. I know that words are made up of sounds but I never knew that there was a term for that. Phonemes are the reason that just learning the alphabet will not make a child able to read. It is important to know the letters of the alphabet and the sounds each individual letter makes, but there are 26 letters and 40different sounds that can be made by those letters. When a child realizes that, they can start to understand the text being presented to them.

The end of the chapter goes on to say that the second family’s child will more easily learn to read, and they will more than likely enjoy reading more than the child in the first family. Knowing letters is important, but reading is so much more than that. This chapter did give examples of ways to help encourage learning to read, but I still question what other ways there are to teach your child to read without forcing it.

Children and Literacy: What's Best for Them

Alex, the author of our first entry on chapter 5, is pictured in the middle here. She's flanked by sisters Amber and Aubrey...apparently her parents liked the letter A! And if the look on Alex's face is any indication, she definitely liked playing! When you read her entry here, you'll see that, even having learned about early literacy in a previous class, she gleened quite a bit from this chapter. Enjoy!

I found this chapter interesting in that it discusses literacy for your baby through early school age. For me, this chapter was repetitive in information, only because I have read two books in my children's literature class about the issues she pointed out in the chapter. Literacy is an issue many parents struggle to address. They try to really emphasize the importance of reading. Reading is important; however, if we overemphasize it and turn reading into a chore and work, they lose interest early on.

The reading also brought me back to my early childhood. When growing up, I struggled in school. The only things I was good at were sports and recess. I remember one year they would take me and a few other students out of the classroom for a reading lab. This lab addressed phonics. We were learning the sound of letters. What is interesting that I did not know before reading this chapter is that, according to Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff, our 26 letters make 40 sounds. That amazes me. The funny thing is, I do not think I can tell you all 40 sounds; I just know them. I feel as though at one point I just started understanding how the sounds and letters make up words that have meaning. Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff explain that we do not need to worry about drilling the mechanics into our children, because surprisingly they start recognizing and making connections at an earlier age.

The best thing we can do for our kids in literacy is to just read to them out loud – frequently, and consistently. One reason why reading aloud to your child and constantly having conversations is beneficial is because it helps build their vocabulary. Having good vocabulary helps them grasp reading earlier than children who did not have that. I never really understood why reading to them at such a young age was so important. It is not about giving your child reading programs because you are afraid they won't learn how to read. What your child needs is to be read to. They need to be able to discuss what they think about the book through illustrations or text, because this is what helps them start to understand the basics of reading; when they get into school, they have an easier time reading. We also need to understand that not every child is going to be read to frequently. This is not because their parents don't care, but the fact of the matter is, they might not be able to afford books.

The authors also talked about story time. Story time is not just for the adults to read aloud to the kids, but for the kids to tell a story. I like the example the book gave for showing a child that words have meaning. The example was about the parent who has a young child who hasn't learned to write yet. In order to show them that words they read have meaning like the words we speak, you have them tell a story. When they tell the story, you write down exactly what they told you. Then you repeat what you wrote down so that they know they wrote a story that was full of meaningful words. I thought that was great. I know a few classmates who work in day care centers and when the children tell stories and are not able to write, the teachers write them down. I always thought they were doing that because they can't read. Now I see that it helps them in their development of literacy.

If there is one thing for you to take from this blog entry, it would be to make literacy fun. Let the child explore the book. Don't make it a chore by learning all the mechanics. We naturally start recognizing the patterns when books are made available and read frequently. There is so much great children's literature out there that can take a child into different worlds, families, and places, and it allows them to hear the words and take in that nice vocabulary you build for them.

No Special Equipment Required

In our last chapter 4 entry, Maggie gives us a final reminder that talking to and interacting with babies is the best way to foster language development. I'm sure you'll appreciate her personal perspective on Elkind's work.

Many parents seem to believe that in order for their child to develop linguistically, they need to buy them the newest innovative toy or product that will engage language learning. Hundreds upon hundreds of dollars are being spent on products that are NOT necessary for the growth of that child. Why? Because all you need to help your child grow linguistically is to talk to them. That’s it. Talk to them; interact with them, etc. According to the authors, we learn language through social relationships. I know it’s easy to believe that a computer game or a TV show can help children learn “faster” or be a step ahead, but in reality, it’s just a sales pitch.

I didn’t grow up in a technology-rich environment. We didn’t have a computer, fancy toys, or anything that would “enhance language learning.” Even though I didn’t have those things, I can fluently speak, read, and write two languages: English and Spanish. Spanish was my first language because my parents only speak Spanish. They didn’t buy CD’s that would constantly tell me that “casa” means “house” in Spanish. They just talked to me through daily interactions. By the time I was 3 years old I was speaking fluent Spanish without help from any “language enhancement” product. I didn’t have Leapfrog to help me learn English, either. I went to school and was immersed in the English language. My teachers spoke to me in English, my peers spoke to me in English, etc. THAT is how I learned to speak English. I learned Spanish at home and English at school; both languages were learned through social interaction and communication.

Children can learn new languages easily because according to Chomsky, we have a natural instinct for picking up language. We don’t need to be given a lesson on language as we learn to speak it. A child’s mind begins to decipher pauses, fluctuations, syllables, words, phrases, sentences, etc. In fact, by the seventh month of the pregnancy, the child can already begin to hear snippets of conversations in the outside world. Mom speaks to her baby or to others around her throughout the day, so the child is already exposed to the mother’s language. By 4.5 months, a baby can decipher when a sentence ends and another begins by hearing the pauses and fluctuations of the sentences. In addition, around the same time, babies will begin to recognize their own names. Constantly, they hear their names being called when being addressed by their parents, family, etc. Studies have been done where they are called by a different name by one person and their own name by another, and the baby is more likely to respond to their own name than the other name.

At six months, a child still does not have verbal language, but they do have a type of language. Language is a means to communicate; who said language had to be verbal? At six months, a baby can follow us with their eyes or gaze at an object they find interesting. By nine months, they can also follow where our finger is pointing, if we decide to show them something by pointing at it. This may not be verbal language, but a gaze can say, “Oh, look at that. That looks interesting.” In response, the parent can see the infant gazing at the object and then bring it to the child.

As the child continues to grow linguistically, they begin to babble. This constitutes sound patterns like “ba,” “da,” “ma,” etc. For a while, the baby continues to babble until they start to connect objects or people to their babbles. Soon, they begin to hear and catch more words in their vocabulary, and are able to say them. By 18 months, a child can name people, animals, and objects they see constantly, like foods, toys, etc. Soon, they begin to make two-word sentences like, “Dada home” instead of “Daddy is home.”

By the time a child is 3 years old, they can speak in clear sentences, and they begin to realize we mostly speak in past tense. In addition, they notice that we add –ed to the end of words spoken in past tense. This is fascinating because they see this pattern on their own. No one stopped them in the middle of the day to explain how to say a word in past tense. By 4 years old, a child begins to notice when and how to use certain words or phrases. For example, saying, “Have a good day!” or “Hope you had fun!” Also at this age, they begin to understand the context, setting, and storylines in stories. Although they may not know the terminology, they understand that Cinderella first lived with her mean stepmother, and then went to the ball, then married the prince. Of course, the more we speak to children, the more language they will acquire, and storytelling is one of the best mediums for this.

Language development is best developed when children are spoken to more often. This means actual conversation, not, “Go to bed,” “Clean your room,” “Don’t make a mess,” etc. They need to have real conversations. Ask open-ended questions. Expand the conversation. The more this is done, the more the child will develop linguistically. You don’t need Leapfrog, or other fancy products and toys to stimulate language enhancement, just talk to them.

Don't Forget to Talk!!!

This is Amanda, the author of our second chapter 4 entry. She said, "This is me and my brother acting silly! I don't remember how old we are, but I still remember that day! We took turns smashing each other with our bean bags and laughing the whole time!" You can see she had some great play experiences as a child, and I think you'll enjoy reading her take on what Elkind has to say about play and language.

The authors opened the chapter by telling a story of a mother who was trying to teach her child new words by showing him flash cards. The baby was not interested and wanted one of his toys. The mother soon gave up and gave him his toy. When I first heard of parents using flash cards, I thought that maybe the cards would be helpful. But after reading this little story, I realized that flash cards may be too boring for babies. We all know that children have short attention spans, so how do we expect them to sit long enough for us to show them the flash cards?

The authors point out to us that the best way to help children learn language is to simply talk to them. They learn language when they are engaged in conversations. When I read this I thought of a boy I used to nanny. I used to talk to him all the time. His parents also would talk to him, and it wasn’t long before Jacob was talking all the time! He sounded so cute because he would use extremely large words for a boy his age; he sounded like a miniature adult!

One thing that I found interesting in this chapter is how fast children actually are learning new words. The chapter says that by the time a child is 18 months they usually know around 50 words. Then they have a “naming explosion” (p. 79). By this they mean the child starts learning around 63 words a week. This blows my mind. That is a lot of words for a child who just a few months earlier was only babbling. I started thinking to see if I remember the naming explosion happening to the children that I am around. Then I remembered a little girl at my church, Alana. I remember I had only heard her say a few words here and there. Then one day I saw her and she was naming everything. I remember talking to her mom and even her mom was surprised at how much Alana was starting to say. Now Alana is going to be four and is talking away!

As I read through this chapter I began to think about the children that I come in contact with everyday and where they are in their language development. It is amazing to me to notice how quickly their language skills grow. My little cousin Cheyenne is one that I thought about a lot. She is just two and a half and is in the stage of putting together words to make sentences. When I walk in the house she immediately runs through the house saying, “Manda here! Manda here!” or when my dad goes outside, she says, “Where Jesse go?” It is so amazing to me how fast she has progressed in language. It was only a year ago she could only say a few words and now she is talking in sentences.

After reading this chapter I began to realize just how important talking to children is for their language development. Talking with them helps them more than flash cards or a computer program. When you talk to children you are allowing them to interact and express their feelings. You are also letting them talk about what is important to them and while doing so you are helping them to master language. So when you want to help your child or any child you come in contact with to become better in their language skills, remember: Talk to them!

Babbling

It seems hard to believe, but we're already on chapter 4: Language -- The Power of Babble. Denise has written our first entry here, and you'll see that the authors not only answered some of her questions about language development, but also made her even more curious about this fascinating aspect of development. Enjoy!

Reading this chapter really opened my eyes to the way children learn language. The beginning of the chapter started out discussing how children don’t need computers and other electronic devices to help with language development. The chapter said that the most effective tool for babies to learn language is human interactions. I could not agree with this more. Babies don’t need computer programs or other electronic devices to learn language, they need physical interactions with humans. Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff wrote, “The irony is that each child is born to be a linguistic genius” (p.62). This quote is very true; eventually every child learns how to speak, and it is up to the parents to give their children tools (such as daily interactions) to learn language.

One of the main points the chapter addressed was the fact that some children have more words than others at the same age. This is very evident to me when I am at work. I work at a daycare and when I am in the two year old class, I am amazed at how some children have such bigger vocabularies than others. One of the key concepts in child development is that children learn and develop at different rates, but that doesn’t necessarily mean children who develop slower than others have a learning disability. The chapter is very good at making this clear. Often times parents will take their children to specialists because they are not learning language at a fast enough rate. Parents who do this need to stop, take a breath, and give their children a chance to learn language at their own pace.

A question of mine that the reading answered was: At what age can a child start to distinguish the difference between their mother’s voice as opposed to a different woman’s voice? The answer to my question is that children can start doing this at seven months old. There was a study conducted that showed seven month old children were able to distinguish the difference between their mother’s voice and another woman’s voice. The study also showed that babies prefer to hear their mother’s voices over other female voices.

The chapter kept reinforcing that babies don’t need flash cards or computer programs to learn language. My question is at what age (if any) would it be appropriate to start incorporating computer programs to aid learning language? In my opinion, the age of eight would be a good time to start using computer programs to help with language development, because it would help them better understand the rules of language that some parents might not be able to teach their children.

After reading this chapter it has inspired me to use baby sign with my baby. I always used to think that baby sign was pointless, but the chapter proved me wrong. Using baby sign can help a baby maybe start to use words earlier in life. Not only is it important for the parent to do the sign, but it is also important for the parent to say the word that goes along with the sign; this can also help speed up the baby’s language learning process. The fact that babies can’t say words doesn’t mean they can’t communicate with their caregivers. As adults, it is important to know what to look for when a baby is trying to communicate something. There are many different forms of communication including babbling, but the one all parents wait for is their baby’s first word.