Most of the gimmicks that are designed to build a smart child however, simply do not work. Furthermore, the cities point of, it is unnecessary for parents or anyone che to push a child to achieve ment: When children are ready, they cam to speak and walk to read and write, and to master any number of other complex tasks with no special training
Readiness, in fact, is a key factor in carly learning It is well estab lished that children pass through a universal sequence of cognitive stages as they develop the mental skills needed to process information. Attempts to speed up this natural process have Largely been unsuccessful
Preschool children can indeed be drilled and achieve amazing goals — in the short run. However, several studies have shown that carly educational gains such as these actually have little lasting effect. Children who were taught to read very carly, for example were found to have no advantage over later readers, once the two groups had been in school for a few ycars. In addition follow-up studies of children who were enrolled in Project Head Start - an educational enrichment program that was launched in the 1960s to serve culturally disadvan taged preschoolers-showed that most of the youngsters in the pro gram lost their comparative edge over the others by the time they reached fourth grade.
While this evidence suggests that it is futile to try speeding up the natural pacc of learning. it docs not mean that a child's intellectual development is inalterable. If, as most psychologists believe, cach child is born with a certain range of natural ability, then an attentive, respon sive upbringing can certainly help that potential bloom. Parents who applaud their daughter's tuncful singing, take her to hear concerts in the park and offer her piano lessons when her attention span seems long enough are providing the right kind of encouragement for potential musical talent. Those who drag a child away from backyard mudples to sit at the keyboard every day are likely to produce only a young music-hater instead
