Author of this article
Song Shaowei is an expert in adolescent learning psychology and the executive director of the Learning Science Laboratory of the Department of Psychology of Tsinghua University.
Case background
Pengpeng is a kindergarten child, according to his mother's statement, Pengpeng this child is usually very smart, before his mother taught him to memorize ancient poems, learn quickly! But now teach him pinyin, but I can't learn it! Pengpeng should go to primary school next year, which makes Pengpeng's mother particularly entangled, and she doesn't know whether to take him to learn in advance!
Initial reception
One Tuesday afternoon, Pengpeng's mother came to my counseling room alone. Pengpeng's mother opened the door: "Teacher Song, I heard that the progress of the first grade in the current primary school is fast. So much pinyin knowledge, two weeks to learn! Most of the other children are learning ahead of time, either at home or in the early childhood bridging class. Pinyin, writing, mathematics and so on, if you don't learn it in advance, you may not be able to keep up, so I think you must learn it in advance before going to school. ”
"Well, there is such a thing." I smiled and nodded, encouraging her to continue.
Immediately after, Pengpeng's mother threw out an opposite point of view: "But I heard someone say that the content of the first and second grades of primary school is not difficult and very simple." If the child meets early, he will feel bored in class, do not like to listen to lectures, and even tired of school. Don't we all say that the first grade is the time to cultivate habits, in case you develop the bad habit of not listening carefully to lectures in class, it will cause a lot of trouble in the future. ”
"Teacher Song, these two statements are just the opposite, which sounds very reasonable, I really don't know what to do!"
Pengpeng's mother looked at me helplessly, as if waiting for me to hand her a life-saving straw.
Preliminary analysis
Today's parents pay more and more attention to their children's learning, and many parents begin to plan before their children go to school. There is no doubt that parents' perceptions and perceptions of learning will play a decisive role in decision-making. From the first day of primary school, the child begins a formal student career, and learning tasks such as classes, homework, and examinations will accompany the child for the next ten years. The early childhood connection is an important turning point for children, and even determines whether they can smoothly transform from a carefree child to a positive student. Therefore, it is not surprising that parents attach importance to and are anxious about the connection between young and young children. The two statements mentioned by Pengpeng's mother represent the general voice of parents at this stage: learning in advance, worrying that children will lose interest in learning; not learning in advance, and worrying that children will "lose at the starting line" and cannot keep up with the teaching progress of the school.
From the perspective of the learning system, teaching children in advance about pinyin, literacy and other knowledge is improved by improving the module of semantic analysis. In my experience, learning knowledge from the subject system too early, children may be briefly ahead of the primary school stage. But as you get older, you may encounter more problems. For example, after middle school, some children may be reluctant to follow the teacher in class, bored with school and other emotions, which has a lot to do with the fact that children learn knowledge in advance, resulting in the formation of learning habits during primary school that cannot concentrate on listening to lectures in class. In fact, in the early childhood articulation stage, the factors that can really affect children's academic performance often appear in the recognition-driven module instead of the semantic analysis module. Therefore, the question we should consider is not "should" learn knowledge in advance, but "how" to help children master learning skills under the premise of protecting children's learning interests, so as to successfully pass the early childhood articulation stage.
The course of treatment
First of all, I need to know more detailed information, so I asked Pengpeng's mother for details in the learning process: "Pengpeng mother, you have taught some pinyin, children can't learn, can you talk about the specific situation?" How did you teach? What does he learn? ”
"For example, b and d are not distinguished, I have said it many times, he just can't remember!" Pengpeng's mother's tone could hardly hide her dissatisfaction with her child.
I explained with a smile: "The distinction between b and d is a typical mirroring problem, that is, for some children, d is like the b in the mirror, so it is easy to confuse. ”
Pengpeng's mother nodded, but then the more she said, the more angry she became: "Hmm, the numbers are often written backwards, 4 and 5, it looks like it is written with the left hand, it really looks like a word in the mirror." I've said it many times, and he just can't remember! ”
I realized the problem and explained reassuringly, "Mother Pengpeng, don't worry. Did you know that the phenomenon of the child appears precisely to show that he is a qualified human being? ”
Pengpeng's mother looked at me stunned and asked in surprise, "Qualified human?" "Yes, the positive and negative are unique to children of this age. For them, the recognition drive module is in the process of development, and some children will briefly have mirroring or rotating problems, which is no wonder to children. That's how our innate hardware development looks. I paused and came up with a common metaphor that she could better understand, "Like an apple, no matter how it spins, whether it's put or upside down, or if we look at it through the mirror, we recognize it as an apple." The tone of my explanation was very calm, which made Pengpeng's mother gradually relax.
Image source: pexls
"Oh—that's right!" Pengpeng's mother slowly leaned back to the back of the chair and breathed a sigh of relief. However, the next second she bounced up again and asked urgently: "But after school, it is not like this, b and d are not the same, after school, you can't always write backwards!" ”
I nodded and gestured to her not to worry: "Yes, the child really needs to get through this." I have some game props here that parents can play with their children at home, and use games to help children calibrate their recognition drivers. With that said, I took out a set of game cards specially customized in the "Chinese Children's Attention Cultivation Book" and showed her the specific operation method.
Pengpeng's mother's expression relaxed a little, but she still couldn't be completely assured: "Also, Teacher Song, I have a lot of trouble teaching chinese characters to my children, he can't always remember, is this a problem of memory?" ”
I continued to explain to her: "In children of this age, the problem of Chinese character learning is often also a problem driven by recognition. Some children are not very clear about how to collect the key information of the glyph of the text, resulting in problems such as lack of ability to distinguish between the nearest words, and similarly, the recognition driver needs to be adjusted. In this regard, I suggested that after she went home, she would play more games related to mirroring and spinning with her children, and told her not to be in a hurry to get angry and not to blindly criticize the children.
A month later, Pengpeng's mother sent me a message saying that Pengpeng especially liked the games in "The Big Book of Chinese Children's Attention Cultivation", especially liked to clip hockey and spin cards, and pulled adults to play with him every day. At the same time, children also began to carefully and actively observe the details of pinyin and text, and the correct rate of writing was greatly improved. Now, Pengpeng's mother no longer blindly worries about the child's young connection.
Review summary
The formation of perceptual constancy for people and things is the innate ability of each person to survive. For example, if there is one more black dot on a physical apple, we know it is still an apple, but for the word symbology that every child learns as soon as they enter school, it is very different. One more black dot on a text symbol may mean a completely different meaning, such as the word "big", and a little more will become the word "too" or the word "dog". For young children who have not yet adapted to the requirements of learning and broken the perceptual constancy, only after calibrating the recognition drive can they effectively complete the correct reading and writing task of text symbols. On the contrary, if parents do not understand the characteristics of children's intellectual development, regard the characteristics of children's staged development as problems, do not understand, do not accept, and even blame, often lay the bane that induces children to be bored with school. Pengpeng mother realizes that the learning in the primary school stage is different from the kindergarten learning, and hopes to take action to help the child make a smooth transition, which is good; but Pengpeng mother does not understand the characteristics of the identification-driven stage setting, but instead creates more problems and troubles for the child and herself.
In order to solve the problem of Pengpeng's mother, I first explained the basic principles and development rules of recognition drive for her, and then taught her some parent-child games specially designed for calibrating the recognition drive, including finding differences, picture and shadow comparison, walking mazes, guessing word puzzles, text transformation, etc., so that she can use "play" at home to help children get the basic learning skills required for the first and second grades, and establish an effective sense of discrimination of the text symbol system.
For children like Pengpeng who are new to Chinese characters, parents should not be too entangled in the right and wrong of words, but should vividly use stories and games to inspire them to understand and memorize the meaning of glyphs, so as to effectively remember and distinguish interestingly. In this way, while learning knowledge, we can protect and stimulate children's interest in learning.
To be honest, in the early childhood articulation stage, parents should not instill subject knowledge into their children too early, and it is the primary task at this stage to let children happily complete the identification drive calibration work. The so-called "do not let the child lose at the starting line" completely disrupts the objective law of the child's growth, many parents themselves or enroll in the class to teach the child primary school knowledge in advance, not only can not help the child to obtain the basic ability to learn, but caused a social education within the volume problem. It's like in a theater where one person stands up and the people behind them stand up in order to see the stage, and this chain reaction makes all the people in the theater stand up, because they can't see the stage when they sit. In the field of education, a single point of protrusion will trigger competitors to catch up, and eventually everyone will still maintain the original gap, but everyone pays a very high price for it.
If our children are in such a "theater" and cannot escape, then wise parents must first ensure that their children's legs have enough strength to stand, to ensure that the children know the direction of the stage, rather than let the children stand up earlier than the children in the neighboring seats. As a learning therapist, I am exposed to many cases of "winning at the starting line but losing at the finish line" every year, which is really regrettable. Instead of worrying about children "not being able to win at the starting line", it is better to learn how to guide children scientifically and avoid the tragedy of "losing at the finish line".
Author: Song Shaowei
Source: Notes on Learning to Heal
Part of the figure originates from the internet copyright belongs to the original author
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