Einstein Never Used Flash Cards
How Our Children Really Learn--and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less
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- USD 11.99
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- USD 11.99
Descripción editorial
BOOKS FOR A BETTER LIFE AWARD WINNER • An enlightening guide to how infants and toddlers learn and why play is the key to enhancing your child’s development.
“A smashingly good book.”—Edward Zigler, Ph.D., director, Yale’s Center in Child Development and Social Policy, and the “father” of Head Start programs
In Einstein Never Used Flash Cards, highly credentialed child psychologists, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D., and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., with Diane Eyer, Ph.D., offer a compelling indictment of the growing trend toward accelerated learning and the cult of achievement that pressures parents to help their children to get ahead. It’s a message that stressed-out parents are craving to hear: Letting tots learn through unstructured play is not only okay—it’s a better way for children to learn than drilling academics.
Drawing on overwhelming scientific evidence from their own studies and the collective research results of child development experts, Kathy, Roberta, and Diane explain the process of learning from a child’s point of view, addressing how play helps boost learning in key areas of development such as math, reading, verbal communication, science, self-awareness, and social skills. To help parents foster creative play, they offer forty age-appropriate games. These simple, fun—yet powerful—exercises work as well or better than expensive enrichment programs and high-tech educational toys to teach children what their ever-active, curious minds are excited to learn.
Packed with insights from fascinating studies and thoughtful advice, Einstein Never Used Flash Cards reassures and empowers parents with knowledge that helps their children grow and thrive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Authors and child psychologists Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff and Eyer join together to prove that training preschoolers with flash cards and attempting to hurry intellectual development doesn't pay off. In fact, the authors claim, kids who are pressured early on to join the academic rat race don't fair any better than children who are allowed to take their time. Alarmed by the current trend toward creating baby Einsteins, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff urge parents to step back and practice the "Three R's: Reflect, Resist, and Recenter." Instead of pushing preschoolers into academically oriented programs that focus on early achievement, they suggest that children learn best through simple playtime, which enhances problem solving skills, attention span, social development and creativity. "Play is to early childhood as gas is to a car," say Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff, explaining that reciting and memorizing will produce "trained seals" rather than creative thinkers. Creativity and independent thinking, they argue, are true 21st-century skills; IQ and other test scores provide a narrow view of intelligence. The authors walk parents through much of the recent research on the way children learn, debunking such myths as the Mozart effect, and pointing out that much learning unravels naturally, programmed through centuries of evolution. Although the research-laden text is sometimes dense, parents will find a valuable message if they stick with the program, ultimately relieving themselves and their offspring of stress and creating a more balanced life.
