Einstein Never Used Flash Cards
How Our Children Really Learn--and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
BOOKS FOR A BETTER LIFE AWARD WINNER • An enlightening guide to how infants, toddlers, and children learn and why play is the key to enhancing your child’s development—now revised and updated with a new chapter on the impacts of screen time
“An authoritative, up-to-date playbook on why we should raise our children to be learn-it-alls, not know-it-alls—plus practical advice on how parents can do that!”—Angela Duckworth, New York Times bestselling author of Grit
“A breath of fresh air for moms, dads, and childcare professionals.”—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and New York Times bestselling author of When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows
In Einstein Never Used Flash Cards, award-winning early childhood development experts Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, PhD, and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, PhD, show how parents can help their children succeed while reducing the pressures they both face. They offer a compelling message for today’s parents: rather than invest in expensive enrichment programs and “educational” apps and toys, the best way to boost brainpower and interpersonal skills is to let children play. In fact, free and guided play is a better way for kids to learn and for parents to enjoy their children.
Drawing on overwhelming scientific evidence, Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff explain how learning works from a child’s point of view. They address how kids pick up key mathematical concepts, acquire language, develop a sense of self, and more. They also offer more than forty age-appropriate activities for children under nine. These simple, fun—yet powerful—exercises work as well or better than unnecessary interventions to engage kids and their ever-active, curious minds. This revised edition also includes the latest findings on how play supports learning, as well as a new chapter on the benefits and downsides of time spent with digital media.
Packed with insights from fascinating studies and reassuring advice, Einstein Never Used Flash Cards empowers readers to help their children thrive while bringing more joy to the hard work of parenting.
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.
