An Educational System For Kids Aged 4+

Hey Gang,

I have something I want to run by the community here, as I think it is working wonders for my children and perhaps it would help with those of you who think they have a little genius who isn't getting enough knowledge to develop at an accelerated rate.

So we adopted last year our fourth child from Korea. He's currently 4 and learning to read. He's quite good at it.

Lately he's been reading various John Grisham novels out of my study and is struggling a bit, but none the less keeping up with The Lord Of The Rings.

Now me and my husband were attempting to figure out a way to expose him to various different topics without having the need to lie to him about sensitive material such as sex among others.

Here's what we did.

We bought a set of encyclopedias.

He reads them everyday. He's aloud to read anything in those books, so long as he sticks a post-it note to the page and highlights the section he's read. At night we go through it together and explain the things he's read.

This allows us to see what sort of material is in his interests and also gives us a way of making sure things are explained to him in context.

I have a feeling he's going to be a extremely intelligent young man as he's already stunningly perceptive and understanding of complex concepts.

It aligns with our belief that you should not hide things from children, that children are vastly more intelligent and capable than we give them credit for and can learn anything so long as you take to the time to do in correctly and lovingly.

Is this too much for him or do you agree with what we are doing?

IMO it's a great idea.

Thoughts?

~Keeper

[edit on 3/13/2010 by tothetenthpower]

Holy shi/ - a good parent.

Great idea, I think reading is one of the most important things to teach a child, once they've got a grasp of words and language they'll be able to dictate their own speed of learning and discovery.

I hated reading at school until the age of about 6 when somebody brought me a copy of the Return Of The Jedi book, we were pretty poor and couldn't afford to go to the cinema so it was my way of getting the film that my peers all got to see.

I read voraciously from that point on, doing odd jobs to buy any books that took my fancy and I was fortunate enough to have a good used-book shop in my local town where you could get books for about 50p.

Let them read anything, so long as you're willing to sit down and talk with them about it.

reply to post by jokei


Thanks for the compliment, I agree that once they grasp the language they will set their own pace.

It's what we are trying to accomplish, attempting to make learning and especially reading fun.

We've been able to keep him away from the Internet so far, and I'm pretty happy about it. It's a vast resource, but I'm going to wait until he's older and understands the fundementals better.

~Keeper

Sounds great! Keep it up!
I learned to read at age four. My parents and grandparents usually answered all my questions patiently - it was only at preschool that I realized there are suppressed and stupid people with prejudices - and alas, some can be in positions of authority.
When I got to school, I did not buy a reading textbook because I was already reading novels like Jules Verne... (the teacher made my buy it though...)
Actually my grandparents were the best at this who often took care of me - occasionally they conversed a few sentences in another language so I would not always know how they checked their strategies. So if you are parents of an adopted child, you can still make an impression that is as final in wisdom and tolerance as possible.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Encyclopedias are great, I got an amazing one for christmas one year - brilliant for school work and I used to enjoy delving in and reading about animals and all sorts of interesting things.

I agree with your comments on the net - the greatest learning tool mankind developed, but mostly just a sewer.

Do you have any good/cheap used book stores near you? I still love wandering around them, I prefer them to regular book stores because you never know what you'll find.

reply to post by jokei


Yeah we go to chapters a lot. I do quite a bit of writing and he tags along and just reads whatever he finds.

Used book stores were not in often but everynow and then he'll see a sign and make me stop in to see.

He got a copy of Moby Dick the other day but I told him he had to wait a little bit before he could take on something like that because of the old language and what not.

So now he's reading hamlet to get use to that type of language.

Amazing kid I tell you. Can't keep him from doing anything lol.

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


That's really nice to hear. I'm about halfway through Moby Dick at the moment, if he's ok with Hamlet he'll be fine with Moby Dick.

I agree, great and creative idea! Helps to inspire enthusiasm for learning and hopefully open up the world to the curious... I agree that sitting down and talking about what the kids are reading and processing the info. at age appropriate level, is an important addition to this. Again, well done.