abecedarian
\ ey-bee-see-DAIR-ee-uhn \ , noun;
1. a person who is learning the letters of the alphabet.
2. a beginner in any field of learning.
1. of or pertaining to the alphabet.
2. arranged in alphabetical order.
3. rudimentary; elementary; primary.
*****************************************
Mary
held her squirming child on her lap in front of the large picture book. The baby boy seemed much more interested in
his mother’s hair than the colorful pictures laid out in front of him.
“Hold
still Petey.” Mary said as she tried to untangle her hair from his fingers. Eventually she managed to pry his attention
from her hair and to the book. “Ok, see
this? This is an A. It goes Ah.”
She pointed to a large, colorful picture of the letter next to an
illustrated apple. Peter patted the
fruit, grasping at it and babbling.
“What
in the world are you doing?” Said Alex,
Mary’s husband.
“Oh,
I’m just teaching Pete here the letters.”
She replied while still trying to maintain her son’s tenuous focus on
the book.
“Seriously? The kid doesn’t even know what his feet are
for yet and you’re teaching him to read?”
Alex said with an amused grin on his face.
“No,
not reading. That comes later. For now, just the letters will do.”
“Right. You know he probably doesn’t even know what
language is yet, right? I mean, he’s not
even a year old.”
“You
can never start too soon. At this age
he’s absorbing everything he hears, even if he doesn’t understand what it means
yet. So, the sooner we get started on
this kind of thing, the better.”
“Where’d
you hear that?” Alex asked. He knew kids took in just about everything,
but he also felt this was pushing it a bit.
“It’s
all over the net. All the experts say to get started on your kid’s education
early. It helps improve overall
intelligence. You do want him to be
smart, don’t you?” She asked slyly.
“Well,
yeah. Of course I do. But you know better than to believe
everything on the internet. Besides, I
don’t think those experts meant trying
to teach a newborn about the alphabet. I
think they probably meant wait till they can walk first at the very least.”
“I’m
sure they did. But the way I figure is,
if that age is good, younger would be even better.”
“Not
sure it works that way, hun.”
“Well,
what do you suggest then?”
“Just
get him some baby books and read to him.
Right now it’s best if he just hears the sounds. That way he still learns something, but it’s
not being forced down his throat.”
Mary
considered his words. She looked down at
Pete, who was trying to lift up one of the thick, cardboard pages so he could
put it in his mouth. He soon gave up and
went back to Mary’s hair. She did want
to help him get a head start on an education, but she also had to admit that Alex
had a point as well. Still, she could at
least try. Maybe it would end up
working. At the very least, she could
finish the book.
“Alright,
fine. We’ll try it your way. But not right now. I already started reading this one to
him. I might as well finish.”
“Yeah, sure. I’m just saying take it easy on him. He doesn’t have to be a genius right away.”
“Just right away?”
“Well, yeah. Once he’s a bit older we’ll see what we can
do to get his IQ over 150.” He
said.
Both he and Mary couldn’t help but chuckle at that.
Alex
made his way to the couch and sat next to his family. Mary resumed reading to Peter, with Alex
making comments every now and then.
Peter, for his part, was now greatly interested in his parent’s wedding
rings.
************************************
Not sure if I got the kid's behavior right. I'm not really an expert on how babies act at any given age, but that's not too important for this one. And I'm sure there's at least a few parent's out there who try and do something like this with their kids, with mixed results, I'm sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment