The problem, however, has always been: how do we help our youth stay
motivated to apply themselves, generation after generation? And then, beyond
this, the ...
Feature
How to teach your baby to read - and why By Mohib Ebrahim n his 1960 address to Karachi University, Mawlana Hazar Imam said: “Throughout history, when the great empires broke up, whether it be the fall of the Roman or Byzantine IQTMVIWSVSJXLI'EPMTLEXI]SY[MPP¼RHXLEXXLI ]SYXLLEHPSWXMXWH]REQMWQ MXWTIVWSREPMX]ERH its imagination.”
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Although we may not be empire building today, what Mawlana Hazar Imam is telling us is that if we can learn to look after the children - wisely, the empire (or community) will look after itself. The problem, however, has always been: how do we help our youth stay motivated to apply themselves, generation after generation? And then, beyond this, the question becomes: is there a practical, repeatable solution that can be kindled as a new °XVEHMXMSR±, or even °JSVQEPMWIH± (like teaching our children to brush their teeth), to help ensure it is passed on, generation to generation, so development of positive attributes in character of our youth is more reliable, certain and stable - more predicable, rather than it being dependent on either the accidental circumstances a child may encounter in their home or the sporadic knowledge of one generation? The answer appears to be yes. I doubt if there is a single parent who does not worry about their children’s education - about what specific, concrete, practical and substantive actions they can take towards their children’s education and instil a love of learning, besides trying to find the best schools and generally providing support, time and encouragement. In a child’s life, the years from zero to six have been proven, without doubt, as the singular most critical time of their development. In recognition of this, pre-school and early childhood education programmes, which millions now attend, have been developed for children aged three to six.
repeatable results over 50 years with hundreds of thousands of mothers. 50 years ago, a group of specialists, each attempting to treat brain injured children, realised that as individuals working on their own they were all failing. They therefore decided to join forces to see if, as a team, they could solve the problem. The original team comprised a brain surgeon, a physiatrist, a physical therapist, a speech therapist, a psychologist, an educator and a nurse. When they started they had never seen, or heard of, a single brain injured child who had gotten well. Their discoveries were later documented in what ranks as one of the most important books written for parents on the topic of childhood development in the past 40 years: °,S[ XS XIEGL ]SYV FEF] XS VIEH± by Glen Doman of the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential. Over the years, the group realised that if they were to succeed with the hurt brain, they would have to find a way to reproduce the normal neurological growth patterns of well children in hurt child. After studying hundreds of new-born babies and children, they “learned what normal brain growth is and found how simple and long-known basic activities of well children, such as creeping and crawling, are of the greatest possible importance to the brain.” They also “learned that if such activities are denied to well children, because of cultural, environmental, or social factors, their potential is severely limited.” As they discovered how to reproduce in brain-injured children the normal physical patterns of growing up, they began to see them improve, slightly at first.
But what of children younger than three - those aged from zero to three? Are these pre-preschool children to be left to just idle away their time at home, or worse in day care centres, some of which cause untold, documented damage to families and children? No.
Some surgical techniques were developed which saved the lives of over 25,000 children. However, it was the non-surgical techniques, designed to reproduce in hurt children normal growth patterns that let the team to really heal brain injured children, children for who all hope had otherwise been given up by conventional methods. In fact, the team started to nurture brain injured children to achieve above average, or even superior performance levels, compared to well children, and discovered that there was RS GPIEVP] HI¼RIH TSMRX when the brain injured child could be considered °LIEPIH± or “normal”.
Instead, there is a remarkable, yet inexpensive, programme for children aged zero to three based on two little known facts about how children’s brains actually develop; a programme proven and verified with concrete, positive,
This discovery was so startling; the team now faced a glaring question: what was wrong with the well children - those who had no brain damage? Shouldn’t the well child be performing far, far better than a child who had had half of
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his brain surgically removed or a child who had billions of dead brain cells? The implications were staggering: at hand was a radical new way of looking at children’s development and giftedness that was grounded in solid, repeatable, scientific method. Doman explains: °-XLEHEP[E]WFIIREWWYQIH XLEX RIYVSPSKMGEP KVS[XL ERH MXW IRH TVSHYGX EFMPMX] [IVI E WXEXMG ERH MVVIZSGEFPI JEGX 8LMW GLMPH [EW GETEFPI ERH XLEX GLMPH [EW RSX8LMW GLMPH[EWFVMKLXERHXLEXGLMPH[EWRSX2SXLMRK GSYPH FI JYVXLIV JVSQ XLI XVYXL 8LI JEGX MW XLEX RIYVSPSKMGEP KVS[XL [LMGL [I LEH EP[E]W GSRWMHIVIH E WXEXMG ERH MVVIZSGEFPI JEGX MW E H]REQMGERHIZIVGLERKMRKTVSGIWW -X[EWRS[ clear that this process of neurological growth GSYPHFIWTIIHIHEW[IPPEWHIPE]IH± After twenty years of research, Doman’s team, quite accidentally, discovered that reading was not a higher level cognitive skill such as imagination, creativity and problem solving, but instead is an intrinsic latent skill of humans, like learning to speak a language, that simply needs to be presented in the correct way to be aroused. Furthermore, if you don’t actively expose a baby to reading, (just as we expose them to spoken language), something else, like TV, probably will, albeit inconsistently and therefore with inconsistent results. Doman’s noted that, °¨-XQEOIWRSHMJJIVIRGI XS XLI FVEMR [LIXLIV MX²WIIW³ E WMKLX SV²LIEVW³ E WSYRH -X GER YRHIVWXERH FSXL IUYEPP] [IPP %PP XLEX MW VIUYMVIH MW XLEX XLI WSYRHW FI PSYH IRSYKLERHGPIEVIRSYKLJSVXLIIEVXSLIEVERH
Feature XLI[SVHWFMKIRSYKLERHGPIEVIRSYKLJSVXLI eye to see so that the brain can interpret them XLI JSVQIV [I LEZI HSRI FYX XLI PEXXIV [I LEZIJEMPIHXSHS± This fact was learned from Tommy Lunski. Tommy was born severely brain damaged and diagnosed as a °ZIKIXEFPIPMOIGLMPH[LS[SYPH RIZIV[EPOSVXEPOERHWLSYPHFITPEGIHMRER institution for life”. Tommy’s parents, however, refused to accept this fate for their boy. They learned of Doman’s institute when Tommy was three and by three-and-a-half, he had said his first words “Mommy” and “Daddy” and could creep on his hands and knees.Then, Tommy’s mother bought an alphabet book for her °XLVIIERHELEPJ]IEVSPHWIZIVIP]FVEMR MRNYVIHX[S[SVHWTIEOMRKWSR±. By four, Tommy could read all of the words in the book more easily than the letters. By fouryears-two-months he could read the Dr. Seuss book “Green Eggs”. Four months later he could read all of the Dr. Seuss books. By five, Tommy °GSYPHRS[VIEHER]XLMRK MRGPYHMRKXLI 6IEHIV³W (MKIWX ERH [LEX [EW QSVI LI GSYPH YRHIVWXERH MX ERH [LEX [EW QSVI XLER XLEX LI³H WXEVXIH HSMRK MX FIJSVI LMW ¼JXL FMVXLHE]± By six, Tommy was walking (though shakily), talking and reading at the sixth grade (eleven to twelve year old) level and his parents were now looking for a special school for him, “special high not special low”. As is often the case, the simple discoveries lead to spectacular results and the above discovery about type size is the key to letting your baby learn to read. From this simple fact, babies learning to read is a consistently, repeatable process, even in brain damaged children. Doman explains in his book the inexpensive method by which any parent can teach their babies and toddlers to read with just a few minutes work each day. Perhaps the most important benefits of teaching children to read early are, Doman reports, that they firstly developed a more intimate and satisfying bond with their parents and secondly that they make reading and learning a passion - one they will no doubt then want to instil in their own children using the same process. And in that perhaps is where we now have the knowledge and means to give birth to a new and noble tradition - a tradition which can help our youth apply themselves, generation to generation, pushing the frontiers of knowledge and human endeavour and thereby help the “empire look after itself.” * More about the Institutes for the Achievement SJ,YQER4SXIRXMEPERHXLIMVQEXIVMEPWGERFI JSYRH EX XLI JSPPS[MRK [IF WMXIW [[[MELTSVK ERH[[[KIRXPIVIZSPYXMSRGSQ
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