Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn--and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less
by Diane Eyer, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
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Book Reviews of Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn--and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less
Book Review: Beyond Excellent. You won't panic while reading this book!
Summary: 5 Stars
You know how it goes. You hear another mommy in the playgroup or a mutual friend talk about how they are teaching their one-year-old to read or how their toddler just got in to the spanish immersion pre-school and you feel that twinge of guilty panic, wondering if you're doing what is right to make your child as smart as possible. This book is INCREDIBLE and will calm you down and help you realize what is truly important: children do not learn from boring drill-and-kill experiences. They learn from play and enjoyable reading.
My favorite quote from this book is "Put away your credit card and get out your library card". That is the theme of the whole book. The authors explian why most expensive "educational" toys MAKE your children play with them a certain way and don't allow for creativity so they should not be the only toys your child has. (You can have them! They simply suggest you also have creative toys like dolls, blocks, dress up, kitchen & tool sets or Legos.) They go on to explain that access to toys like these encourage unstructured, imaginative play that help children learn about numbers, physics, geometry, the world and their feelings.
This book tackles our most pressing questions, like how we will teach our children to read before pre-school and how we will teach them the concept of number symbols standing for actual quantities of items. Moreso, they explain to parents exactly how children learn and that parents are not the sole architects of the perfect baby brain. Mother nature has already created a brain that loves to learn and drilling children with flash cards or worksheets can kill a love for learning that is naturally there.
As you can tell from the title of the book, flash cards and demanding, there's-only-one-right-answer educational toys are a fairly new trend but geniuses have always existed. Most intelligent people in the past were allowed to play and leisure read freely - and experiment with things around them - which contributed to their intelligence the most. Parents reading to children and free play are a must! (By the way, I have a psychology degree and I learned in college that children under 1 cannot really see words well unless the letters are FOUR INCHES TALL! Even better if the words are red, not black, to attract the eye to focus. No flash cards look like this! Two year olds still need three inch letters. Adult print is simply too small for their developing visual pathways to read! How bored and agitated would you be looking at small, blurry letters all day? It's like a constant eye-chart test set at 20/10!)
I loved this book and nearly every paragraph is supported by research completed all over the world on child development. The back of the book organized the cites and references by chapter so you can look in to the research if you want to arm yourself with facts! In fact, I have talked so positively about this book, my friends are lining up to borrow it and I'm encouraging everyone to buy their own copy because you will want to keep this one on-hand. I'm buying one for the gal that lives up the street that just won't quit talking about how "smart" and "advanced" her one year old is because she buys educational toys exclusively!
Honestly, you're going to find the answers you are looking for about how to both encourage creativity and teach the fundamentals your children need for Kindergarten. If nothing else, it will assure you that a relaxed, unstructured play day at home is one of the best things you can do for your child!
Book Review: Play!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am an Early Childhood Educator and read this book because it showed up in a research article I read. This book has a lot of awesome and powerful information for parents and educators. I highly recommend this book to any parent who does not have a backgroud in child development or in early childhood. It's an easy read, and leaves you with a renewed passion towards the simple things in childhood.Book Review: Great Read for all parents
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is so encouraging! I am so frustrated with parents that believe that their children need to be involved in everything. The book is packed full of research that shows just the opposite. Children need to play and they learn best through play. It is so important that we spend quality time with our children and the authors reinforce this throughout the book. This book educates parents with the ways to go about helping our children and debunking the myths and lies such as purchasing certain products like flashcards, classical music at an early age, and certain toys make our children smarter. Book Review: False dichotomy
Summary: 1 Stars
Why not do both? Memorization is an important skill in the real world. IT pros have to memorize loads of information and think creatively to succeed. Memorization is required to pass almost any license exam from driving to amateur radio. When my daughter fell behind in kindergarten because she had spinal surgery flashcards were the only way she could pass the 35 work sight reading test to be promoted to the first grade. Maybe some adults are projecting their own phobias about mnemonics onto their kids. Einstein never used flashcards but Einstein never had to deal with No Child Left Behind. Get real.Book Review: For Hyper Parents
Summary: 5 Stars
Corporations have brain washed you into trying to make your children into adults as soon as possible. Two reasons; So that YOU can go back to your irresponsible behaviors BEFORE you had kids ( Dating, Running Around ) AND 2; The Corporations can SELL JUNK to your kids like training bras and "Tween" perfume. The message is to grow up and face your responsibility of raising kids without the media or corporate help.