- 50% of a person's ability to learn is developed in the first
four years of life.
- Another 30% is developed by the eighth birthday.
- Those vital years lay down the pathways on which all future
learning is based.
- After age ten, the branches that haven't made connections die
off.
- Youngsters are their own best educators, parents their best
first teachers.
- Youngsters learn best by what they experience with all their
senses, so stimulate these senses.
- Our homes, beaches, forests, playgrounds, zoos, museums and
adventure areas are the world's best schools.
- Simple physical routines can help infants explode into
learning.
- Infants grow in a patterned way, so learn to build on that
growth pattern.
- Learning anything, including reading, writing and math, can
and should be fun.
This 10-point checklist comes from the introductory page of
chapter 7, entitled The vital years, from the world's
best-selling book of 1999, The Learning Revolution, by Gordon
Dryden and Dr. Jeannette Vos.
.
They analyze examples of highly effective programs from around
the world: Montessori preschools, Suzuki music-teaching methods, the
Doman reading method, a wide variety of physical-stimulation
activities.
.
And they decide that the world's best early-learning methods
combine the best from many countries, including preschool methods
from areas as wide apart as Sweden, New Zealand, Montana, England,
Japan and Philadelphia.
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