Parents are always searching for the newest piece of technology, the best preschool program, and even the ideal daily routine that will maximize success in learning for their children. If you turn on your television at odd hours of the day, you may see an infomercial offering the promise that your baby will be able to read before he can walk. At every toy store, there is likely to be an entire aisle devoted to what are specifically designated as “educational toys.” Many parents also stand by the flashcard method that has now been presented to generations of children, with stacks of sight words pulled from a mother’s purse to fill time at the grocery store or while waiting in the bank.
It is impossible to offer an absolute guarantee that any one approach will make your child smarter and able to impress the relatives with a reading from War and Peace over the holidays. This doesn’t mean, of course, that moms and dads will not try to hold a company accountable for their learning products. Just last month, a parents’ group threatened to sue Disney over their series of popular Baby Einstein videos after their children did not exhibit a remarkable growth in intellect. Rather than argue the merits of the claims in court, Disney has offered to refund the cost of up to four videos returned by each family. Despite this successful effort to reclaim money from a huge corporation, it should not be expected that either an academic superstar or an instant refund should be expected in every circumstance.
Instead of waiting for the chance to jump on the next big trend in early childhood learning, parents and educators simply should adhere to a basic principle that has benefitted brains around the globe for centuries, which is repetition. Think of all the ways in which you have learned facts or concepts by reviewing them time and time again. Multiplication tables, typing on a keyboard, preparing for a school play, and memorizing a piece of music for a recital are just a few examples of the skills that are developed by drilling the information multiple times until the learner is confident with the material.
Although some teachers have moved away from the idea of rote learning and drilling in recent years, new research is showing the importance of such activities. Neuroscientists have discovered that a child’s brain is wired by repeated experiences. Once a concept is introduced, the key synapses are strengthened each time a person encounters the same information again. Whether we want to accept it or not, there is merit to those countless exercises in repetition that our teachers imposed on us during school. We really do need to hear many times that 2 x 2 = 4 before that fact gets lodged in our minds.
The new release by children’s author Dawn Menge, Queen Vernita Visits the Blue Ice Mountains, is a book that incorporates the value of repetitive learning. In a continuation of Menge’s first book, Queen Vernita’s Visitors, readers are taught the months of the year and the days of the week as the title character welcomes a new friend to her home with each turn of the calendar. Children will enjoy reading about the fun activities that the pair determine for each day of the week and may not even realize they are learning along the way!
Queen Vernita Visits the Blue Ice Mountains by Dawn Menge can be purchased at Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com.
