Del, I think children who are dying to learn how to read and pick it up on their own should learn to read whenever that happens, which may well be at three years old. Some very bright children are interested then, and I am sure it does them no harm.
But what we do in America is repeatedly point out letters and words to small children when we are reading to them, surround them with alphabet blocks and other letter recognition toys, and generally give them the idea that if they learn their numbers and letters, mommy and daddy will be especially pleased with them. I didn't do any of these things--alphabet blocks were forbidden--and made sure my daughter got a lot of sand play and social interaction. Reading to your child is vital, however, just not encouraging the child to learn to read too early.
However, I basically believe that because having a child who reads early gives parents brownie points in the constant, but subtle, "my child is smarter than yours" competition that goes on constantly generation after generation. On a developmental level, I just think children develop better if they deal with tactile, rather than abstract, concepts and activities in early childhood. I think the Waldorf schools, based on the ideas of Austrian educator Rudolf Steiner, have the right ideas when they teach reading late, after a lot of manipulation of objects, fairy tales and other imaginary play, and physical activity. Reading is taught starting at seven. It is part of a larger idea of "muscle mindedness", where the brain devlops more fully if abstract learning comes later.
If I can afford it, and my child is accepted, in fact, we are leaning more towards a Waldorf high school than any of the other ones we have visited so far. There have been a lot of them, and I have horror stories to tell, but will have to do that another time. They do learning in related blocks--if a certain period is being studied, science, agriculture, architecture, literature and other parts of the culture are studied in a related whole. The classrooms are experiential--a lot of math is done playing with long rods that hook together on the floor, for example, to understand the way geometric shapes work. There is a section on learning how to sail, and the final assignment is a night sail where the children navigate by the stars. This is the kind of education that excites me, and what I would want for my child if I can provide it and she also wants to go there. At the moment, she thinks the boys who go to Waldorf school are too nerdy!!!
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While it is true that most of the major personality development is done by age five, certainly all the events that happen after that affect a child greatly. Growing up in a stable, loving home since that age will definitely be much more beneficial than growing up in a bad home. I think children after five are still very much learning by role models, in the sense that if they see adults fighting, drinking, doing drugs, being irresponsible in general, they will emulate them.
As far as your foster child's son, it sounds like he will do great. While heredity certainly has something to do with a lot of our personality traits, general emotional health is created by nurturing, and it sounds like you are doing plenty of that!!
P.S. Julie is a great name. Of course, I agree totally with you about the character traits of a lot of ministers. My theory is that people choose religion because there is some dark, out-of-control part of themselves that frightens them. Instead of getting therapy or in some healthy way dealing with it, they use the artifical behavioral controls of religion to control their actions or compulsions. Of course, that doesn't work very well, so we have the constant revelations of children physically, emotionally and sexually abused by religious men, and all the fun stories of ministers and priests caught with prostitutes, etc., or doing stupid things while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. |
