Get ready...get set...

So I hope after you saw my previous post, you started thinking or doing something different with your kids.

You increased their exposure to the alphabet.

Maybe you will sing, you will show them videos, play it over your music speakers, put up decorations in their room, or buy them toys. I don't care if your child is a day old or 5 years old. That's a great start. Most kids don't start any type of education until 4 or 5 years old...preschool and kindergarten. Do you know what they teach???

THE ALPHABET.

Some kids already know, and many don't. When I taught in Missouri, they added additional preschools anywhere they could. They asked churches and daycares, the schools stretched what they could to add more schools and students. Why?

They had too many kids showing up to kindergarten with little to no knowledge of the basics. Colors, letters, shapes, even knowing the abc song. Do you know what they start in 1st grade? READING. Imagine someone giving you a foreign language alphabet and expecting you to read within a year. Think of the work and practice you would need to do that. I know it's not exactly the same situation but it pretty fair in comparison to an adult.

A child is looking at those lines and shapes like its a foreign language. The more you are exposed to it, the easier it is. A friend of mine in college was from Tokyo. We met in spanish class. She wasn't fully fluent in english and was learning spanish from a Columbian native speaker that was heavily accented. I noticed right away she was struggling because she hadn't heard a word of spanish before she walked into that class. I saw her face and immediately scooted closer to help her out. Taking years of spanish before allowed me to understand her better than most of the class so I would lean over and clarify when I could. Within a week, she came over for study sessions. In time, she started showing me japanese translations. Those lines and swooshes were unreadable to me. When she wrote in Romanji (japanese using the english alphabet) it was so much easier because I already knew the letters and could sound out the words.

See where I'm going here? If you teach the foundations early, there is no stopping your child's education potential because they already have a head start.