“I can’t read.” Imagine the dropped jaws and stunned silence around the office conference table if a co-worker made that admission. Yet no one would blanch if that same co-worker announced, “I can’t do long division.”

While literacy is considered a requisite in most workplaces, basic math skills and science knowledge are considered a specialty, vital to the folks in IT and accounting but not for the rest of the staff. That kind of attitude — found in classrooms, lunchrooms and living rooms across the country — threatens to cripple the United States in global competition.

“There are consequences to a weakening of American independence and leadership in mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering,” warns a recent report to President Bush from the National Mathematics Advisory Panel. “We risk our ability to adapt to change. We risk technological surprise to our economic viability and to the foundations of our country’s security. … Sound education in mathematics across the population is a national interest.”

In the 2007 results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a standardized test given in schools across the country, 30 percent of U.S. eighth-graders scored below the basic level in math. The failure rate was higher in Georgia, where 36 percent scored below basic.

“Whether filling white-collar or blue-collar positions, employers today want workers with pocket-protector skills — creative problem solvers with strong math and science backgrounds,” says U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

At a meeting earlier this month of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, a researcher explained to school leaders from around the state that the problem wasn’t that the U.S. was losing ground in its math achievement. The rest of the world was simply improving faster.

“Other countries are zipping past us,” said Daria Hall, a policy analyst at the Education Trust.

National standards for science and math education are part of the answer. Surely the principles of algebra remain the same whether taught in Boston or Ball Ground, and the chemical properties of water don’t vary across state lines. National standards — backed by testing — would also make it quite clear which states and school districts were failing their students.

But a strong national curriculum would be only half the battle; the other challenge is creating a teaching force capable of teaching to those higher standards. Like many other states, Georgia suffers from a serious shortage of teachers qualified as math and science instructors.

Only 8 percent of students in Georgia public colleges are majoring in engineering, technology or the natural sciences. Within the teaching profession, the numbers are even more stark. A new report by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement notes that Georgia public colleges produced 3,822 new teachers in 2007. Of that number, only 3.4 percent were trained in math and 2.5 percent were trained in science.

That helps explain why the state graduated only three new high school physics teachers in 2006, up from one in 2005. And that lack of qualified teachers — not just in Georgia, but around the country — in turn helps to explain why only about 15 percent of American high school students earn math or science credit in rigorous Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate programs.

That represents a lot of missed opportunity in a country that adds 100,000 new computer-related jobs a year. As Bill Gates pointed out in his March testimony before the House Committee on Science and Technology, “Only 15,000 students earned bachelor’s degrees in computer science and engineering in 2006, and that number continues to drop.”

As Gates knows better than anyone, the jobs are waiting. It’s up to the education system to make sure the students are ready. And to get more teachers into the classroom qualified to teach those students, Georgia and other states ought to use every tool at their disposal — including scholarships, college loan forgiveness and higher pay for math and science teachers — to persuade more bright students

Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution, USA
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2008/05/16/mathed_0518.html

Young children whose parents read aloud to them have better language and literacy skills when they go to school, according to a review published online ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Children who have been read aloud to are also more likely to develop a love of reading, which can be even more important than the head start in language and literacy. And the advantages they gain persist, with children who start out as poor readers in their first year of school likely to remain so.

The authors explain that the style of reading has more impact on children’s early language and literacy development than the frequency of reading aloud. Middle class parents tend to use a more interactive style, making connections to the child’s own experience or real world, explaining new words and the motivations of the characters, while working class parents tend to focus more on labelling and describing pictures. These differences in reading styles can impact on children’s development of language and literacy-related skills.

The Reach Out and Read programme in Boston has improved the language skills of children in low income families by increasing the proportion of parents reading to their children.

The programme provides books and advice to the parents about the importance of reading aloud. Parents who have been given books were four times more likely to say they had looked at books with their children or that looking at books was one of their child’s favourite activities, and twice as likely to read aloud to their children at least three times a week.

Source: Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080512191126.htm

Schools are responding positively to the recommended phonics method of teaching reading, suggests a snapshot survey by inspectors.

Ofsted inspectors say there is a “virtuous circle” of improved reading skills and higher expectations.

The report from inspectors also concluded that children were enjoying phonics lessons.

This survey tested the progress of the Rose Review of reading, which called for a more systematic use of phonics.

‘Raised expectations’

Ofsted inspectors found schools using the recommended phonics method had “raised their expectations of how quickly and well children could learn to read and write”.

“Teachers have been ’surprised by the joy’ shown by children as they master phonic skills,” says the report.

The principle behind phonics is that children learn the sounds of letters and of combinations of letters and use them to decode words.

The report, based on visits to 20 schools and responses from a further 43, found that teachers were putting into practice the recommendations for improving the teaching of reading.

In 2005, the government-commissioned review of reading by Sir Jim Rose called for “relatively short, discrete sessions, designed to progress from simple elements to the more complex aspects of phonic knowledge”.

Phonics had already been taught in many primary schools, but the Rose Review emphasised the need for a rigorous and systematic use of from the earliest years.

And this snapshot survey shows that in 16 of the 20 schools visited such sessions of teaching phonics were taking place every day.

It also found that 19 of these schools had adopted a systematic approach to phonics teaching.

However, it also found that this was not an easy subject to explain to parents.

Meetings for parents about phonics were poorly attended and teachers said there were difficulties in “conveying the subtleties of the programme”.

Source: BBC News, UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7391948.stm

Poorer children are more likely to fail their exams than their richer peers according to new figures, raising fears about increasing inequality in state education.

Britain’s poorest children are at a greater risk of attending a failing school than pupils from the wealthier backgrounds, Government data suggests.

A new analysis of official data by the Conservative party indicates that the achievement gap in education between rich and poor children is increasing.

Those from the most deprived backgrounds have more than a 50 per cent chance of ending up in a school that the Government considers to be failing because it has not reached the target of 30 per cent of pupils gaining five A* to C grades at GCSE, including English and Maths.

This compares with just three per cent of children from the most well off homes attending a failing school.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said that Ed Balls, Schools Secretary aimed to tackle the problem in two areas with a history of ingrained disadvantage, lower educational achievement and wide variations in children’s attainmaint. The programmes launched this week in Manchester and the Black Country will aim to raise the number of schools reaching the Government’s target of 30 per cent A* to C grades at GCSE.

Mr Balls said: “Every parent wants their child’s school to be a great school, where pupils get good grades in their GCSEs. That’s why it is right for us to focus extra support on those schools where less than 30 per cent of the pupils get five good GCSEs including English and maths.”

Across the board, the numbers show a strong link between a child’s background and their chances of educational success in the state sector. They also provide evidence that the poorer the child the higher the probability of them attending a failing school.

The figures were released in answer to a parliamentary question put to Jim Knight, the Schools minister by Michael Gove, the Shadow Education Secretary and show Britain has a long way to go before achieving a classless education system. They were compiled from the School and College Achievement and Attainment Tables from 2007.

Mr Gove said: “There is a growing gap between the standard of schools in richer and poorer areas. We must give teachers the powers they need to keep order, improve reading teaching, and have more teaching by ability.”

Dr Lee Elliot Major, Director of Research at The Sutton Trust, a charity which gives educational grants to children from underprivileged backgrounds said: “Unless we address such deep-rooted educational inequalities, the UK will continue to languish at the bottom of the international league table of advanced countries when it comes to social mobility. Breaking the link between poverty and academic attainment is a major challenge, but one that needs to be addressed both for reasons of economic prosperity and social justice.”

David Laws education spokesman from the Liberal Democrats said: “We simply can’t accept a situation where over half of the schools in the most depressed areas are failing to get the overwhelming majority of their pupils up to a good exam standard.”

“These figures reinforce the case for introducing a Pupil Premium which would target extra money on young people from more deprived backgrounds, bringing their level of education funding up to levels in the private sector.”

In the scramble for the best schools parents are prepared to lie and cheat the system according to a Local Government Association report in March. Out of 31 councils surveyed 24 said they had seen an increase in cheating. The figures for 2007-08 were nine times higher than two years ago.

Source: Times Online, UK
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3881278.ece

There’s no ignoring that China, with a population exceeding 1 billion people as well as burgeoning economic capabilities, is a force to be reckoned with. Throw in the fact their kids too often score better in math and science than students in the United States and what does not make sense about getting Minnesota and Chinese educators together?

Forty-nine principals from all over China made a cross-global trek to meet last week with Minnesota educators in the first-ever U.S.-China Principals’ Summit hosted by the University of Minnesota’s China Center and the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals, among others.

The four-day event, also sponsored by the Beijing-based China-American Education Foundation, was a conversation about the commonalities and differences in each nation’s system of schooling their children.

Education is “their number one priority and their number one fiscal commitment. They are intentionally focusing on becoming a world leader in first-rate education. We need to collaborate with China and we need to keep them a close educational partner,” explained Joann Knuth, executive director of the principals’ group.

There is also Chinese students’ widely recognized academic reputation, said Youngwei Zhang, director of the center. “They outscore their counterparts in many countries in math and science. These are things we need to know about so our students can do better,” he said.

For instance, MinnPost reported last December on recent Program for International Student Assessment, a.k.a. PISA, scores where students in Hong Kong and Singapore outperformed American high school students.

The forum benefits University officials as well, Zhang said, since the University has the largest population of students from China of any U.S. campus. Currently, about 2.5 percent of the University’s student body is international students, and the intent is to double that number. He estimates the U received about 800 student applications from China.

Though international differences in education approaches are difficult to swallow in one big gulp, I asked two educators, Knuth, and Chin Yi (Chin is his family name), to share their initial reactions to the summit.

Chin, who is director of international programs from the Middle School attached to Hunan Normal University, and spoke in English, had this to say.

He praised the American educational system’s “creativity.” “One of the first things that attract me is the creative spirits I found in the American high school teachers and students. We often found that American high school students are very creative, although the Chinese kids have a solid academic foundation, they lack the creative spirit,” he said.

The American system seems more open to new ideas and innovation, he said, with China having a “unified curriculum.”

In addition, China attaches great importance to academics, Chin said, claiming more than 95 percent of its students graduate from high school – much exceeding U.S. rates.

“Also, I like to point out China is attaching great significance to education by the parents. You say the involvement. In China there is no problem in parent’s involvement,” he said.

Knuth, who also represents Minnesota at the National Association of Secondary school Principals in Washington, D.C., shared these thoughts:

“I was very intrigued by China’s commitment to education. Education is their number one priority.” For instance, they talked about a 10- year education reform program where they expect to establish 110 key universities and how they are investing $2 billion in poly-technical colleges, what Americans call technical or vocational schools, she said.

“This is an extraordinary commitment. When you think about their population and the impact it will have on global education, it’s amazing.”

However, China recognizes the need to reform some cultural aspects of their kindergarten through 12th-grade system, she said. “Right now it’s very intense.” She talked to a Carleton College student from China at the conference who told her Chinese students regularly spend 10 to 12 hours a day in “intensive study.”

What the Chinese are looking to infuse into their education system from the American system is innovation. “[Chinese] students are very good at rote learning, but the idea is to learn concepts and then be able to think about, analyze and create new. That is not the cultural pattern in their schools,” Knuth said.

It was 1972 when Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit the People’s Republic of China, thus opening the door to normal relations with the Communist nation. The U’s China Center has worked since 1979 to encourage understanding and cooperation between the U.S. and Chinese people and cultures.

Source: MinnPost.com, MN
http://tinyurl.com/4xte2v

A tide of recent research on early childhood development is inspiring prominent scientists and politicians to argue for an unprecedented investment in schooling that begins virtually at birth.

But as decades of academic studies on brain development start to land in the real world, experts are divided on whether to focus new funding on infants and toddlers, or conventional preschool. Many now think some policies popular with politicians and the public, such as universal prekindergarten, may fail to reach at-risk kids at a young enough age.

The scientific controversy also is spilling into the presidential contest, where the Democratic candidates have taken divergent positions on universal preschool and other early childhood issues.

Studies have suggested that intervening before children start preschool improves academic outcomes for low-income kids and may reduce the risk that they will end up in prison. Such interventions stem from the theory that experiences in the first five years of life set a lifelong course for brain development.

Chicago has become a national proving ground for schooling during the first three years and is home to prominent advocates such as Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman of the University of Chicago, who said reaching kids before preschool could offer the best long-term economic return.

“Even at age 4 or 5, you may be starting too late,” Heckman said. “I wouldn’t say it’s hopeless to help kids after those early years, but it’s extremely expensive.”

Backers of universal preschool say the evidence for even earlier intervention is not yet solid and offering conventional prekindergarten to everyone would help build popular support for early education.

In theory, starting to intervene soon after birth should help kids more because that’s when experience starts to shape their brains, many experts said.

Children’s brains change more between conception and kindergarten than at any other time. University of Chicago neuroscientist Peter Huttenlocher showed in studies over the last 30 years that connections between cells in most brain areas peak by age 3, then decline gradually as experiences mold the brain’s circuitry.

The zero-to-3 period is not necessarily a magical and irreplaceable window for teaching children. But studies show that babies raised in poverty get fewer of the early experiences that spur vocabulary growth and good social judgment, making it harder for them to catch up later.

For example, toddlers whose parents speak more words to them develop bigger vocabularies than children who hear less speech, studies have found. One University of Kansas study concluded that kids from upper-income backgrounds hear 30 million more words by age 3 than those from poor families.

Early intervention with enrichment programs can narrow that gap, researchers and advocates say.

“The basic science of brain development says you need to start as early as possible for kids in the greatest danger to get the best outcomes,” said Jack Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California-Berkeley, said he feared focusing on universal prekindergarten — making preschool a middle-class entitlement — could divert help from low-income families that need it most.

“Why would we use scarce public dollars to subsidize all families if we know the biggest impact is with poor kids?” he said.

Source: Detroit Free Press, United States
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/NEWS07/805020328

Parents should be paid to spend time with their children to stop toddlers as young as two being sent to schools and nurseries, a leading head teacher has said.

Clarissa Williams, the new president of the National Association of Head Teachers, said that parents were being separated from their children too early.

“Why do we feel the need to send children into an education environment at the age of two? Are parents so distrusted that we want to separate them from their children at the earliest opportunity?” asked Ms Williams, the head of Tolworth Girls School in Surrey.

Speaking at the NHT annual conference in Liverpool, the head said parents should be rewarded financially for staying at home, playing with their children, reading to them and bringing them up well.

“There needs to be a contract between the receiver of the benefits that if they stay at home to do quality things with their children, they will be rewarded.

“Lots of mothers stay at home and deal with a single income and we should respect that.”

Ms Williams said some young children reacted badly to intuitional settings, echoing research that suggests that putting toddlers in nurseries for a long amount of time can lead to aggression.

“Lots of children react well to nurseries, others are more anxious and that manifests itself in their behaviour, said Ms Williams.

The head suggested that child allowance as well as benefits should reflect the effort parents put in with their children.

The proportion of working mothers has risen steadily over the last decade.

Thousands of babies are now looked after by nurseries. Government vouchers giving free child care places to 3 and four year olds have also led to a rise in the number of children in pre-school settings.

Children in the UK also start formal education at age 5, much earlier than the rest of Europe where 6 or 7 is the norm.

In her speech Ms Williams also criticised school admissions.

She said choice was limited “mostly to those able to exercise it.” She suggested that allocating secondary school places by lottery could be fairer.

The controversial distribution of school places by ballot has been adopted by Brighton and Hove, several schools in Hertfordshire and a few in London.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
http://tinyurl.com/4oce7j

Targets for “toddler technology” skills laid down by the Government, which will require children to master basic computer skills by the age of 4 and understand how to use a television remote control, pose serious risks to child development, experts have said.

Aric Sigman, a psychologist and author of Remotely Controlled, said that the Government’s new early years curriculum, which requires underfives to be taught on computers, risked creating a generation of screen addicts.

Exposure to screen technology during key stages of child development may have counter-productive effects on cognitive processes and learning, particularly language development and competency in reading and maths, Dr Sigman said.

“Legally requiring the introduction of screen technology to 20 to 60-month-old children is likely to lead to even higher levels of daily screen viewing. Early introduction to ICT [information and communications technology] is likely to lead to a greater lifetime dependency on screens,” he said.

The Government’s new early years curriculum, known as the EFYS (Early Years Foundation Stage), will become statutory in all nurseries and childcare settings in England from September. It sets out specific computer-related tasks for underfives.

From the age of 22 months children should “show an interest in ICT. Seek to acquire basic skills in turning on and operating some ICT equipment.” From 30 months schools should “draw young children’s attention to pieces of ICT apparatus they see or they use with adult supervision”.

From 40 months children should “Complete a simple program on a computer. Use ICT to perform simple functions such as selecting a channel on the TV remote control. Use a mouse and keyboard to interact with age-appropriate computer software.”

These goals are set against a background of growing use of IT in state schools at all ages. Dr Sigman said that there was increasing evidence to suggest that this approach carried substantial risks. Supposedly educational DVDs and computer programs were very often nothing of the sort, he said.

He cited a recent study in the Journal of Pediatrics, which found that the use of such software produced no positive effects on children under 2 and might retard language development.

He observed the emergence of a “video deficit” phenomenon whereby young children who have no trouble understanding a task demonstrated in real life often stumble when the same task is shown on screen.Exposure to television and computer games over a long period might also have long-term consequences on children’s ability to concentrate.

Richard House, senior lecturer in psychotherapy and counselling at Roehampton University, said that there was no compelling evidence to support the Government’s view that screen-based learning was good for very young children.

“One would think the Government must have had convincing evidence for incorporating computer and screen technology into legislation that is legally binding for all nursery or child care settings, but none exists,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Families and Schools said it was not mandatory for children to achieve all the learning goals. “The EYFS says that most – though not all – children should have the chance to find out about everyday technology through their play,” she said.

What little surfers will have to know

The Government’s computer literacy goals for children aged 22-36 months
— Acquire basic skills in turning on and operating some ICT equipment
— Talk with carer about what it does, what they can do with it and how to use it safely
— Use the photocopier to copy their own pictures and other equipment such as karaoke machines

Children aged 30-50 months
— Know how to operate simple equipment

Children aged 40-60 months
— Complete a simple computer program
— Use ICT to perform simple functions, such as selecting a channel on TV remote control
— Use a mouse and keyboard to interact with age-appropriate computer software
— Find out about and identify the uses of everyday information and communication technology and use it together with programmable toys to support learning. Click on icons to cause things to happen in a computer program

Source: Times Online, UK
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3864656.ece

For generations, scholars have debated whether language constrains the ways we think. Now, neuroscientists studying reading disorders have begun to wonder whether the actual character of the text itself may shape the brain.

Studies of schoolchildren who read in varying alphabets and characters suggest that those who are dyslexic in one language, say Chinese or English, may not be in another, such as Italian.

Among children raised to read and write Chinese, the demands of reading draw on parts of the brain untouched by the English alphabet, new neuroimaging studies reveal. It’s the same with dyslexia, psychologist Li Hai Tan at Hong Kong Research University and his colleagues reported last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The problems occur in areas not involved in reading other alphabets.

Using two brain-imaging techniques, they identified striking differences in neural anatomy and brain activity between children able to read and write Chinese easily and classmates struggling to keep pace. Both were at odds with patterns of brain activity among readers of the English alphabet.

Even when readers in both languages looked at the same written characters, the brain activity was different, other researchers found. Arabic numerals of standard arithmetic — used by readers of Chinese and English alike — activate different brain regions depending on which of the two languages people had first learned to read, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China’s Dalian University of Technology reported in 2006.

“In this sense, we may regard dyslexia in Chinese and English as two different brain disorders,” Dr. Tan said, “because completely different brain regions are disrupted. It’s very likely that a person who is dyslexic in Chinese would not be dyslexic in English.”

By any measure, reading is a complex and peculiar task. At the speed of thought, readers of English turn letters they see into sounds, sounds into words, and words into meaning. Fluency is measured in milliseconds. Spelling variations are speed bumps in the brain.

Until recently, researchers who study reading abilities focused mostly on Western alphabets. English and 218 other languages, from Alsatian to Zulu, share variations of the same Latin character set. But that set is only one of 60 writing systems used among the world’s remaining 6,912 spoken languages. Even so, those studies convinced many scientists and educators that the brain’s response to the written word, regardless of the language, is universal.

The new research suggests they’re wrong. The schooling required to read English or Chinese may fine-tune neural circuits in distinctive ways.

“We have to recognize that the writing system in China is different, the demands on the brain are different and the characteristics of dyslexia are different,” said Georgetown University pediatric learning specialist Guinevere Eden, who is incoming president of the International Dyslexia Association.

To document the effects on brain development, Dr. Eden and her colleagues are launching a five-year study in Beijing and Washington to compare the neural changes in 60 schoolchildren learning to read either Chinese or English. “Nobody has ever done this across two writing systems,” Dr. Eden said.

In ways that ancient scribes never imagined, text has transformed us. Every brain shaped by reading, whether it is schooled in Chinese or English text, measurably differs — in terms of patterns of energy use and brain structure — from one that has never mastered the written word, comparative brain-imaging studies show. “There are real differences that emerge because of literacy,” Dr. Wolf said.

Some social psychologists speculate that the brain changes caused by literacy could be involved in cultural differences in memory, attention and visual perception. In January’s Psychological Science, MIT researchers reported that European-Americans and students from several East Asian cultures, for example, showed different patterns of brain activation when making snap judgments about visual patterns.

No one knows which came first: habits of thought or the writing system that gave them tangible form. A writing system could be drawn from the archaeology of the mind, perpetuating aspects of mental life conceived at the dawn of civilization.

“Once you have different writing systems in place,” said University of Michigan social psychologist Richard Nisbett. “They may reinforce the perceptual and cognitive trends that preceded the invention of writing. They may go hand in glove.”

Source: Wall Street Journal
http://tinyurl.com/6c4gax

Check-out marketing is genius - strategically placed goodies at the point of purchase, designed to entice the wandering eyes of children. Add parents who are tired, running late or too scared of a public tantrum to say no, and you’ve got yourself a sale.

My three-year-old son recently weaselled his way into a toy mobile phone at the register, but it was tech talent, not pester power, that earned him the score.

With the ease of an expert, he flipped open the phone and began an imaginary phone call to his grandmother, announcing he had a new “mobo” and arranging a time to visit. It was hard not to reward such creativity.

The gadget now joins his already impressive tech collection - a toy laptop, portable DVD player, digital set-top box, walkie-talkie and a Nintendo Wii, which his father argued would be great exercise thanks to its motion-sensing remote.

Granted, our junior geek comes from a tech-savvy family, but he’s not uncommon among his generation. Tots of the 21st century have been wired from the womb, with the rise of interactive tech toys such as LeapFrog’s learning system, computer tuition that now begins at kindergarten and “switched on” parents role-modelling the digital age of computers, mobiles and portable media.

The question is: how good is that early tech exposure for our kids, and are the bytes and buttons holding them back from important development that can’t be gained on a machine?

Private tech educators such as Computer Gym and ComputerTots, which run weekly half-hour computer classes at pre-schools across the country, argue there are educational rewards from the preschool PC program where three and four-year-olds learn how to open a document, surf the net and navigate through software.

ComputerTots director Sheri Borman, a trained psychologist and mother of three, says their computer classes are preparing pre-schoolers for primary education, introducing them to the building blocks of mathematics and reading.”

The menu that they navigate through is a left-to-right progression like reading, and you can give a character like a robot a sequence of instructions, which is an important part of mathematics,” Mrs Borman says.

The former crisis counsellor refers to more than a dozen research studies that demonstrate pre-school children who are exposed to technology in a structured way have better schoolreadiness skills, better verbal skills and better cognitive skills. In one US study, four-year-olds with computer skills had IQs that were on average 12 points higher.

“Most of the time it’s working on a computer, but it could also be using a digital microscope or a video camera.

“It’s about submerging the children in a technological culture because we don’t want children to be intimidated by (software such as) Adobe Photoshop; we want them, even at kindergarten level, not to be fearful of trying technology.”

Computer Gym’s director Chris Bouwmeester says its pre-school computer classes reach 2000 children nationally, but demand has changed very little in the past 15 years.

What has shifted is parental expectation that early childhood education will include computers.

“One of the biggest restrictions facing parents is having appropriate software that remains engaging for children. Parents might have one or two such titles, but it’s hard to cover the range of topics that we do - that’s one of the reasons parents appreciate the service,” Mr Bouwmeester says.

What both kiddie computer groups agree on is that the ultimate benefit of the tech classes for tots lies not in the curriculum but in the personal interaction and social experience.

“Our teachers are with the children and can build on the learning experience they are getting - very different from plonking a child in front of a computer and letting them go for it,” Mr Bouwmeester says. “The lessons are valuable for children because they are in a group - having a great laugh and sharing discoveries and experiences.”

Leading pediatric researcher and author Professor Frank Oberklaid, who is the director of the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital, says before the age of five a child needs one thing above all else to fully develop their brain - people.

“What children need more than anything in those early years is relationships so they can learn to socialise, take turns, deal with frustrations. That’s infinitely more important than anything else,” he says.

What concerns him about the rising interest in tech toys and tuition is the unfounded belief that parents are giving their children a head start in learning.

“Do children of today need to learn computer skills? Yes, of course. It’s the new literacy,” Professor Oberklaid says. “But there’s a real concern about “hothousing” - exposing two, three and four-year-olds to stimulating activities like Baby Einstein and flash cards that help teach your child to read by three. There’s no evidence that ‘hothousing’ makes any long-term difference (to education).”

He says the commercialism of “hothousing” is simply preying on the guilt of middle-class parents who want to give children the best of everything, with technology the latest arena in which to compete.

“I’m concerned about the pressure on parents,” Professor Oberklaid says. “Hugh Mackay calls it the ‘overscheduled’ child. I’ve seen it in my patients. Technology is one more pressure on guilty parents.”

Child psychologist Evelyn Field believes working parents and our culture of “busyness” has created a generation of passive parents, who often turn to “cyberia” for baby-sitting.

“Parents are scrambling towards technology. They’re busy and tired and under pressure and a lot of them don’t have the time or energy. They’re putting children in front of the screen, and you can’t blame them,” she says.

Ms Field says the problem with unsupervised tech time is that young children can miss out on wide-ranging experiences such as creative play, exercise and friendships.

“Life changes all the time. Even if you watch the fish pond or the clouds every day, it’s going to change, but you don’t have the same variety of combinations on a digital screen,” she says. “It’s so important that kids get sensory experience to build the brain in the first three to four years of life.”

Dr Joe Tucci, CEO of the Australian Childhood Foundation, says the latest research shows that excessive tech consumption by children can lead to depression, anxiety and aggression.

“Technology tends to be an isolating experience,” he says. “Some of the problems we’re seeing with aggression and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) in kids can be traced back to socially limiting experiences that technology forces kids to have.”

Child psychiatrist Professor Philip Graham, of London’s Institute of Child Health, also notes an increase in children’s mental health problems over the last quarter of the 20th century - which coincides with the dawn of the computer age and rising consumerism.

He says a recent survey in Britain showed that adults are concerned about the negative impact of materialism on children, incuding devices such as iPods, computers and mobile phones.

“Children have always been acquisitive and always will be, but increasingly they are defined by what they own rather than what they are,” he told Livewire.

Dr Tucci says that while some of these tech toys offer important stimulation, they’re also priming toddlers to be consumers before their time. “Yes, it’s cute and it’s role-playing, but equally it’s also preparing children to be consumers, and that’s the rub.”

All the experts agree that the healthiest way to introduce young kids to technology is with supervision and limits - no more than two hours of technology time a day with a balance of activity both indoors and outdoors, alone and in a group, involving both structured and free play.

Dr Tucci warns that to combat ballooning rates of child obesity, brain games need to be curbed to allow for real life action. “Unlike activities like sport or reading, technology has the potential to swamp children because it is so exciting with all of the colour and movement,” he says.

“We have to ground children in the physical space to learn about their bodies. Otherwise we’ve got a job in front of us to make exercise as exciting and interesting as technology.”

Dubbed the “genius” in her play group, two-year old Annika displays the makings of an IT whizz, having already mastered redial on her mother’s mobile, the CD-ROM and the TV remote.

“If she wants to talk to her Nanny she just presses and holds number 3 on my mobile,” says her mum, Donna Evans.

“Yesterday she rang my mother-in-law. I have to put the mobile phone out of her reach now.”

While Annika’s parents are happy to foster the tech interest, they’re also wary of overexposure. “We make sure she’s not a drone in front of the TV. We also incorporate a lot of the imaginary toys, like the kitchen appliances, so that she’s role playing and not just pressing buttons.”

Ms Evans admits she likes the learning benefits of Annika’s tech talent - as long as it remains enjoyable.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m pushing her learning, but she has the potential to be bright quite young and the tech stuff really gives her an interest in learning. I just don’t want an expectation placed on her to perform.”

The couple are also considering the unstructured education of Montessori, which doesn’t introduce computers until primary level.

“The Montessori perspective is that young children before the age of six need to learn with their hands,” Montessori trainer Amy Kirkham says.

“Computers tend to be more abstract, which is why we don’t use them until primary school.” Young mum Sandra Griffin says her friends always joke that her three-year-old son, Matt, is going to be in IT when he grows up.

He’s already mastered the computer, he has a list of his favourite websites and performs regular virus checks on the PC.

Thanks to the online games he plays he knows his colours, the alphabet, patterns and some basic maths, including counting to 20.

“I honestly believe that computers are a valuable tool in teaching kids,” Ms Griffin explains.

“Not only has it helped with Mattie’s knowledge and brain development but it also helped his fine motor skills and increased his attention span to the point where at just three years of age he can concentrate on one activity for an hour.”

The only downside is what it’s costing the family in gadgets - including a Nintendo DS for the next birthday - and $70 for each game after that.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
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