I'll say it again: Top SAT scores begin in the sandbox!

I've written about this topic before here:  Top SAT scores begin in the Sandbox.  However, it bears repeating:  When I work with high school students who are studying for their college entrance exams, I sometimes see evidence of what I have come to refer to as a Sandbox Deficit.  Children who don't spend enough time in unstructured play fail to develop the foundation for basic math, reading and science.  To compensate, they memorize steps, algorithms and strategies, but that only takes them so far.

Unfortunately, academics are getting pushed to earlier and earlier ages.  The good news is that more people are waking up to the problem.  Spread the news!  Share the studies!  And make time for children to play!

The most recent article I have run across regarding this subject can be found here:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/06/a-really-scary-headline-about-kindergarteners/

And here is what Matt Walsh had to say about the same headline referred to in the above article:
http://themattwalshblog.com/2014/02/10/your-5-year-old-failed-a-standardized-test-therefore-he-is-stupid-insane-and-doomed-to-a-life-of-failure/

Another critical period in early childhood development: Movement

Each Monday I will review a different study guide or study tool. On Tuesdays and Thursdays check in for test-taking advice, tips and reminders. On Wednesdays you may find a post about standardized testing or education in general, and on Fridays articles geared to the parents of children age 0 to 13. Experience has taught me that there are many parents of young children who are already worried about SAT scores and college admissions. Some of you may find you way to this blog. This post is for you. I’m sorry it is late.

In my last Friday post I wrote about the critical period for language development in children.  Another window of opportunity that is open in early childhood is associated with movement.  Young children were designed to move!  They are wiggly for a reason. Neural pathways associated with large muscle movement are being developed from the prenatal period to about age 5. During this time you want to give your child the opportunity to move in as many different ways as possible. Crawl, climb, hop, skip, dance, balance on things, roll a ball, stretch. A toddler tumbling class might be fun, but none of this needs to be formal.

When pediatricians call for less “screen time” for preschool children, we sometimes stop to ask if sitting in front of the TV is harmful.  What if the child is watching something educational? You should consider that the problem might not be what your child is doing as he sits in front of the TV; it might be what he’s not doing.

You can read more about this here.

Is there a good math website for a 3-year-old?

 Experience has taught me that there are many parents of young children who are already worried about SAT scores and college admissions. Some of you may find you way to this blog. This post is for you. I originally wrote it in response to a question on Quora. I decided to be lazy and let it do double duty. :)

A parent recently asked, “What is the best online math site for an advanced 3-year-old?”

This is my response:

Please don't put your 3-year-old in front of a computer to learn math. Even the best websites are heavily computation oriented and an advanced student will pick that up naturally without a website.

Ideally you would be able to find a math circle that includes young children, but if not, play games! Work puzzles!  If you don't have time to do this with your child, hire an advanced high school or college student to come over a couple of times per week.

Some great games and puzzles:

Chess

Towers of Hanoi

Set

Tangrams

Parcheesi

Mastermind

Rummikub

Labyrinth

Yahtzee

the chips game (which you can read about here)

When you are playing together, think out loud during your turns. Model the problem solving you want her to learn. Handicap yourself so that the games are about even and praise effort, progress and creative thinking.

While an online math site may teach your child to add and subtract earlier than her peers, this will not give her an advantage in the long run.  Furthermore, expecting a website to fill in for hands-on experience could lead to a Sandbox Deficit. Experiencing the world and interacting with intelligent, articulate adults will have a far more lasting impact in the long run. 

Book review: Math From 3 to 7

I am thoroughly enjoying Math From 3 to 7 by Alexander Zvonkin.  From the back cover:

"This book is a captivating account of a professional mathematician's experiences conducting a math circle for preschoolers in his apartment in Moscow in the 1980's."

The author kept a journal in which he described the activities he did with the children and the results - both success and failures. At the request of friends and colleagues, he edited the journal for publication. This volume is the English translation of the edited work.

I find this book fascinating on a number of levels.  First, the Forward to the American Edition describes ways in which Eastern Europeans approach math education and describes the concept of a "math circle." Apparently there are a few math circles here in the US, particularly in university towns, but it is definitely phenomenon that needs to spread.

Next, I enjoy reading about the puzzles and activities he does with the children.  The activities look like a lot of fun, and I would like to try them out. Since I no longer have young children of my own, I am considering kidnapping other people's children so I can do these activities with them.  (I would only kidnap them temporarily.  Their parents can have them back when they get tired and fussy.  :)) Many of the activities could even be extended to be appropriate for older children - even teenagers.  I would recommend this book to elementary and middle school math club advisors.

Last, I am very interested to see which concepts the students grasped and which they struggled with. In several instances you can see Piaget stages illustrated. In editing his journal, the author added some thoughts on cognitive psychology which I have enjoyed.

I wish I had read this book before I had kids.  I recommend it for anyone who lives or works with children under the age of 12.

My favorite math game for young children

My favorite math activity for young children

 Experience has taught me that there are many parents of young children who are already worried about SAT scores and college admissions. Some of you may find you way to this blog. This post is for you. I originally wrote it in response to a question on Quora. I decided to be lazy and let it do double duty. :)

My favorite math activity is “The Chips Game”.  I didn’t invent it; I read about it somewhere – I wish I could remember where - and have since adapted it to suit many purposes.

To play the chips game you need 3 colors of poker chips and dice.  One color of chip is worth one point, a second color is worth ten points and the third color is worth one hundred points. Roll the dice. The number you roll is the number of chips you earn. You earn one-point chips. Once you have 10 you can trade them for a ten-point chip. The goal is to trade in 10 ten-point chips for a hundred-point chip. Notice that place value and “regrouping” are intrinsic to the game.

It sounds too simple to be either fun or educational, but the game is highly adaptable and the real value lies in the modeling and conversation that happen when you play. For example, when you play with your three-year-old (which I’ve done) you can emphasize the counting. If you roll a 12, then at first you would count out 12 chips and then trade 10 of them, but eventually you should model taking a ten-point chip and two one-point chips. Allow your child to do what feels comfortable, but when it’s your turn model the next step up. When you play with a fourth grade student (which I’ve also done) you can multiply the dice and talk about probability: “What must I roll to catch up with you? Am I likely to roll at least that?”

You can start with one six-sided die and then add another six-sided die so that the child must add the numbers on the dice. You can use dice with more than six sides. You can have a die that represents the number of chips you earn and a second or third die that represents the number of chips you LOSE, which introduces subtraction with regrouping and negative numbers as well as making probability conversations more interesting.

Note that whether or not you win is completely based on luck. There is no skill involved. Very young children may not understand that and they find games that they win more often than not to be more fun, so when you play with your three-year-old for the first time, cheat so that s/he wins. Also if you feel his or her attention start to wane before anyone earns a hundred-point chip, then either quit while your child is ahead, or add more dice to get there faster.

Top SAT Scores Begin in the Sandbox

Top SAT Scores Begin in the Sandbox

In my last post I wrote about when a student should start preparing for college entrance exams. I described the parents who wanted me to start coaching their sixth-grader. (Read that post below.) As crazy as that sounds, I know that there are parents of even younger children who are already obsessing over how to maximize their child’s chances of getting into a top college. Some of you may eventually find your way to this blog. This post is for you.

I was teaching trigonometry in one of the top public high schools in the country. The class was in the middle of a test when one of my best students came up to ask about one of the questions.  Some exploratory questions on my part revealed her problem. The word problem concerned flying a kite. She had never flown one. She didn’t understand how an airborne kite would behave. It was about that time that I began to realize: American teenagers are suffering from a sandbox deficit. They have spent too much time interacting with virtual environments and engaged in structured schooling and not enough time engaged in hands-on play activities that build the concrete foundations for more advanced learning.

I proposed the Sandbox Deficit theory to a fellow attendee at a meeting for recipients of an NSF grant for STEM programs. A professor of engineering at a university in the Midwest, he shared that his department had come to the same conclusion at a department meeting. Our young potential engineers are handicapped in their studies by the lack of a basic, hands-on experience of the world that used to be universal.

There is something fundamentally wrong with having to add remedial kite-flying to the trigonometry curriculum, but that is not as horrifying as the teenagers who don’t understand how shadows work.  (Read a fellow blogger's post on that subject here.)  One wonders if some of our youngsters have ever been outside. The director of an environmental education program for honors-level high school students shared, “The first thing we have to do is teach the children how to be outside. When they come for the first session, they are all dressed inappropriately for the weather and the environment.”  The real shocker:  These children aren’t inhabitants of the “urban jungle”; all come from five of the most rural counties in North Carolina.

Everywhere I turn I see advertisements for the latest early childhood electronic learning program. Parents who elect not to enroll their toddlers in pre-school announce they are “home schooling”.  Some are actually using formal preschool curriculum. Meanwhile, formal school tasks are filtering down to younger and younger grades.

As high stakes testing adds pressure to perform academically, schools are trying to maximize classroom learning during the school day. Parents are lining up tutors and extra-curricular activities in an attempt to make sure their children have every advantage.  More and more the thing that is missing from our children’s lives is unstructured play.  Researchers are beginning to look at the learning that takes place during play, and the result of removing play opportunities from the school day.  (Read an article on the subject here.)

As time goes on, I expect that we will hear of more and more evidence of the importance of play and the necessity of scaling back students’ interactions with electronic “learning” programs. Meanwhile, as I work with students preparing for their college entrance exams, I continue to see first-hand the effects of the Sandbox Deficit.