Preschool or prep school?

As a preschool teacher and child development professional I beg your husband to stop. Children' need to build FOUNDATIONS to knowledge at this age; not build the knowledge itself. Children learn through concrete experiences. Read books, like you said. Point out letter in the environment (signs, good labels, etc...).

Does your child help out in the kitchen? She's learning chemistry, math, fractions, numbers, etc... Does she have a "job" when you go to the store? She needs to find how many times she sees something blue? She is learning one-to-one correlation and counting.

By sitting down and drilling children, they are only MEMORIZING concepts, they are not LEARNING them. These are two very different concepts that many people today don't understand. Children don't actually fully comprehend abstract concepts until about 8 years of age. Meaning, if you have two apples in front of you and ask her to take one, she knows that she has added one to her and subtracted one from you. However, if you are in a discussion talking about two minus one and zero plus one, there is no ability in their brain to process this yet; they can memorize it, but they don't understand it.

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I think that fostering Emotional Intelligence is probably just as important at this age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence

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I think around my generation (I was born in 1980, so whatever that puts me in) would be when all this nonsense really got started. Actually, I take that back, I think it might have started before that, but I really don't have any personal experience to back it up. What started it was the saying that you can be anything you want to be. This, I feel, is a somewhat valid statement. It is missing some back end information though, such as "with hard work" or "with dedication and perseverance"... Now, people think they (or their kids) can do whatever they want and should be gifted out the gate, etc. I was one of those kids reading well before they started school and probably reading better in 5th grade than most people did (or, sadly to say than I do now) by the time they graduate high school. Anyway, someone has to work at McDonald's and someone has to work at NASA...

I am all for teaching kids things at home, but for drilling it into them, well, that is another story.

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I am an educator, and I completely agree with Jenni. Your husband is right that children should be able to write their own name and count to ten by first grade - I think those are even skills that can be achieved by most pre-schoolers. But those skills are at a totally different level from adding/subtracting or reading.

I do think kids are pushed too hard too early. I've talked to long time teachers who say they're curriculum is way more advanced than it used to be. Many people don't seem to be catching on that it isn't really working. The reason is what Jenni said - it's not developmentally appropriate.

It sounds like you're doing great things to teach your daughter. Signing up for a fun class like dance, cooking, yoga, visual arts, exercise, nature, music & movement, etc. that is designed for her age level is a great thing to do to encourage learning as well. Lots of learning can happen there, and it will stick with her because it's fun.

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One thing that seems to be overlooked by everyone is the age of the child when they enter preschool and school. If your child is in the middle of the age bracket for the class then they have a great advantage over those near the cutoff.

The conventional wisdom is that being one of the oldest in the class is always a good thing for self-esteem. This is not the case when a child goes to preschool and the kids that look similar to themselves are in the next class doing interesting things while they are in a room full of tiny-tots and baby toys. Once they are in grades 1 through 4 they get lazy because the work is too simple and slow moving. Later, when the work is more challenging they get frustrated because they have no experience being challenged. It's a recipe for middle school underachieving if they are not a self motivated TAG child.

Being on the young side of the class, It's a good idea to provide a lot of early learning support because the child will need extra time to grasp the concepts. Ask the teacher to let you know what will be taught so you can give your child a very brief introduction to concepts just before it's covered in school. These children will learn to be good at keeping up with the class, paying attention and knowing what is expected of them by 4th grade. The self-esteem issues for a typical younger child result from being physically less skilled and socially behind rather than academic struggles.

Visit the classroom often to monitor how your child compares to the class average. Usually the parents who are pushing their children already have children in the top of the class.

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I think children learn best not by being drilled, but through guided exploration. I think Carl Orff said it best: Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me, I understand.

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