Mostly fun. I think I likely would have done it anyway. Kids are people already, and can benefit from being able to read now even if it doesn’t change future academic success.
Generally bribes are considered a useful practice in behaviorist psychology (mostly used on animals, but occasionally people). My vague understanding is that education literature shows that using extrinsic motivators like bribes can reduce intrinsic motivation for a task, sometimes. I am not worried about bribing them to do Anki; that’s not that intrinsically motivating and I think it’s worth the push to get him good enough at reading words to enjoy using the skill. I’m a tiny bit worried about bribing him to read, but I suspect that once he gets to escape velocity and is interested enough to read himself, he will do it anyway. I may move to reducing bribes for reading or limiting them to specific situations to limit any damage here.
You may overestimate the amount of effort I put into this. I enjoy it a lot, and the books are effort, but the Anki and such is really pretty straightforward and easy. I would say that, say, potty training was much more difficult (albeit shorter, thankfully). Certainly we spend a lot of time talking to him and trying to teach him about various subjects. He watches Numberblocks and we also spend a lot of time talking about numbers, reading books at bedtime, etc. I don’t have as clear a curriculum for any of the other things you mention; if I did, maybe I’d use them. Reading unlocks independent learning for many other things, so I think it’s a reasonable place to focus effort for that reason. But a lot of it is probably just “I could see a way to do this so I did” vs other subjects that are harder for me to teach. Hopefully that answers your question?
Thanks, that sated my curiosity nicely. Just so you know I’m not trying to pretend I’ve optimised my child’s upbringing, just doing the best I can like most parents I know. I reckon your kids are lucky to have you.
Mostly fun. I think I likely would have done it anyway. Kids are people already, and can benefit from being able to read now even if it doesn’t change future academic success.
Generally bribes are considered a useful practice in behaviorist psychology (mostly used on animals, but occasionally people). My vague understanding is that education literature shows that using extrinsic motivators like bribes can reduce intrinsic motivation for a task, sometimes. I am not worried about bribing them to do Anki; that’s not that intrinsically motivating and I think it’s worth the push to get him good enough at reading words to enjoy using the skill. I’m a tiny bit worried about bribing him to read, but I suspect that once he gets to escape velocity and is interested enough to read himself, he will do it anyway. I may move to reducing bribes for reading or limiting them to specific situations to limit any damage here.
You may overestimate the amount of effort I put into this. I enjoy it a lot, and the books are effort, but the Anki and such is really pretty straightforward and easy. I would say that, say, potty training was much more difficult (albeit shorter, thankfully). Certainly we spend a lot of time talking to him and trying to teach him about various subjects. He watches Numberblocks and we also spend a lot of time talking about numbers, reading books at bedtime, etc. I don’t have as clear a curriculum for any of the other things you mention; if I did, maybe I’d use them. Reading unlocks independent learning for many other things, so I think it’s a reasonable place to focus effort for that reason. But a lot of it is probably just “I could see a way to do this so I did” vs other subjects that are harder for me to teach. Hopefully that answers your question?
Thanks, that sated my curiosity nicely. Just so you know I’m not trying to pretend I’ve optimised my child’s upbringing, just doing the best I can like most parents I know. I reckon your kids are lucky to have you.