I’ve got a few questions, mostly curiosity and not trying to be critical at all.
Regarding the purpose of this project, would you say the main motivation is academic or just something you’re doing for fun. For example would you still have done it if you had read an extremely trustworthy study saying that starting toddlers reading at an early age had no impact on future academic success.
I’ve done no research on the effect of bribes and child-rearing, is that something you researched before designing the token system?
A bit of broader somewhat personal question—You’ve put a lot of effort into teaching reading to your toddler’s, do you also put a similar amount of into other similar abilities. What other skills besides reading have you been focusing on. Off the top of my head, thinking logically, basics of nutrition, identifying emotions, interpersonel skills, basic maths, calibrating risk. Again, not any kind of attack on you, just thinking about these things myself as I have a young kid. Obviously both parents and toddlers have limited time and energy can only go anki-droid level deep on maybe one topic/subject.
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.
I’ve got a few questions, mostly curiosity and not trying to be critical at all.
Regarding the purpose of this project, would you say the main motivation is academic or just something you’re doing for fun. For example would you still have done it if you had read an extremely trustworthy study saying that starting toddlers reading at an early age had no impact on future academic success.
I’ve done no research on the effect of bribes and child-rearing, is that something you researched before designing the token system?
A bit of broader somewhat personal question—You’ve put a lot of effort into teaching reading to your toddler’s, do you also put a similar amount of into other similar abilities. What other skills besides reading have you been focusing on. Off the top of my head, thinking logically, basics of nutrition, identifying emotions, interpersonel skills, basic maths, calibrating risk. Again, not any kind of attack on you, just thinking about these things myself as I have a young kid. Obviously both parents and toddlers have limited time and energy can only go anki-droid level deep on maybe one topic/subject.
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.