The Three R's at Four Years Old

ABILITY to read easily and rapidly, a knowledge of arithmetic and geography roughly equivalent to the work of the third and even higher grades in the public schools, and an attitude toward intellectual pursuits which will make learning and study a pleasurable pursuit instead of a task during the rest of his life — these are the achievement of little Erik, aged four years and three months. The saving in actual years of schooling, and the immediate capacity for increased enjoyment, as well as tangible information possessed, are almost too great to estimate in any comparison with school grades. Subtracting the first year and a half of his life, which were occupied with learning to walk, to talk, to manage a spoon, to avoid hot radiators, mercilessly hard corners of tables and chairs, and the like, we can speculate interestingly upon the proportion of gain by the time the boy is twenty years old. We see, at any rate, that it pays to begin early to take advantage of the child’s desire and ability to learn, which are manifest in infancy, which increase or languish according to the encouragement or rebuffs received, and which diminish from childhood on through youth, maturity, middle age, and senility.

By heeding the curiosity which Erik, like most other children, showed concerning the meaning of letters on his alphabet blocks and in large headlines of newspapers, by helping him to learn a new letter daily, then combinations into words, and finally by introducing him to those words in primers, until he had learned to read as naturally — and far more easily — than he had learned to talk, we took the first and most important step. It was a long process, demanding infinite time and patience on the part of his parents; for we had always to remember that it must remain for the child a pleasure, a game, a thing of interest, and never a task or an occupation to which he must be driven.

Before the first primer was too familiar, I bought another, and, later, still others. Then we began our fortnightly trips to the public library. Erik exhausted that supply of primers, first readers, and second readers, and now can read and enjoy the books provided for supplementary reading in schools, such as those describing race-types and home or travel in foreign lands, data of natural science, and even a few elementary arithmetics. Of course, I seek books whose intrinsic interest makes them attractive, for I would no more urge or compel the child to read than I would urge or compel him to play with his beloved toy aeroplane. He reads many times a day, never for very long at a time; sometimes curled up in a morris chair, more often stretched at full length on the floor. Occasionally he reads to me a story or sentence which takes his fancy; but usually he prefers to read in absorbed silence.

Just as he never had to finish one book before receiving another, or to read any one volume straight through, he has never been asked to read in a certain book, or in a certain sequence in any book, or to read a certain amount at once, or to read at any specified time. The desire to read is as normal with him as is the desire on the part of adults to read the latest, magazine or an interesting book. The chief difference is that Erik has never in his whole brief existence suspected that reading could be anything but enjoyable, whereas his elders went through a process of learning which was conscious, compulsory, and usually unpleasant, because it came too late and was long-drawn-out.

From his reading and the questions he asks in consequence, Erik has a stock of information far beyond his actual experience. He constantly adds to his vocabulary, adopting such words as ‘portable,’ ‘tremendous,’‘amazing,’‘swiftly,’‘giant,’‘pyramid,’and so forth, sometimes proving their literary source by mispronunciation, such as sounding the s in ‘island,’making the g hard in ‘giant’ or ‘angel,’or the e short in ‘demon.’ Generally his pronunciation is correct, and the length of a word seems to make no difference whatever. Meeting new words in reading inclines him to accept the more readily new words he hears used, or which are suggested to him as expressing an idea he wishes to convey, such as ‘edible,’‘combination,’‘purpose,’‘represent,’and others. He asks questions like, ‘What do kings do?’ ‘Do the queens help them?' ‘If we should go to Italy or Belgium, would we see the kings?' ‘Was Abraham Lincoln president just like Mr. Wilson ?' ‘Why is n’t he president now?' ‘What is a prisoner?' ‘What is a captive ?' ‘Is the Kaiser imaginary?’ Finally, the books containing folk-tales and animal stories have furnished him with words, phrases, and ideas for telling stories, so that he now improvises fluently, although his plots are very rudimentary, and he is likely to abandon each previously mentioned animal to follow the fortunes of the ones later introduced, with a climax consisting of ‘— and that’s the end!'

Soon after Erik had progressed a little in his reading, he noticed the Arabic figures in his books, in magazine and newspaper advertisements, and on calendars. The principle of combination into sums of two or more digits was easily grasped, and after learning to count to 100, he began to comprehend larger numbers. A start had already been made in the process of addition, through a game of questions alternately put and answered by Erik and his father or myself, such as, ‘How much are one and two?' ‘How much are three and one?' The totals were kept below ten, so that we could use fingers for calculation. By accompanying the questions and answers with laughter and applause, we were able to familiarize Erik with many combinations, and to increase them as he realized that 20 + 20 is analogous to 2+2, that. 57 + 1 is analogous to 17+1, and so forth.

The reading of these sums, and the writing of them, were introduced as ‘a quieter game,’ proposed as compromise for the hilarious romp Erik expects of his father after dinner. After a few minutes of ‘bear,’ a special pencil and new tablet of paper were produced, different from those which Erik uses for his daily amusement of drawing and cutting. These were laid on the floor, — the child’s domain in contrast to the chairs his elders prefer, — and Erik’s father disposed himself there, quite as prone as Erik himself. This left no doubt of the genuine ‘play’ character of the proceeding. A row of sums, such as 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 2 = 4, was put down, Erik soon doing his share of them, or writing only the answers. The plus and equality signs were accepted at once, and the whole lesson took some five or ten minutes. It was ended by my summoning Erik to go to bed — for we never risk continuing any subject long enough for him to lose interest or tire of it.

During the next day I repeated various sums orally, as opportunity offered, in connection with the number of cookies to be received for dessert., and the like; and in the evening his request to play was greeted with the reply, ‘We’ll play bear first and arithmetic afterward.’ The minus sign and operation of subtraction were soon given, then the multiplication sign. Division is reserved for a still later date, as being more difficult, although the writing and understanding of fractions has not offered trouble.

With this process under way, and an interest in arithmetic fairly well inculcated, another step seemed possible. We proposed adding a new game, called geography, and produced the big book of maps. Erik had previously looked at it, and had a glimmering of its significance. But the colored plates took on a new interest when his small toy boats were to be sailed to one country from another on the intervening bodies of water. After two evenings of this sort, the boats were omitted, and the game consisted in alternate requests to find this or that country, ocean, sea, or even larger mountain chain, river, or city, with appropriate jubilation over each discovery.

Considering that each evening’s lesson lasts but five or ten or fifteen minutes, and that the lessons — always called a game, of course — alternate with arithmetic, or sometimes have to be omitted entirely, the amount of geographical knowledge acquired thus far ls very great. Of course, the data given can be reviewed incidentally during the day, and story-telling is an especially valuable aid. Erik listens with pleasure to improvisations about ‘a little boy and his dog,’ or ‘a man and his little boy,’ who take trips to this or that country or city, by rail or water, passing other specified cities and countries, collect the chief product or export of their destination, observe the language spoken there, and return home by the same or a different route. His own attempts to tell stories of this character are often surprisingly successful.

In teaching these subjects to Erik, as well as in helping him to learn to draw and to master cursive script, we are careful to refrain absolutely from the routine, system, or compulsion necessary in schools. The acquiring of skill and information are to be pleasurable pursuits, not tasks or drudgery. They are to be acquired in the method and the order suggested by the child’s own volition and progress. We do not insist that he make his toy trains go in a certain way, or put them in this or that spot, or that he build his block-houses according to our ideas instead of his own. Nor do we stipulate that he shall play with them at certain hours of the day, or for so many minutes at a time. Therefore, when, he turns to occupations for which we wish him to have equal zeal, we do not block him at the start by forcing him to drop all initiative of his own and yield to arbitrary interference — as it would seem to him to be.

In this connection I may quote a question put to me: ‘How do you stimulate your son’s interest in reading? My boys like to play out of doors.’ My reply to this is the counter-question, how do we stimulate a child’s interest in out-of-door play? The child will like what he sees his parents like and genuinely expect him to like. Erik delights in long walks, picnics, and out-of-door amusement of any sort; but he has also had opened to him the equally precious world of the printed page. His efforts to enter that world were noted, appreciated, and encouraged; we did not do what I have seen other parents do — that is, ignore or rebuff the child’s inquiry as to what the letters are on his blocks, what certain combinations of letters mean, or what the words are under favorite pictures in books.

Another point worth mentioning is, that, it has seemed successful to begin each subject at the earliest possible opportunity. As soon as Erik observed and began to distinguish letters of the alphabet, we began to aid him in this. As soon as he could count at all, we helped him forward toward the goal of mathematics. As soon as he asked the location of cities he heard mentioned, or of countries named in war headlines, we seized the opportunity to prepare for geographical teaching. As soon as he enjoyed scrawling with a pencil, I dignified it by the name of drawing, and gave him every chance I could to acquire the utmost possible skill. I mention this specifically because parents are prone to set a certain — and distant — date for anything which entails effort on their own part as well as that of the child. For instance, a friend wrote, ‘I intend to begin teaching our own child to read next fall.’ I could not resist asking, ‘Did you set a certain date on which you would begin teaching her to talk, and make a formal beginning on that date, or did you not seize any and all opportunities to teach her as soon as she showed the least capability for learning?’ This resembles the course of another friend, who intends — later — to make a musician of her child; but now, when the little one is ‘banging’ at the pianokeys, and begging to have the mysterious marks of sheet-music explained to her, this shortsighted mother is ‘too busy,’and is inevitably extinguishing the spark she hopes to kindle later on.

One reason is, that teaching is unfairly assumed to be a difficult and disagreeable operation, which a mother hires other persons to do, like scrubbing or surgical operations! When it comes to reading or writing, they say, ‘I don’t like to teach,’ although they were perfectly willing to perform the longer and more tedious task of teaching talking and walking. A neighbor, watching Erik noisily reading aloud sentences from a book belonging to her own child, several months older, turned to him with the question, ‘Son, are you going to study with Mother some time and learn to read like Erik?’ Her sigh and her emphasis of ‘study,’ as well as the invidious comparison with a younger child, probably implanted in ‘ Son ’ his first unconscious protest against the process he would later be forced to go through. She was taking it for granted that he would not like to learn; and of course he will not.

To those who might hint that system and discipline deserve attention, I would reply that mental achievements are too precious to be dragged from their high place and made to serve for training in other things, at least in the case of very young children. Erik has made his present progress, and has assumed the proper attitude toward the subjects he has begun to learn something of, because he has been permitted to have a natural and sensible introduction to them, and has never been compelled to learn any of it. The proposition, ‘Learn to do what you don’t wish to do at a time when you don’t wish to do it,’ can be applied, if necessary, to the conquering of buttons and buttonholes, garter-clasps, belts, and shoes; and disciplinary tragedies can be indulged in ad libitum over the putting away of toys and other operations in the routine of daily existence. At any rate, Erik seems, notwithstanding his undisciplinary way of learning, to be as well-behaved as any child in the neighborhood, and I believe that he is more amenable to reason than if he were taught the school subjects in the usual stern and systematic method.

Lastly, one does not need infinite leisure, or a house full of servants, in order to be able to teach a child as Erik has been taught. The actual amount of time we have given him is probably but little more than is given to any child except those who are turned loose on the streets in the hazardous care of older children; and the teaching has been done in a household which boasts of no servants at all.