In Einstein Never Used Flashcards (Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2003) each chapter describes experimental research that shows the importance of parents’ involvement in pre-school learning, the importance of play and of the child being in control of the direction of the play, and the relative uselessness of flashcards, organized learning, and academic preparation for kids in getting them ready for school. They say that children whose parents enroll them in various activities that are supposed to give them advanced status when they enter school are later less creative and less enthusiastic about learning; that memorizing unrelated facts does not give them a better memory in the long term, and that learning through play also develops essential social and emotional skills which are not learned if parents concentrate on narrow academic skills development
The authors suggest that parents provide resources for play that stimulate the imagination, although such toys need not be expensive, that they join in the play with the child, and that they follow the child’s lead, and go where the child’s attention is focused (p. 240–242).
They suggest four principles as a guide to helping young children learn:
The importance of play in math learning is not simply that kids have fun; rather, that kids are in control of the subject of the play. Both Pound and Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff emphasize that in free play, kids can model, theorize and experiment with questions that concern them; if they have noticed that the toy boat in the bathtub sometimes sinks and sometimes floats, for example, they can figure out, by experimenting, under what conditions it will sink. Parents may or may not know what question their kids are interested in at any given moment, and if they try to steer the child’s play in any particular direction, they risk cutting off the authentic interests of the child, or forcing the child to engage in questions that are too difficult, too easy, or just not interesting, with a consequent loss of intrinsic motivation for learning. Play lets kids think for themselves, imagine, make decisions, think about a situation, and learn to be comfortable with uncertainty (Pound, 2006, p 37).
The experience of learning is more important than what s/he learns. A child following her
own interests in the moment, or over time, has the satisfaction of seeing her work/play
come to a point where she has answered her question as much as she needs for the moment.
She learns the joy of discovery, the value of perseverance and gains confidence in
her ability to learn. From a list of principles subscribed to by authors of the series Pound is
in: “The role of the educator of young children is to engage actively with what most concerns
the child, and to support learning through these preoccupations
” (Pound, 2006, p.
vii). This idea has wide agreement in the literature. For example, Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff,
among others, talk about the importance of following the child’s interest rather than leading
her where the adult might like her to go, and the value of “scaffolding,” by which parents
support their children in exploring ideas and relationships. We are scaffolding the
child’s learning when we see that he is building a tower of blocks that is getting shaky as it
gets higher, and we put our hands around the tower as he puts another block on top. We
are not building the tower for him, but we are making sure that his lack of dexterity in placing
the latest block does not destroy all the work he has done so far. We know our child, so
we know what kind and how much support he needs; we give him that support so he can do
what he wants, and learn what he needs to learn.