Eyes glued to the colourful animation on the screen, she clicks her responses to auditory cues she hears on her headphones, racing confidently through different games.

Each game targets a different cognitive or language skill: memory, sequencing, sound discrimination, pitch, vocabulary, comprehension and grammar. There are thousands of combinations of games customised to one’s abilities and Fidelia plays five sets today.

The games, part of a brain development software called Fast ForWord, require intense concentration, but the Primary 2 pupil seems to enjoy her session.

Her mother, Mrs Jess Chan, 33, a housewife, said: ‘Fidelia wasn’t always such a confident child. As a preschooler, she was quiet, very timid and awkward. Her language and motor skills were weak.’

Concerned, Mrs Chan sent her daughter for brain training classes. Each one-hour session at BrainFit Studio in Thomson Road, where Fidelia attends the classes, costs $70.

The Beacon Primary School pupil now turns in excellent school results. She speaks articulately and is also an avid reader. A Facebook user, she has recently taken up chess.

Meanwhile, at the Little Neuro Tree centre in Bugis, sisters Zelia Ang, 30 months old, and Phoelia Ang, 10 months old, are attending brain training classes for babies and toddlers.

The focus here is on learning three languages – English, Mandarin and either Malay or Japanese – as well as coordination and social skills. The fees are $550 to $600 for 12 one-hour lessons.

In one room, Phoelia and two other babies, each held lovingly by their mother or caregiver, lie on the straw mats covering the floor.

Their teacher tells them about the weather. ‘It’s cloudy today. The sky’s full of clouds! Come, let’s touch the clouds!” she says, as she passes around a piece of felt with a fleecy white cloud stuck on it. The babies touch the cloud with adult help.

The lesson moves to vocabulary. As the little ones watch attentively while kicking their feet, their teacher flashes giant picture cards in quick order, rattling off a list of words at the same time: asparagus, carrot, corn, beans, brinjal….

Zelia, in the toddler class, is busy buttoning little wheels onto a train as her teacher cheers her on in Japanese. Her mother, Madam Hazen Lim, 33, is encouraging her too.

Said Madam Lim, a housewife: ‘This programme really stimulates the child’s brain and parents interact with their children. Zelia is picking up Japanese, Mandarin and English well and Phoelia is very responsive to language.’

Can a 10-month-old learn three languages just from a one-hour class every week? Can young children learn to read, process information and do comprehension questions just from computer games? How much can the brain do, really?

Quite a lot, said DrRoby Marcou, a senior consultant in paediatrics neurology at National University Hospital.
‘Meaningful learning opportunities in early childhood allow the brain to develop rich brain connections, which set the stage for active thinking and learning beyond childhood,’ she explained.

As for brain training sessions, she said there is not enough research to substantiate most claims. However, some programmes might help some children, particularly in the areas of visual or auditory attention.

She advocates, instead, ‘rich, diverse play and conversation’ as the best stimulation for brain development in children.

 By K. Malathy from http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20091001-171160.html

Photos courtesy of Dan Biddle and World Bank Photo Collection

More than 20 per cent of young parents claimed not to use them because they were not educational, even though experts said nursery rhymes played a vital role in a child’s development.

Professor Roger Beard, the head of primary education at the Institute of Education said they helped children learn about the rhythms of language.

“For instance Twinkle Twinkle Little Star has an enduring simplicity, which also allowing children and grown-ups to share in their wonderment about the night-time sky”, he said.

By Murray Wardrop, The Daily Telegraph

To buy children’s book in the Canny Minds shop, click here.

Photo courtesy of Ben McLeod

Professor Maria Nikolajeva claims the unusual phrases and words teach children the expressive power of language, which aids the development of their own imaginations.

She also says that the puns, linguistic inventions and fantastical names given to characters and places in fiction also allow children to understand the symbolic meaning of words.

In her inaugural lecture as Professor of Education at the institution’s Faculty of Education, she will tell her audience: “Children’s authors should be aware of the power of language, its possibilities and also the dangers it presents in terms of manipulating children.

“A lot of people presume that writing children’s literature is relatively simple, but in fact it demands great sophistication.

“The creative employment of language in children’s books gives the child the power of expression. By challenging the arbitrary rules of language, especially written language, children learn to be critically-thinking individuals.”

To back up her claims, Prof Nikolajeva shows how many of the most popular children’s books over the past 150 years are based on the imaginative use of language.

In Winnie-the-Pooh, for instance, she says much of the humour is based on problems with words. Being a bear of very little brain, Pooh cannot spell – he writes “hunny” instead of “honey” and he thinks an “ambush” is a type of plant.

The stories are said to show the advantage gained by those who can distinguish between real and made-up terms, such as Christopher Robin who teases Pooh and Piglet by claiming he met a “Heffalump”. Owl, meanwhile, is treated with reverence because he can spell Tuesday.

In the Harry Potter series, Prof Nikolajeva said that mastery of language is linked to magic, because characters can gain power over the world by learning spells from ancient grimoires.

“It is in this respect interesting to consider the character of Hermione, who gets all her knowledge from books and who is the most proficient of the three friends in magic incantations,” she said.

The tales also include invented words such as “Quidditch”, a game played by young wizards on broomsticks, and “muggle”, used to describe people who are not from the magical world.

The Dr Seuss books, meanwhile, are said to provide a “perfect training in verbal competence” through their tongue-twisting rhymes and made-up animals.

Younger readers learn to put words and concepts together because each imaginary creature is accompanied in the books by a picture.

However Prof Nikolajeva adds that some children’s books risk looking down on their audience by pointing out the limits of their understanding.

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, for instance, the young girl is mocked for not understanding words such as “antipathy” and “longitude” but their meanings are never explained either to her or to the reader.

Alice is “disempowered”, the professor claims, because she finds herself in a world where she cannot understand the logic of communication.

By Martin Beckford, Social Affairs Correspondent  The Daily Telegraph

Photo is courtesy of Donjuanna

Click on the link to buy Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone in the Canny Minds shop.

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