assive learning". Hope I am not making it wrong.cyfung 寫道:
Hello every mom
I hesitate a lot over whether I should write this article but eventually I think I must tell others, especially those concerned parents like you, what I have found so far, so can I share with you all the potential harmful effect of letting your children view too much TV/video, educational or otherwise?
Please study the following very carefully first:-
1) http://home.datacomm.ch/rezamusic/tv_johnson.html
2) http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/rah_chpt8_p1.html
3) http://www.limitv.org/preschool.htm
Don't be put off by the technical terms used in the first article (1). This is a very good article, neutral and resourceful and has changed/adjusted my view on TV/video educational materials, be they DWE, English Time, Sesame Street or whatever.
In the second material (2), it gives you some statistics in the USA on the relationship between watching TV and the educational performance of young childs.
Information 3) provides you more on the effect of tv on pre-schoolers.
There are lots of articles and resources on the internet about this topic. you can search by typing "limit TV' etc in any internet search engine.
I tell you my experience.
I recently bought the English Time from the Smart-Kids Club when my daughter was around 11-month old. (I am not suggesting to any parents that English Time is better than DWE, or vice versa. I am not making a comparison here with any material too, so don't get me wrong. In fact I think both DWE and English Time are far too expensive than they are worth. If you have sufficient time I am sure you will find some cheaper and value for money products from various sources and suppliers just to get the similar results claimed to be able to offer by DWE and English Time).
Initially, knowing that TV viewing for a baby or toddler should be limited, I only let my baby watch 1 hour per day with the help of my domestic helper. I warned my maid of the potential harmful effect of TV/video viewing on the baby so that I asked her to play along and try to focus the baby's attention more on the spoken language, and less on the image viewing, by have my baby take part in the interactive actions provided by my maid in conjunction with her viewing the video.
After one week of viewing at 1 hour per day, she started to have bad sleep at night. I cannot tell whether it was due to the video viewing or not. As she is too young I cannot also tell if she has had any physical or emotional problem since viewing. But one thing I am sure - every time when she watched the video playing or TV, she stared at it steadfastly without moving her eyes or head. She just stared firmly at the TV almost throughout each viewing time. My maid tried to "interrupt" and provide some conversational or interactive scene such that my baby would not just stare at the TV but do it interactively, however the effort was in vain.
I've got a nephew, a son of my brother-in-law, who is 10-11 years old now. He watches TV or plays TV/computer games at least 4-5 hours a day after school. His literacy skills in Chinese, not to mention English, are poor and, I can say, horrible. I once asked him why he didn't like reading (Chinese) books. He told me that there had been too many words and he found it difficult to read. This is a common problem in both HK, USA and perhaps some other places in the world as well - too much tv.
What I do now with the English Time? I limit the viewing time to 16 minutes per day (8 in the morning and 8 in the afternoon) [the reason is that research has suggested that for child under age 2 there should be no tv at all so I try to limit TV for my baby to less than 1 hour per week] and each time before viewing, my maid will read to her the relevant books first. Sometimes she just played the sound without the image and did the actions herself to mimic those of the English Time with a view to enhance the active involvement of my baby. I try not to over-stimulate my baby and I am still carefully monitoring her daily routine and behaviour.
What I want to say is that your child will not learn good english just by passively viewing the video. The video itself cannot produce a truely interative english learning environment. Even though she plays the sound flash cards, this is not interactive learning too.
You may argue that your toddler is just doing fine and you have not seen any apparent adverse effect on him/her yet after watching DWE or English Time or Sesame Street, etc. But I still do invite you to read the above articles and make an informed and smart decision on your child's future.
Please also try to follow the suggestions made at the end of the first article (1) given above. Of course I am sure that every one of you already knows what is good for your baby.
Happy reading!!
CY
kittylock 寫道:
Hi cyfung,
Thanks for the sharing.
I have just read article (1) you recommended and it is really inspiring.
To my suprise, TV really does more harm than good, and even danger, towards infant/child development.
Simiar to the author of the article, my 2-year old boy loves watching TV so much. Every time I wanna turn it off, he cried and screamed for the TV to be turned on.
It seems ridiculous that most educational materials in the form of visual DVD/VCD claimed that they are able to develop a child to a genius, but in fact they ruin a child's senses, learning and language ability.
I am now most regret that I have allowed my kid to watch TV that much. From now on, think I need to stay him away from the TV set as far as possible.
發表於 
返回列表
