I've mentioned HeadSprout before, because I think it works (for boys and girls), but I wanted to demonstrate a three year old learning how to blend. WITHOUT PAIN. The goal of this blog is the painless-for-the-parents part of the technique. Boys are hard enough to raise without having to be turned against your own kids by your teachers and society in general.
Anyways. Watch this video, then tell me that's not easier than sitting with them being frustrated because they're looking into space thinking about Minecraft.
People like to think that the major benefit of computer aided learning is that "Kids like being on computers more than they like teachers" but it's not. There's been some real science that's gone into teaching kids, and the phonics we learned is not the modern phonics teachings.
Above, you see he is learning "fl" and "ee" as phenomes. He does not know "e" as a single character yet. Just one example.
Boys have, in general because I like to make broad generalizations as a hobby, no desire to please or impress you. My friends with girls have the ability to act disappointed, and their daughters will be all sad and actually try to do better next time. This is so foreign to me I don't even know how it would work in practice.
There's two things I think work very well with boys: Headsprout and Comic books.
Headsprout is basically Rosetta Stone but for learning how to read. You just say "You get to play 10 minutes of a video game after you finish your Headsprout" and then you watch them to make sure they are following along and they'll pick up some basic skills. The real magic is after they've learned how to "blend" (combine letter sounds into a word, as opposed to "sight reading" a word). Then Headsprout pumps them all the way up through reading comprehension and gets them into about fifth grade reading level effortlessly.
Let me sell you on the 100 bucks with this comment: Headsprout has infinite patience and you don't. As long as you make the child do it every day, it works well.
The second trick that works well is comic books. Not the newer comic books, which are extremely adult in both topics and art. But the older ones that date from even before our generation. The originals. Because they share characters with the modern movies your kids are already aware of them and interested, and because they date from before it was OK to show kissing on TV they are all safe to buy your five year old.
They even make comics about all the Greek Gods, which are quite good: Zeus
Once they can read you get them Joss Whedon's X-Men books, which are amazing for both adults and kids and probably the best comic books ever created (he also created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, directed Avengers, etc.): Book 1 + Book 2
There's going to be a LOT on this blog about video games. Why? Because they're super important.
Most parents view the time their kids spend playing video games as a failure on their part. And honestly, if you don't follow my simple rule, you are right, but it's probably not worth beating yourself up about.
Here is my simple rule: I don't let my kids play games that I don't play myself.
There's a huge difference between the kinds of games that stimulate your kids and the kinds that are basically poison. South Park summed it up perfectly in that most mobile games (especially the free ones) have as their main goal to be just barely fun, so that you're forced into buying "coins" or "gems". Good examples of this horrible genre are all the running games.
I've played through basically this entire game and can't tell you why since every moment of it is the same. It reminds me of high school.
This is possibly the least entertaining game of all time. I always root for the monster, which makes for short games.
Even Minecraft has two modes: super boring mode ("Creative") and a mode that is basically too hard for children ("Survival"). If you've never PLAYED Minecraft yourself (which is weird) let me describe it for you briefly.
You start out with nothing but your hands, and have to punch down some trees to get wood, which you can make a crafting table with, and then a wooden pickaxe. Using your wooden pickaxe you can harvest rocks from the ground, which you can then use to make stone pickaxes and swords and such.
After deforesting the local area like an Aztec you can make torches and go deeper into the ground (all the while being hunted by skeletons and zombies and spiders) to collect iron, which is pretty rare so you'll spend hours digging to find it, while killing pigs and cows for food like the anti-vegan god you are, which you then have to cook using wood you cut from even more trees, if there are any left.
This is a SUPER hard game. It is FAR too frustrating for kids even in easy mode because the conceptual tree of actions is so open ended. Take an hour and try to play it yourself and see what I mean. Then uninstall it forever and move your kids to better games.
Here are some games that are pretty good for all ages and do not have, at their root, the core goal of getting your kids mindlessly addicted to them.
First of all: If you are reading this blog, you've probably not heard of "Steam". Steam is an online marketplace for video games that will install on your Windows, Mac, or a special box you can attach to your TV like a console. You are going to want to install it. Think of it as the "Whole Foods" of video games. Are you going to go shop at Publix for your kids' brain-food?
There are very few games worth playing on mobile devices. It is a sad fact of life. There are a few, but they are not going to be free, so you'll have to invest in the good ones.
The Cave
Hilarious puzzle game with great voice acting. For kids 7 and up.
This is the game that Minecraft is under the covers. But it is EASIER for kids to understand without the block mechanics. Also it is FUNNY. Basically this game is better than Minecraft in every way.
This game has cartoonish violence, fast paced play, and is for kids 5 and up. It will play even on older, underpowered machines, and is free.
The secret behind this game is that unlike some of the console shooters that it LOOKS like (CounterStrike, etc.) it is really a strategy and math game. This is the game I am addicted to, as the following for this game is vast.
There's a online mode (which my kids play as I don't care if they hear bad words or ruin my online reputation by actually being good), or you can have them play against bots. You don't need to read to play this game, but it helps.
Keep in mind after a while your kid will be connected to all his friends at school via Steam. With one click he can play with them online, which is a huge motivator to get his homework done on time.
This game is great fun for about age 6 and up. You have to be able to read to really enjoy this funny and involved RPC+Space Shooter from my childhood.
Old games are super great for kids. I personally learned how to spell from playing Zork, which is online here. Some of these games are hilarious, but some of them are also a bit hard for kids. You might have to help. But you don't have to beat the games to get value out of playing them (aka, free reading and typing exercise for your kids).
I always attempt to eat everything in Infocom games. I am an Infocom glutton.
GWOP
This game is famous for being...nearly impossible. But still super fun.
