Chapter 12 3.Children who are touched by the magic wand have strong learning ability

There is a "magic wand", which is indeed magical. Once a child is touched by it, he will become smarter and have more potential in learning and talents.What is this "magic wand" and who can be lucky enough to be hit by it, this must be what many people want to know-please forgive my mystification, I am not telling a fairy tale, I am making a realistic analogy, because I can't think of anything better than It's a more apt metaphor. Let me detour a little further and start with the true story of four children. I once had contact with the classmates of the fifth grade of a certain elementary school for a long time, and I am very familiar with the students in this class.There are four children in the class, and I can't help but divide them into two groups in my mind, and then put them together for comparison.

Let’s talk about the first two children, a girl named Xiaofei and a boy named Xiaozhuang. These two children study hard, have average test scores, are neither flamboyant nor introverted, and don’t cause trouble in class or after class. To make a mistake, in the class he belongs to the kind of person who is liked by the teacher and easily forgotten. The other group consisted of two boys, one named Bo and the other Cheng.Bo is an excellent student, with excellent homework, strong work ability, and particularly insightful. He is one of the few children I have seen who can hardly find any shortcomings; this little boy has obvious advantages and disadvantages , I don't always finish my homework well, my grades are average, but my eloquence is excellent, and I always act lazy, but it doesn't disturb discipline.

These four children caught my attention and contrasted from their compositions.I have read the composition of the first two children, Xiao Fei and Xiao Zhuang. Although the writing is not stretched, it is relatively neat, but the writing level is very poor, the content is poor, there are many grammatical errors, and there are many typos. There is a clear gap in good test scores.Each of their compositions was asked to be corrected by the teacher. They carefully revised and copied over and over again, but comparing the fourth draft with the first draft, they could only see the traces of changes, but no progress; A composition, the level remains the same.After looking through their other homework books, they can clearly feel the hard work of the two children and their inability to learn.

I can basically tell what's wrong with them. Talk to the two kids.The common question to ask them is: Do you often read extracurricular books?Xiaofei felt very uncomfortable when I asked this question, and told me that she wanted to read it very much, but her father didn't allow it. She was afraid that it would affect her study, so she locked up all the books she might read at home.Her family has a copy of "Reader" as a gift from a newspaper subscription. She likes this magazine very much, but every time it comes, her parents try to hide it from her.Xiao Zhuang said that he doesn't like to read extracurricular books, except for a few comic books, he has never read any other books.

I think it's a pity for these two children to go on like this. They are so obedient and willing to work hard. They should have performed better in their studies.So I asked their parents to talk to each other, the purpose is to hope that they pay attention to their children's extracurricular reading, and solve the problem of children's learning difficulties through extracurricular reading. Xiaofei's father said that the child keeps studying so hard every day, and his grades are kept at the upper-middle level. What if he is distracted by reading extracurricular books and falls to the middle-level?Xiao Zhuang’s mother thinks that asking Xiao Zhuang to read will increase the study burden for the child. Xiao Zhuang takes six extra-curricular classes and one musical instrument class a week, and never rests from Monday to Sunday. It takes two and a half hours to go back and forth every day, and Xiao Zhuang can only sleep 6 hours a day.So his mother said that he must not be burdened any more.

I told them that these two children are now in elementary school, and it doesn't matter how high or low their test scores are. Their current problem is that their learning ability is not strong. This is the real big problem, which will seriously affect the future. study.Only by not taking so many extracurricular classes, not insisting on test scores, and allowing them to have a lot of extracurricular reading, can the child fundamentally reduce the burden of study, improve his learning ability, and achieve real good grades in the future. I tried to explain the problem clearly, and they all agreed with my suggestion at that time.But then I got to know the kids again and nothing changed.Xiaofei's father thought that it was because the family subscribed to newspapers that attracted "Readers", which made the children feel uneasy about studying, so they changed the gift of newspaper subscriptions to milk.Xiao Zhuang himself has no desire to study, and his mother does not intend to let him have this desire. He just plans to enroll the child in a taekwondo class. The reason is that the child has less learning activities all day long. This class can not only exercise but also learn self-defense. Killing two birds with one stone, I don't know where she finds this time for Xiao Zhuang.And I also learned that one of the extracurricular classes that Xiao Zhuang took was a composition class.

In contrast to Xiaofei and Xiaozhuang, Bo Hecheng's composition is very well written, and there is almost no typo or wrong sentence in the whole composition.Bo's handwriting is neat and elegant, and there are always unique perspectives and materials in his articles; although Cheng's handwriting is not good, there are outlines in his articles from time to time, which are not neat, and the level of his compositions is obviously different, and some of them can be read at a glance. The writing is not serious, and he is dealing with errands, but there are a few articles that he seems to have written seriously. After reading the messy scrolls carefully, one can feel the flying talent, which makes people feel admiration.

I also chatted with these two children individually, and learned that they both like reading extracurricular books very much.Bo’s family has a large collection of books, and he has read a lot, mainly Chinese and foreign classics, history, and nature, far exceeding the reading volume of his peers; Cheng’s parents are usually away from home for business, and he and his grandparents In life, his grandparents don’t have a computer at home, and the TV is basically off. He has nothing to do and can only buy a lot of books to read.Cheng reads a lot, animals, science fiction, detectives, martial arts, etc., read what you catch.

These two children not only wrote well in composition, but also handled all aspects with ease.Bo is a good student but not an elementary student. He likes football and spends a lot of time playing football. Although Cheng's grades are not very good, in the words of his class teacher, this kid is smart. He came here, as long as he studies hard for three days, he can be among the top three in the class. When I left the class, I gave my e-mail address to the kids, and I still keep in touch with a few students.They are now in the third grade of junior high school and are about to take the senior high school entrance examination.Bo never wrote me a letter, but his mother kept in touch with me. We have never met, and exchanged some children's education issues through the Internet.Bo is studying in a key city school. According to his mother, his studies are still very good. Based on his academic performance and football level, he has been recommended to a best middle school in the city for senior high school.Xiaofei has been in touch with me. Her junior high school is an ordinary middle school, and the teachers and other aspects are not very good.I heard from her that Xiao Zhuang and Cheng are also in this school. She and Xiao Zhuang can only maintain a moderate level of study now, and they will definitely not be able to get into a good high school; Several outstanding students were also rated as three good students.Xiaofei also said that she doesn't want to study more and more now, and finds it too difficult.

The development trend of several children in learning has roughly come to light. The parents of Xiaofei and Xiaozhuang must be disappointed with their children. They have done so much for their children, but their grades are not satisfactory. At this critical time, I don’t know what methods they will come up with to help their children. It is basically certain Yes, they will not let their children read extracurricular books - from this, it is basically predictable that not only will it be difficult for children to get good grades in the senior high school entrance examination, but they will not have much to learn in the next high school stage. Great improvement, and even in the future, their lifelong learning status will be mediocre and difficult.

As for Bohecheng, their learning ability has been steadily developed, and they will be more proactive and grasping in their future study and life. The story of the four children has been told here, and the problem I want to say is clear. What is the "magic wand" is extracurricular reading.It has a kind of magical power, which endows children with different energies in an unobtrusive way——a child who has a lot of extracurricular reading since childhood will have a better intellectual state and learning ability; Even in homework writing speed, generally speaking, they are much slower than those students who read a lot. Why does reading have such a big impact on children's intelligence and learning? Educator Suhomlinski has done a lot of research on teenagers' reading, and he has expounded a lot and clearly on the relationship between reading and learning ability. He said: "Thirty years of experience have convinced me that the intellectual development of students depends on good reading skills."From a psychological perspective, he analyzed, "Lack of reading ability will hinder and inhibit the plasticity of the extremely fine connective fibers of the brain, so that they cannot smoothly ensure the connection between neurons. Whoever is not good at reading is not good at reading." thinking.” He pointed out the disadvantages of lack of reading, “Why do some students who were smart, understanding, and inquisitive in their childhood become less intelligent, indifferent to knowledge, and inflexible in their adolescence? ? Because they can’t read!” In contrast, “Some students don’t put in as much homework, but they do well academically. The reason for this phenomenon is not entirely that these students have This is often because they have better reading skills. And good reading skills in turn promote the development of intellectual talent." "Those students who read nothing but textbooks, the knowledge they acquire in the classroom It’s superficial and shifts the entire burden onto the homework. Because of the homework load, they don’t have time to read science, and it’s a vicious cycle.” There have been many studies and confirmations in modern psychology.Combing the learning theories of psychology representatives such as Piaget, Bruner, Ausubel, etc., we can see two key points: one is that the development of thinking is closely related to the development of the language system, and the other is that learning new knowledge relies on existing knowledge. Some intellectual background. "Reading" is an activity that uses language symbols as a medium and contains rich content beyond real life. It will make the reader's "language system" develop better, and at the same time enrich his "intellectual background" , so that their thinking ability and ability to learn new knowledge are stronger. To make a vivid metaphor: the construction of learning ability is like building a house, the "language system" is equivalent to a tool, and the "intellectual background" is equivalent to an engineering background (intangible but intangible such as ground exploration level, engineering design level, worker technical level, construction management level, etc.) important content).With good tools and a sound engineering background, the whole process of building a house is relatively easy and the quality can be guaranteed; if the tools and background are poor, the construction quality can be imagined. In elementary school or even in the lower grades of junior high school, children can achieve good grades only by relying on intelligence, but if they do not have the bottom of reading, the higher the grade, the more powerless they will be.This is just as simple construction projects do not have high requirements for tools and background conditions, and the more ambitious and exquisite projects, the higher the requirements for tools and background conditions. I have seen several very distressed parents whose children were doing well and working hard academically, but the disturbing thing is that their children's academic performance has become less and less satisfactory.Whenever this happens, I always ask about the children's extracurricular reading from childhood to adulthood.Unsurprisingly, these children were largely lacking in extracurricular reading.In contrast, other children may not have outstanding grades when they were young, but because they have better extracurricular reading, they can catch up with the latecomers. When they really want to learn, their potential is unstoppable. In elementary school, or even junior high school, there is no real academic backwardness, and there is no absolute excellence in grades. Everything is reversible.The magical power to turn the situation around is extracurricular reading.It really is like a magic wand, showing more and more magical effects. It is easy for people to see the appearance of children's changes: some children are more and more interested in learning, and their grades are getting better and better, and they feel that their children have grown up and are sensible, and they are very pleased; other children are less and less fond of learning, and their grades are getting worse , I feel that children are becoming more and more ignorant and unconscious.There is a very important technical reason behind this appearance that people rarely see, and that is extracurricular reading. The truth is, every child is getting better and better.The difference is that a child who reads a lot has a strong learning ability. When he consciously takes the initiative to learn, his rich language and intellectual background will come to help. His better learning ability will give him a sense of accomplishment as long as he works hard. This sense of accomplishment can prompt him to learn more actively; and for children who read less, their pale language and intellectual background make them weak in learning ability. In front of him, he feels more powerless, the more he feels frustrated, the less confident he is, and the less interested he is in learning.People cannot rely on perseverance and rationality for a long time. They quickly showed a decline and began to evade learning intentionally or unintentionally. This may be what parents feel. ". In order to make their children smart and learn well, parents are doing their best, and they have been busy eating this and supplementing that since pregnancy.Nutrition is certainly useful for children's brain development, but no matter how much good food is eaten, it is only a means of addition.Except for very few supernormal children, all the children who are healthy and normal after birth, the difference in their final intelligence is not in the physical means or physiological factors, but in the enlightenment education.The most important means of intellectual enlightenment is reading, which is a means of multiplication, which can increase children's intelligence geometrically. Some teachers and parents don’t pay attention to children’s extracurricular reading because they are always worried. Children are already busy enough to complete school courses, and the most important thing is to get good grades in exams. Reading extracurricular books is a waste of time and affects learning, which is not cost-effective.This kind of statement is equivalent to saying that I am in a hurry from Harbin to Guangzhou for a meeting. I have no time to wait for the plane in four hours, and the train will leave soon. up. A handful of the same seeds are sprinkled on the ground, some get the right water and sufficient sunshine, some are dry and not exposed to the sun, of course there will be a big difference in the end.Reading is the water and sunshine of wisdom. I guess there will be a kind of doubt that will be raised. Is it true that people who read a lot must be good at studying, and those who do not read must be bad?of course not.When we think about a problem or express a phenomenon, we cannot make it absolute. If all "laws" in cultural or social categories need to be confirmed with 100% accuracy like mathematical laws, then all social laws will not exist, and all dialogues will be impossible.The world is so complex, everything is inextricably linked with other things, so no phenomenon can be viewed in isolation.For example, the conclusion that "drinking tea can effectively prevent cancer" does not form a conflict with the phenomenon that "people who love tea can also get cancer", because there are many causes of cancer, and it is meaningless to use the latter to deny the former. I dare not say that children who love to read must be good at studying, but I can say with certainty that children who never read extracurricular books or rarely read extracurricular books will not study well; Compared with children who love to read extracurricular books, their learning differences must be very obvious. Among elementary and middle school students, there is a phenomenon called "partial subjects", which seems to challenge the relationship between reading and learning ability mentioned here.In particular, some boys prefer mathematics, physics and chemistry, are not interested in liberal arts subjects such as Chinese and English, and seldom read, but their scores in mathematics and science are always very good. I have met a parent of a junior high school student. She was even a little complacent that her child was good at math and physics, and especially disliked learning Chinese. She might think this meant that her child was smart.I think if her child just doesn't like the Chinese class itself, but has read a lot of extracurricular books, she can be proud, which shows that the child's potential is still great; but if the child has been lacking in reading, the boredom of the Chinese class is based on the constant Since the language ability is low, it is a more troublesome thing. I am afraid that there will always be a day when mathematics and science subjects will be dragged down. I know a math teacher from a key middle school in the city. He scored full marks in math but only 92 points in Chinese in the college entrance examination.He originally loved mathematics and determined to be a mathematician. He applied to the Department of Mathematics of Peking University, but his total score was not enough. In the end, he was only admitted to the Department of Mathematics of an ordinary normal university. He said that since I have been teaching in the past few years, I have deeply felt the importance of Chinese.Our school's top ten students in the college entrance examination every year rarely have partial subjects, and basically they are both good at arts and sciences.He said that he was not convinced that he was not admitted to the Department of Mathematics of Peking University. Now that he thinks about it, even if he was admitted, the lack of Chinese background will affect his professional learning, because his thinking breadth and breadth are always better than those of those who read a lot. Very limited. So, even if your child is a special math genius, you should pay attention to his reading.For example, let him read a few biographies of mathematicians, which may fulfill his mathematical genius better than asking him to solve two more problem sets. Of course, there are also those who are partial to Chinese. They are good in Chinese, beautiful in composition, but poor in mathematics, physics and chemistry.For example, young writer Han Han.Reading doesn't seem to do the trick to their test scores. This question should be understood in this way: There are many reasons why he does not like mathematics and science subjects, and teachers, family, talents, classmates, etc. may all be influencing factors.Reading, of course, cannot be powerful enough to solve all problems and remedy all deficiencies.But one thing is for sure, his poor math performance is definitely not caused by reading.Fortunately, such children like to read, whether they go to college or not, they are smart and can achieve corresponding achievements.In this way, reading is still a lucky thing for them. And those students who never read extracurricular books or rarely read extracurricular books, who are poor in mathematics and science, and relatively good in humanities, their situation is not called "partial subject". Not great.Who can see a person who barely read extracurricular books achieved excellent results in the literature and history examination?The situation of these children is very different from that of Han Han. Therefore, no matter from which point of view, reading is important.From this point of view, how easy it is to make a child smarter, let him read a lot!Books are like a magic wand, which will bring a kind of magical power to children in learning and make their wisdom advance.A child who loves to read is a child who is hit by a magic wand, how lucky he is! ● What is the "magic wand" is extracurricular reading.Children who have a lot of extracurricular reading since childhood will have better intelligence and learning ability; children who lack reading generally have mediocre learning ability; students are much slower. ●Students who read nothing but textbooks acquire superficial knowledge in class and shift the entire burden to homework.With homework overload, they have no time to read scientific books, thus creating a vicious circle. ●Children can achieve good grades in elementary school or even in the lower grades of junior high school simply by relying on their intelligence, but if they do not come to the bottom in reading, the higher the grade, the more powerless they will appear. ●Nutrition is definitely useful for children's brain development, but no matter how much good food you eat, it is only a means of addition.Except for very few supernormal children, all the children who are healthy and normal after birth, the difference in their final intelligence is not in the physical means or physiological factors, but in the enlightenment education.The most important means of intellectual enlightenment is reading, which is a means of multiplication, which can increase children's intelligence geometrically. ●Compared with a group of children who love to read extracurricular books and a group of children who do not like to read extracurricular books, their learning differences must be very obvious.

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