HOTHOUSING OR NOT

1
HOTHOUSINGOR NOT?

• Hothousing Precocious Readers?
• Valerie Margrain
• EC Research Symposium Dec 2006

2
Initial Thoughts

• Hothousing
• Gifted
• Precocious

3
Session Overview

• Definition of Hothousing
• Problems with Hothousing
• Gifted Education Perspectives
• Precocious Readers
• Returning to a Definition of Hothousing
• Practice Implications

4
What is Hothousing?

• Hothousing, according to Sigel (1987), involves
  overt pressure and stress on young children to
  achieve at atypical levels.

5
Whats Wrong with Hothousing?

• Children may become socially isolated or
  segregated
• Loss of childhood as a playful period
• Authoritarian teaching
• Decrease in the quality of thinking and curiosity
• Negative affect on childrens self-development
  and socialisation skills.
• Elkind (1987) describes pressure, or hurrying of
  children, as abusive.

6
Like Hothouse Plants?
Segregated like hothouse plants, like
houseplants that cannot be put into the world
(Quart, 2006, p. 18).
7
Gifted Education Perspective

• Gifted children are naturally able to achieve
  beyond level of age peers
• Intelligence cannot be engineered
• Enrichment and opportunity is not the same as
  pressure and expectation
• Parents may be responding to giftedness rather
  than inducing achievement

8
Insatiable Learners

• Many children who are gifted intellectually or
  with talent demand stimulation from their parents
  at an early age they gobble up information and
  are insatiable in their quest for knowledge about
  the world or for opportunities to exercise their
  talent (Elkind, 1987, p. 16).

9
Precocious Readers

• Stainthorp and Hughes (2004) define precocious
  readers as children who are able to read
  fluently and with understanding at an unusually
  young age before attending school and without
  having received any direct instruction in
  reading.

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Origins of Precocious Reading

• Children created the conditions for their own
  success children insisted on reading activities,
  not the parents.
• Precocious readers drove their parents and
  teachers to keep up with them parents did not
  teach.
• Induced or implicit understandings are gained as
  a result of earlier book experiences.
• Spontaneous learning.
• Although formally taught early readers tend to
  even out by the age of 8 years, naturally
  occurring precocious readers maintain their
  advantage.

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Overview of Research Project 2000-2005

• 11 children aged 401-410
• 10 ECE centres Montessori, kindergarten,
  private preschools
• 4 schools
• Recruitment flyers, personal approach

• Standardised reading tests (Burt, Neale)
• CPM, BPVS
• Rating Scales
• Interviews
• Observation

12
Henrys reading (409)

• Among animals the fox has no rivval (rival) for
  cunning. Aspychus (suspicious) of man, who is
  its only natural enemy, it will, when purshowed
  (pursued), perform extraordinary feats, even
  alighting on the backs of sheep to divert its
  scent. Parent foxes share the responsibilities
  of cub-rearing. Through their hunting
  expeditions they acquire an uncanny knowledge of
  their surroundings which they use (Repeated
  which they use) in an emergency. This is well
  illustrated by the story of a hunted fox which
  led its pusers (pursuers) to a negited
  (neglected) mine-shaft enclosed by a circular
  hedge. It appeared to surmount the barrier. The
  hounds followed headlong, only to fall into the
  indirectly (accumulated) water below. The fox,
  however, apparently on familar (familiar)
  territory, had skirted the hedge and subsequently
  escaped. (H Neale Analysis of Reading)

13
Burt Word Reading Test

• Overwhelmed, fringe, trudging, journey, explorer,
  tongue, encyclopaedia, urge, luncheon, shelves,
  binocular, economy, terror, universal, destiny,
  events, emergency,

14
Neale Analysis of Reading
15
Self-motivated

• He enjoys it a heck of a lot. There is no way
  hed do this much if he didnt enjoy it. Its
  just something he does. (A Parent interview, p.
  10).
• He devoured books. (M Fieldnotes, p. 4)
• Czikszentmihalyi

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Self-Teaching

• He has a way of analysing what the problem is
  He has the ability to think a problem through and
  think of a way to fix it A very quick learner.
  (D Parent interview, p. 3)
• He sits and looks a long time first, then gets it
  right when he tries. Hes pretty successful I
  dont see that he gets it wrong. (A Parent
  interview, p. 2)
• She taught herself, thats the amazing thing. (G
  Parent interview, p. 6)
• Reading she sussed that one out. (E Parent
  interview, p. 5)
• Mostly hes a self-starter we try to keep up
  with him. (H Parent interview, p. 7)

17
A Laboratory in My Head
18
Spontaneous Learning

• A little concerned at the fuss everyone was
  making over his reading it is just something
  that happened and no big deal . . . spontaneous.
  (A field notes, p. 1)
• Isla revealed she could read just before 3 years
  when she took a cereal packet out of the cupboard
  and began to perfectly read what was written on
  the side I couldnt believe my ears. The
  packet text included the word fantastic. (I
  Parent interview)

19
Spontaneous Learning

• It is just something that happened ...
  spontaneous.
• Ive not deliberately taught her.
• Isla hasnt been taught not consciously.
• At no time did I set out to teach her to read.
  From her earliest years I have followed her lead
  and interests.

20
Spontaneous Learning

• It may be compressed in my memory, but it seemed
  to go quickly from knowing names and knowing
  sounds to being able to attempt words all
  within a span of 3 months.
• Shes one of those kids that things happen so
  rapidly through the stages that you just about
  miss it.
• Shes galloping gobbling up her book like
  eating very fast. The teachers told me that he
  devoured books, for example reading all of their
  new library collection in a single morning.

21
The Sponge

• He learns from everywhere. Comes home with
  things from other kids houses, TV, books,
  phrases from the computer. The sponge analogy
  learns from everywhere. (A Parent interview,
  p. 10)
• He wanted encyclopaedias to read. He likes
  picturepaedia. He likes things with facts more
  than stories, like a sponge, wants to learn
  things. (O Parent interview, p. 8)
• It does not even seem like Matthew is learning.
  Yet he is constantly absorbing information and
  remembers them in context, and that is just
  amazing. (M Parent interview)

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Adultocentricism

• An adultocentric view of the childs behaviour
  is too exclusively concerned with what is
  being done by the dispensers of knowledge A
  child performing in the zone of proximal
  development with an adult believes himself to be
  accomplishing the task and that the adults
  organization of the task permits that illusion
  or fantasy (Litowitz, 1993, p. 190).
• Childrens learning may be affected by adults,
  but adults cannot claim responsibility for all of
  childrens learning.

23
Teaching

• We parents were told early on that the best way
  to help is to give wide experiences looked
  laterally. We havent done skiing trips but have
  involved them with daily life. Cooking is good
  with maths, reading, patterns, conclusions. We
  go to museums can be harassing, but they enjoy
  it. Love libraries. By encouragement and giving
  him time and the opportunity to do stuff We
  havent actually sat down and taught him stuff,
  except in a passive way but I spose reading is
  active. (A Parent interview, p. 5)

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Narratives

• Passion Islas Lion
• Teaching Erins mother
• Star Wars
• Assumptions They have Reader Rabbit
• Keeping it quiet
• Kindy swings

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Hothousing Conclusion

• Sigels (1987) definition of hothousing stresses
  the process of inducing infants to acquire
  knowledge that is typically acquired at a later
  developmental level
• Parents of precocious readers supported but did
  not overtly induce
• Precocious readers, as gifted at reading, were
  developmentally advanced as a result of their own
  abilities, not because of the intervention of
  adults.

26
Practice Implications

• In small groups, discuss practice implications
  and support needs for
• young gifted learners
• working with families
• teachers
• early childhood settings.

27
Acknowledgements

• Margrain, V. G. (2005). Precocious readers Case
  studies of spontaneous learning, self-regulation
  and social support in the early years.
  Unpublished PhD thesis Victoria University of
  Wellington.
• Margrain, V. (2007). Inside the Greenhouse
  Hothousing, Cultivating, Tending or Nurturing
  Precocious Readers? NZ Research in Early
  Childhood Education Journal, 10
• Acknowledgements
• Research Participants
• Victoria University of Wellington IECS
• The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand
• v.margrain_at_massey.ac.nz