Part two of this story takes place some 11 years after I had first met young Christoffer. It's 1997.

I was married for the second time. Natalya was two years old and my youngest Benjamin was just born. I had gotten friendly with a lady behind the counter of

my local bank.  One day she asked me if I'd like some books for the children. Hers were now in high school and these were for little children. I accepted the kind offer. Next time I went to the bank she had a lovely bag full of golden books and alike for me. I keep saying "she" because for the life of me I can't even remember this lovely ladies name. Oh by the way Carole there's a couple of books in the bag I thought you might be interest in, she said as I left the bank. Interest, oh yeh. One was called Teach your baby to Read. The other, Teach your baby Maths.

As I read the first the one about reading, I was amazed at what I read.  The first chapter was telling about these classrooms full of young, very young 2 and 3 year olds who were not only reading, but playing music and doing maths. The program had started in the late 50's from memory. What they had discovered was in doing research with brain injured children that after teaching them with this method that they with some only having half a brain, literally were showing signs of having a grater IQ than those with a full healthy brain. As I said this is only from memory as I can't put my hand on either of these books, now. I did have the Maths one floating around some 5 years ago. Anyway they had these learning centres all over the world. I remember reading on one of the inside covers that there was one in Melbourne and one in Sydney.    

I got to one part in the book where it discribed how a child driving past in a car with his parents passes a  paddock with over hundred animals (can't even rember what sort now)  could automatically say the amount of animals in there. The child doesn't count the animals he just looks and knows the amount. His brain is so fast it just knows, not by maths but by looking at just one glance. Because the brain is using that percentage that they say most of us never even open up. I can't explain it, but at that moment in reading that sentance, for me the penny dropped. I knew exactly how young Chris had learned to read and do maths. In fact I then knew why he seemed to be such a genious.

Even then I still wondered about it. I decided that I could do this. You see the way that they had learned to read was by sight. Just being shown a card for just a few seconds and told the name of the word. The cards were large and the writing was red. You were to show the child the the cards three times a day. You were to praise the child with cuddles after, making it fun and something they wanted to do. Learning the Maths was even more in depth. You used cards with big red dots on them. You didn't have them in patterned way. They were place on randomly. The cards needed to be from one dot to one hundred dots. I actually  have a set here that I made. Then you also needed a set of numbers (written as numerals) from 1 to 100.

Somewhere between getting these books and before I did start this method of teaching, I was talking with and old friend. This lady had children older than Daniel and Jessica. I was telling Anne about these books and what I was planning to do. It turned out that when her eldest was a baby  Kirsty, they lived in Melbourne) she had read and followed the same book about reading. She hadn't bothered about the Maths. Kirsty was reading by 2, amazing but true.

So now I was really enthusiastic about this. I still remember the day I decided to start. I told Vic I was going to teach the kids how to read and do maths. He looked at me like I was crazy. I sat Natalya down on the bedroom floor, she was four at the time. I held up a card with large red letters on it that read NATALYA. And I simply said Natalya and put it face down on the carpet. I picked up the next, which said MUM. And there was BEN and DAD. Then I praised her with cuddles and that was it. I did the same with Ben, who didn't really like to sit still for even 10 seconds.

Later that day I repeated the process and for a third time. I do recall by the end of the day she was already getting it. By the next week we had around ten words by the next twenty. It was amazing how quick she was picking it up. Ben did also know some of the words, but it was really hard to get him to sit. After a few weeks I gave up with Ben. Something I should never have done, was give up with him. Even though he was only two he was probably learning but not showing it. I think we'd only been doing it for three or four weeks when we made our very own book.

I used words familar to our family situation. Each day I gave Natalya a really large piece of paper to draw a picture on. First I asked her to draw a picture of Natalya. After she did the artwork I added the words. This is Natalya. This is Mum. This is Dad. This is Ben. This is Silvia the cat. This is our house. That was our first book to read. Then I found Dick and Dora Books from the op-shop. The local library had a fantastic series called DK learning first steps to reading. They were great, books about dinosaurs and all sorts. She loved them.

The reading was so easy to teach. So after oh only a couple of months if that  I decided it was time to do the maths. You start by doing I think it was one to five for a couple of days. You know to tell you the truth I'm not really sure of the exact amount, but you'll get the idea. Then you add a new card and drop the first. For example you add card number six. You would start with 2 and go to 6. Do this three times in the day and really quickly not forgetting the praise. Next day you would start with 3 and finish on 7. And so on. Then when you get to about card twenty (I think) you start doing addition sessions. So you'd do numbers. Then maybe a hour or so later you'd do addition the same. You'd hold up a card that the child already knows. Say it had ten dots on it. On the back you'd have a sum for your own benifit written. You hold up the ten dots to the child and simply say six add four equals, Ten. You don't explain what add or equal or anything means. You just make the statement showing the ten dots. It's quite quick the whole process should only take a minute or so. So by now your doing three sessions of the numbers and three of addition. And way before you get to the number 100 or maybe is only 99 you go to. By this stage your doing with the child Addition, subtraction, division. And I have to say with Natalya I never had to asked her twice if she wanted to do it. In fact I remember her coming to me and saying very excitedly can we do maths.

It was going along nicely but here's where the story changes. I started to wonder about the consequences of what I was doing after these two incidiences happened. When I find my dairy of these events I will publish what I wrote word for word. But for now it's back to my sometimes forgetful memory. The first strange event happened when I had introduced a new number for the day. I think the number was eleven or twelve. Anyway I held it up for the first time and said to my eager 4 year old in an enthusiastic voice "this is eleven ". Her reaction was amazing it was like she did a double take at the card. And said, in a defiant voice NO it's not. I said yes this is eleven. Again she said No it's not. And added it's Ten. I turned the card over and counted the dots. To my amazement there was only ten on the card. One dot had fallen off, I guess. I mean I had carefully counted and checked and written on the back of all of the cards, hadn't I ? I must admit I had a fleeting thought had she pulled it off. But then how would she know which one it was. So I carried on with the learning not really sure what had happened. Until a shot time later, that is. We were up to the new number of the day, twenty somethink. And she did a double take and informed me no that I was wrong. This time I did not argue the point, I turned them over and counted sure enough I was saying one more than the amount of dots actually on there. By now I began to question just what was I doing. What really happened to Christoffer? Did he have a normal life? Was he happy? What happened to the other children that learned this way. I didn't have the answers, so I stopped the maths. I kept going with the reading for just a little while longer. But once she knew hundred or so words I didn't really need to teach her. She could read and she loved to read. When in grade one she did the MS read- a- thon I remember she read over 80 books in that time frame.

The main reason I think these children learned so well and easy was firstly that the brain of a young child is just this sponge that soaks up information so easily. The other with the maths is just that they use this amazing computor, we call a brain without having to conform to man made rules. They use parts of the brain that we as adults never open up let alone use. Of course this is just my oppinion. But I know what I saw with Chris was just amazing something if someone had told me about I probably wouldn't have believed.

The ironic part of this story is knowing what the results could have been, is that I should have perservered and taught Ben. He has learning difficulties and I believe has mild Autism (not diognsed) , he does NOT have a normal IQ. Could this all have been different had I continued with him? By the way I did not know he would have those difficulties back then as he was only a two year old with a speach problem or so we thought.  Gee hindsight is such a wonderful thing.....        

Yes I did say I had a dairy of the process. And in sorting out the craft room recently I did come across and read it. So when I come acroos it I will be sure to publish those two hard to believe, BUT very true incidents, that made me question, Am I doing the right thing.