Your child's growing mind Book

Healy belongs to a school of thought that believes kids have to develop appropriate neural architecture before they can learn.

On the plus side, she recommends a relatively laid-back approach to parenting. She believes there's not much point in trying to drill kids on reading or math before they're ready, and she thinks (with supporting evidence) that a lot of the activities that kids think are fun--sorting things, squishing around in the mud, climbing trees, sitting on laps for story time, even hanging upside down--build the neural "hooks" that they need to later hang skills and facts on. Her vision of childhood is fairly idyllic--lots of quality time with parents and books and such, but more time playing outside and less time with flash cards.

She is a little more dogmatic than I entirely buy, though. She's very emphatic that teaching kids to read too early will use the wrong parts of the brain and impede later learning. And she's vehemently anti-screen. I fully buy milder versions, but I'm not sure I quite believe it all as strongly as she does. Am I being foolish? She is the expert. I have looked at other people's work, though, and I see more wiggle room than she will admit.

Overall, it's a solid book, with a lot of explanations of what's going on cognitively as well as a lot of practical advice.