About the Book

This work began with my curiosity about teaching colors to my six-month-old son, but progressed into an even more meaningful venture when I began conducting secondary research. Empowerment comes from the intellect through education, confidence from having someone believe in you, and the soul from being loved. The mission of this handbook is to provide support and examples of all three.

This handbook will explain why a child's participation - or "action" - is critical in learning all information. It is the action, or partaking in learning that allows the brain to spring into action when called upon. The more information stored in the brain, the more actions, or options, the child can drawn upon in critical thinking. I offer color learning as an example of the power of early learning.

Why is it desirable to teach a child colors at an early age? After all, children eventually learn their colors. Early learning, as this handbook will show, sets the stage for future brain development. Each piece of information that is learned builds on previous knowledge. This, coupled with the fact that brain pruning (the process that dissolves unproductive brain synapses), begins at about the first decade of life, suggests that the earlier learning occurs the better.

Think of it as road construction. Will the children you care about have a brain made up of small-town byways, or a massive infrastructure of roads and railways to draw upon?

I hope that this handbook will serve you as more than just a teaching technique for colors. As a member of the Human Emotions Learning Laboratory at George Mason University I came to realize the amount of ground-breaking research done in this country alone that the general public is not exposed to since these works are published in professional journals. Thus, my passion for secondary research was born and I encourage you to read the works of those I've cited.

This is the first in a series of four handbooks focusing on infant and toddler brain development. The other three will use shapes, numbers and letters respectively to explore more ways of fun learning to reach maximum cognitive potential, and each will explore new brain research.