Teach Your Smart Kid to Read

The 29 steps of teaching children to read!

The 6 stages of reading progress with indicators of reading readiness for each stage!

Over 90 activities/games to reinforce basic reading skills inculcated to children!

More than 50 illustrations to show you how!

They will guide you along the process of teaching children to read.

You will enjoy 29 STEPS TO TEACH YOUR SMART CHILD TO READ with its rich illustrations, as well as the memorable experience of teaching children to read step-by-step through activities, games and your everyday interactions with them. 

Make it a fun time to turn children into not only early but also proficient readers. 

29 Smart Steps to Teach Your Smart Kid to Read

This 117-page is based on how I taught my daughter to read some 30 years ago. 

Like all proud parents, I was and still am proud of the fact that I could teach her how to read when she just turned three (most children learn at the age of five). The TV and all electronic devices may not be as effective as YOU, the parent, to teach your child through everyday intellectual interactions, games, and activities. 

This book provides 29 steps that could begin as early as your baby is one-month-old. My daughter became a proficient reader when she was five (reading books with little or no illustrations). By seven, she would not let me teach her anything -- she could find everything from books. It paid off and it's worth all the initial efforts in teaching her to become an early reader. Now she's an attorney in the United States.  I wrote this book because she has recently become a mother herself, and that's why I wrote this book to share my experience some three decades ago.

You can do it, and the book will show you how!

Also, read my book" Make Your Smart Baby Super Smart.

Stephen Lau

A Balanced Acid-Alkaline Diet for a Healthy Pregnancy

Do adopt a balanced acid-alkaline diet throughout your pregnancy (why: a balanced acid-alkaline level increases your energy and vitality, neutralizes excess acids in your body, removes accumulated toxins in your blood, strengthens your immune system and organ systems, destroys harmful microorganisms, and balances the pH in your body).

  

Your body cells, as well as those of your baby, need an optimum environment for growth and replication: they need a balanced acid-and-alkaline environment. Acid and alkaline are substances that have opposing qualities. Your body functions at its best when the pH is optimum, which is slightly alkaline. The pH of your blood, tissues, and body fluids directly affect the state of your cellular health as well as that of your baby.

  

The pH scale ranges between one and fourteen. Seven is considered neutral. Anything below seven is considered acidic, while anything above seven is considered alkaline. Deviations above or below a 7.30 and 7.40 pH range can signal potentially serious and even dangerous health conditions.

  

Don’t let your body become too acidic (why not: when your body is too acidic, the tissues of your cells are forced to relinquish their alkaline reserves, depleting them of alkaline minerals, which are the components of the tissues themselves; the acute shortage of alkaline minerals will lead to disease and the malfunctioning of the immune system).

  

Acidification comes from excess intake of foods containing great amounts of acid, and insufficient elimination by the body through the kidneys (urination) and the skin (sweating). Not too much acid can actually stay in the bloodstream, and, accordingly, any excess is directed to other body organs and tissues, where it can accumulate.

  

Too much acidification can make you unhealthy, and even sick:

    

The corrosive nature of acid irritates your body organs, causing inflammation, which is often a source of body pain, pain, and hardening of tissues.

Acidic sweat may cause skin allergy, especially in areas where sweat seems to accumulate, such as the armpits.

Acidic urine may cause infection and inflammation in the urinary tract, resulting in bladder problems.

Acidification may cause lesions of the mucous membranes, for example, your respiratory system, making them vulnerable to infections.

Acidification decreases the activity of enzymes in the body, which are responsible for proper digestion of foods and assimilation of nutrients.

Loss of minerals may result in bone loss and brittle bones for the baby, as well as joint inflammation and hair loss for the mother.

Diet is the main contributor to excess acidification in the body. Your diet is the primary source that determines your acid-alkaline level in your body. All the foods you eat can be divided into three main groups:

Acidifying Foods

Acidifying foods are characterized by their high protein content, and/or fats, including the following:

Meat, poultry, fish and seafood

Eggs

Cheese

Vegetable oils

Whole grains

Beans, such as broad bean, chickpeas, peanuts, soybeans, and white beans

Bread, pasta, and cereals

Sweets and sugars, including brown sugar and honey

Sugary drinks and sodas

Alcohol, coffee, and tea

Your digestion of protein produces amino acids (containing acid minerals, such as phosphorus and sulfur) during digestion, and uric acids during acidic degradation.

  

You utilize fat in the form of fatty acids, and your digestion of saturated fat is often incomplete, resulting in toxic acid substances that contribute to acidification.

  

Your digestion of glucose may be adversely affected by inadequate or poor metabolism, turning originally alkaline elements into acidic ones.

  

Your consumption of too much sugar (the average person in the United States consumes approximately 90 pounds per year—which is much too much) strains your body’s metabolism in converting it into energy, and thus creating more acid in the process.

  

The bottom line: do consume less acidifying food. 

Acid Foods

  

Acid foods may be alkalizing if your body’s metabolism is efficient. In other words, if your body can easily metabolize and oxidize them, these foods can be transformed into alkaline elements, making your body more alkaline, instead of more acidic.

Acid foods contain a good deal of acid, and are acidic in taste, include the following:

Blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries

Grapefruit, lemons, oranges, and tangerines

Sweet fruits, such as watermelon

Unripe fruits

Acid vegetable, such as rhubarb, tomato, and watercress

Honey

Vinegar

Yogurt

Do eat the fruit, instead of drinking its juice (why: alkaline minerals are present in the pulp; the juice without the pulp is only more acidic). Cooking fruits does not remove their acidity.

    

Alkalizing Foods

Alkalizing foods contain little or no acid substances, and they do not produce acids when metabolized by your body. Alkalizing foods include the following:

Green vegetables

Colored vegetables (except tomato)

Chestnut

Potato

Avocado

Black olives

Bananas

Dried fruits

Almonds and Brazil nuts

Milk

Alkaline mineral waters

Cold-pressed oils

Potato, especially its juice, is good for stomach acidity and ulcers. It is often an ideal alternative to acidifying cereal grains.

  

Dried fruits are alkalizing (why: much of the acid is removed through the drying process). Do eat more dried fruits during pregnancy.

Sally Smart

A Healthy Pregnancy

Getting pregnant, especially for the first time, is usually an exciting experience. But it is also challenging to become pregnant with your first child and to confront the imminent parenthood. 

There are, however, many things a mother should learn to do during the nine months of pregnancy. In addition, there are also many things that her spouse has to do to help her cope with and overcome the challenge of pregnancy, including the physical, the mental, the emotional, and even the spiritual changes brought on by the pregnancy. A safe and healthy pregnancy plays a pivotal part in producing a healthy and smart baby.

The Dos and Don'ts During Pregnancy provides some good advice to help the parents, especially the first-time ones. This book is concise and comprehensive, very highly recommended.

Stephen Lau

How To Be A Wise Parent?

Are you a wise parent?

In spite of living in an age of information and technology, many of us may only be knowledgeable but not wise, although we may delude ourselves into thinking that we are wise.

Given that life is limited and knowledge is unlimited, using what is limited to seek out the unlimited is not only futile but also unwise. Yet many people seek knowledge in a futile attempt to attain and accumulate wisdom. But true wisdom is the application and interpretation of limited knowledge assimilated and internalized through a variety of life experiences in order to understand better the nature of things. This profound understanding is true wisdom.

Wisdom has much to do with the thinking mind, that is, how the mind thinks.

Your mind is your being, and your brain is the most important of all your body organs because it controls your thinking, and hence your whole being. How you think, what you choose, how you act or react, and what you do with all your life experiences—they ultimately become not only your memories but also your realities.

Descartes, the famous French philosopher, once said: “I think, therefore I am.” Indeed, your thoughts become what and who you “think” you are right now.

Therefore, it is your thinking that holds the key to unlocking true human wisdom. As mentioned previously, true wisdom is not the same as extensive knowledge: a wise person is not necessarily knowledgeable. Human wisdom is the capacity and capability of the human mind to intuit knowledge accumulated and life experiences encountered, and then apply that self-intuition to everyday living to live as if everything is a miracle.

Important as it is, thinking is not easy, just as Albert Einstein once said: “Thinking is difficult; that is why so few people do it.” To become a wise parent you must do your thinking, and do it often.

Understanding the Thinking Mind

Understand that thinking is a process of self-intuition through asking relevant questions to create self-awareness and self-introspection. It is the natural habit of the human mind to try to solve problems by asking questions. Through solving problems, the mind can then make things happen. Asking questions is self-empowering wisdom because it creates the intent to learn and to change.

Understand the importance of asking questions, and continue to ask meaningful and relevant questions through-out your life.

If you are a wise parent, you will also be  a better and happier  parent.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Weight Management Before Pregnancy

Weight management is critical to a healthy pregnancy. You should be within 15 pounds of your ideal weight before pregnancy, and that also applies to your partner (why: an overweight partner may have decreased testosterone leading to depressed libido).

Do birth control until you are read y for pregnancy. Hormonal contraception may take months for fertility to return to normal. Natural family planning is the way to go.

Do boost nutrients for a healthy pregnancy. Important nutrients include the following:

Calcium (why: avoiding back and leg pain, insomnia, and irritability)—eat figs and raw leeks.

Folic acid (why: avoiding structural defects)—eat chives. Chives are a nutrient-dense food low in calories but high in nutrients. Always use a sharp knife to cut chives (why: avoid bruising the herb), and add chives to any dish near the end of cooking (why: avoid losing its flavor).

Iron (why: healthy growth of baby)—eat chives.

Magnesium (why: cellular development; over-coming early pregnancy discomfort, such as constipation)—eat chives.

Manganese (why: baby’s normal skeletal development)—eat raw leeks.

Vitamin B6 (why: avoiding nausea and morning sickness; metabolizing proteins, carbohydrates, and fats)—eat raw leeks.

Vitamin C (why: proper absorption of iron)—eat fresh fruits and vegetables.

Vitamin K (why: healthy bone growth and proper blood-clot formation)—eat raw leeks.

All the above nutrients and vitamins are especially important not only for pre-pregnancy but also for the first trimester of pregnancy.

Do get sufficient sleep (why: research has shown that the more sleep you get,  the less time of labor may ensue; getting less than 5 hours of sleep may even increase the chance of having a C-section for delivery. Do set a schedule for your sleeping hours to help your body get on a set schedule of sleep. Do go to bed earlier.

Do take herbs to increase fertility (why: drink clover flower tea and nettle tea to increase female fertility).

Do avoid unpasteurized milk and blue-veined cheeses.

Do cook all your food thoroughly.

Do help your partner to enhance his fertility. According to a Danish study, overweight men have fewer sperms. According to State University of New York, placing laptop computers on laps may decrease sperms (why: due to accumulation of heat). Certain drugs on men’s hair loss, high blood pressure, and ulcers may also affect the quality of sperms. Do increase his intake of folic acid, vitamin C, and zinc to enhance the quality of sperms.althy

Have a healthy pregnancy!

Sally Smart

Preparing Your Infant to Read

If you want your child to become any early reader—as early as, say, three or four years old—you must prepare his or her reading readiness even when he or she is only one-month old. Education should start from the first days of an infant's life: that is, the time when you start shaping his or her life. You can begin teaching your child reading before he or she can read, just as you can teach your child talking before he or she can talk. Parents can always teach their children ahead of their development. Remember, you are not forcing your child to learn: you are merely providing him or her with the opportunity.

Developing Motor Abilities and Sensory Perceptions

The development of motor abilities, closely  integrated with  that of sensory perceptions of your child, provides the  basis for your child’s future reading readiness.

Motor abilities

Try to open and loosen the fist (the first month).

Gently, stroke and massage your child’s fists on both sides until he or she opens his or her fists. Without the loosening of your child’s fists, your child cannot learn the grasping reflex, which is vital to learning to hold a pen to write.

Create the grasping reflex (the first month).

Make your child open his or her fists and then place your finger into his or her hands such that your child will grasp it. Alternately, using your own hand, open and close your child’s fists until he or she learns and masters the grasping reflex.

Stimulate the deliberate and active grasping (the second month).

Place various bright objects within the movement range of your child’s hands. Do not place them directly into your child’s unclenched fists, but rather guide them so that the grasping becomes incidental.

Sensory perception

Develop visual perception (the third month).

Teach and train your child to follow moving objects with his or her eyes by increasing the speed of the moving objects and the range of their movement. Also, teach your child  to follow these objects from various positions.

Develop the coordination of hearing and sight (the third month).

Show your child  the  connection  between  what  he or she  sees  and hears simultaneously: your child must learn that when he or she hears a sound, the object that makes the sound is where the sound comes from. That may look relatively simple to parents, but not to infants.

Provide abundant auditory experience (the third month).

Supply your child with human voices, singing, music, sounds from toys, animal sounds, everyday sounds, such as running water from a tap, a doorbell ringing, and clapping hands, among others. Express delight in all the different sounds you hear.  The association of sounds with satisfying experiences prepares your child for his or her subsequent language and speech development.

Yes, you can start teaching and preparing your infant to read as he or she develops or grows up. Read my book to find out all the 29 steps to teach your child to read, beginning as early as in the infant stage.

Stephen Lau